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Budget 2013: What’s in it for science? Peter Griffin May 16

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Budget 2013 saw a net increase of around $50 million in science and innovation funding, according to Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce who tweeted the factoid in response to Sciblogger Siouxsie Wiles.

Screen Shot 2013-05-10 at 1.22.58 PM$130 million of funding has been committed to boosting R&D efforts in companies and start-ups, $107m of which will come from the Government’s internationally focused growth package, with $23m re-prioritised from elsewhere in the science and innovation vote.

Detail about the new grants scheme that will account for the new funding is detailed here.

Additionally, changes to tax rules were announced that would allow loss-making start-up companies investing heavily in research and development to take advantage of tax breaks. Eligibility criteria for the scheme will be released next month ahead of public consultation.

Previously announced and reallocated

Elsewhere, previously announced Budget allocations, such as the National Science Challenges which receive $73.5 million in funding over the next four years, and funding for newly-formed Callaghan Innovation account for the bulk of changes on the positive side of the ledger within the science and innovation vote. The Marsden Fund receives an increase in funding ($46.8 million to $51.8 million),

“Realising the benefits of innovation” receives a $17.5 million allocation, and is described as “activities that build the level of, and returns from, science and technology-driven innovation through providing tailored brokerage and access to advice, technical services and facilities, and creating linkages, projects and collaborations between business and industry and Research Science and Technology providers”. Allocations for the KAREN advanced network ($4 million) and New Zealand access to the Australian Synchrotron $7.5 million) are also included.

Decreases in allocations include ”high value manufacturing”, which reduces from $187.5 million to $61.1 million year on year, Fellowships for Excellence ($13.4 million to $8.6 million) and Crown Research Institute core funding ($215.5 million to $201.6 million)

Vote Science and Innovation appropriation estimates for 2013-14 are outlined here

Departmental appropriations consisting of:

• just under $30 million for advice and support to shape the science and innovation system, including policy advice, public consultation and engagement on National Science Challenges, contract management and strategic leadership in the Science and Innovation sector.

Non-departmental appropriations consisting of:

• under $202 million for Crown Research Institutes (CRI’s) to provide greater financial certainty to deliver outcomes for the benefit of New Zealand and to assist the CRI’s to contribute to the outcomes in their statement of core purpose

• just over $303 million for research and research applications in the areas of high value manufacturing and services, biological industries, health and society, environmental, hazards and infrastructure and energy and minerals

• under $145 million for Research and Development Growth Grants multi-year appropriation (MYA), Targeted Business Research and Development Funding MYA, and Repayable Grants for Start-Ups

• just over $42 million for National Science Challenges to fund specific research projects in seeking answers to the most pressing issues of national significance facing New Zealand

• under $19 million for services by the Crown entity Callaghan Innovation for development and maintenance of strategic capabilities required to meet immediate and future needs of business and industry

• under $52 million for the Marsden Fund for excellent fundamental research

• under $9 million for fellowships and grants to support the development of future research leaders

• under $13 million for contract management services with regard to research, science and technology contract with organisations or individuals

• just under $9 million for engaging New Zealanders with science and technology

• just over $16 million for the advice, brokerage and networking services provided by Callaghan

Innovation

• over $6 million for Research Contract Management

• under $6 million for providing specified standards to meet the needs for traceable physical measurements in New Zealand, and

• under $7 million for the development of skilled people and organisations undertaking research that supports the four themes of Vision M?tauranga.

Non-departmental other expenses consisting of:

• under $38 million for grants to organisations in New Zealand and overseas which ensures infrastructures and projects that have system-wide benefits or are too large for any one institution to fund, but are of benefit to New Zealand, can take place, and

• a total of $135,000 for membership to the Convention du Metre.

Non-departmental capital expenditure consisting of:

• just under $32 million to support the establishment and development of an advanced technology institute as the Crown entity Callaghan Innovation.

Departmental capital expenditure: please note that as a result of the formation of Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment all departmental capital expenditure is now under Vote Economic Development.

Lessons from the courtroom for scientists Peter Griffin May 03

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What do jury members ultimately base their decisions on when the evidence is laid out in court?
Charlotte Shipman
Charlotte Shipman

That depends on how compellingly the evidence has been presented says Charlotte Shipman, a Wellington-based 3 News reporter who covered the murder of Scott Guy and the subsequent trial of accused Ewen Macdonald, who in July was found not guilty of Guy’s murder.

In court each day following the trial, Shipman says she saw meticulously gathered and presented forensic evidence from ESR scientists overwhelmed by the showmanship and compelling presentation of Macdonald’s lawyer, the late Greg King.
Forensic evidence in the trial centered on analysis of footprints found around the body of Guy, which were ascertained to have been made by a certain type of dive boot.
ESR presented 960 pages of forensic analysis and four hours of expert testimony in court.
“Defence counsel Greg King did one thing to undo all of that,” says Shipman, speaking as part of a panel discussion this week in Wellington organised by the Science Communicator’s Association.

“He just counted the number of ridges on the sample 9 boot that the Crown had. That had 29 ridges. These three partial impressions around the body had 32 or 32 ridges. The impressions could not have been made by this sample size 9 boot.”

“It was this ‘aha’ moment for the jury. You watch them in court for hours. It was like a penny dropped for them and they thought ‘I can understand this, I’m gonna go with this’.”

“I believe that the jury then disregarded that science, simply because Greg King’s method was easier to understand.”

Shipman said there are valuable lessons in that courtroom anecdote for scientists attempting to communicate to the public.

“If you have an analogy or something you can work with for the layperson, it makes a world of difference.”

Adversarial system

ESR forensic scientist Keith Bedford said the “adversarial system” used in our courtrooms meant the perception created by how evidence and testimony is presented, can have a bearing on case outcomes.

“In the theatre that is the criminal justice system, if you have a report of what the prosecution says on one day, it can sound like an open and shut case. If you have a presentation on what the defense is putting up on another day, it can sound like a potential miscarriage of justice.”

These perceptions were often carried over into the media, which he gave a “mixed scorecard” for its coverage of the science of crime.

“Particularly in the current environment when increasingly the media are looking for soundbites, that sort of tabloid style, quick headlines, its very difficult to effectively and fairly provide a balanced account of the processes of the criminal justice system.”

“Many people get their concept of the guilt or innocence of somebody just from the TV news headlines.”

Shipman said the format of primetime TV news meant the need for decent science communication was even greater.

“What is the alternative when you have a news bulletin that is an hour long and has 25 stories in it?”

Full audio from the SCANZ panel discussion on the science of crime and how it is communicated is available here.

National Science Challenges – Govt unveils the areas of focus Peter Griffin May 01

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The Government has announced the National Science Challenges – 10 areas of focus over the next four years – $73.5 million in new funding to address them ($133.5 million in total to be spent on research addressing them).

The areas of focus are:

1. Aging well
2. A better start
3. Healthier lives
4. High value nutrition
5. New Zealand’s biological heritage
6. Our land and water
7. Life in a changing ocean
8. The Deep South
9. Science for technological innovation
10. Resilience to nature’s challenges

So what do you think? Has the Government, after consulting the science sector and the public, got the mix right?

Monckton’s nightmare week in New Zealand Peter Griffin Apr 08

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A week into his self-described “barnstorming” tour of New Zealand, arch-sceptic Christopher Monckton seems to be quietly licking his wounds after a string of farcical public and media appearances.

The armchair climate change expert has in the past managed to stimulate discussion of climate science on his tours of New Zealand and Australia, even if he has been criticized for manipulating and cherry-picking the science to suit his narrative on climate.

However, after his roasting in the media, his train wreck of a public discussion in Auckland and a falling out with one of his imagined allies, Monckton’s arguments against acting on climate change have received scant attention, overshadowed by his erratic behaviour.

The Weekend Herald lavished the full back page interview on Monckton last Saturday and in the process featured perhaps the best insight yet into the mind of Lord Monckton who abruptly ended the interview. Writes the Weekend Herald’s Michele Hewitson:

“It is very difficult to walk out on an interview when the only place you have to walk out of is the living room in the house where you are staying and into the kitchen where the person you are walking out on has to follow you to get to the front door. We stood about for a bit while he studiously ignored me and while I waited for him to laugh because it was so farcical.

“But he didn’t. He wouldn’t even say goodbye, which was quite some feat because it might have been the first time he had ever stopped talking.”
Lord Monckton earns serious newspaper real estate... opposite Kim Jong-un. Appropriate or what?

Lord Monckton earns serious newspaper real estate… opposite Kim Jong-un. Appropriate or what?

This is by no means the first time Monckton has walked out of an interview, nor the first time he has done it in New Zealand. On his last visit, he lost his cool with Country 99 TV reporter Benedict Collins, marching out of the interview when his credentials to discuss complex climate science were questioned.

It is no wonder Monckton was feeling tetchy when he sat down with Michele Hewitson. Earlier in the week, the Herald revealed the contempt the scientific community has for Monckton, sparking an angry rebuttal rejecting the criticism as “hate speech”. But it got worse for Monckton as the week rolled on.

On Friday morning, Monckton appeared on TV3′s Firstline programme, where he claimed to be in New Zealand as a guest of Federated Farmers. Monckton was still fuming about his treatment by the Herald:

“They made assumptions which were not correct, and one of the universities concerned is going to have the father and mother of all complaints later today, once the lies have been investigated,” he told Firstline.

But untruths were the subject of a press release issued later in the day about Monckton’s TV3 appearance, with Federated Farmers moving to distance themselves from the visiting sceptic:

In an interview on 3News Firstline this morning, in which Lord Christopher Monckton said his tour was being organised and supported by Federated Farmers of New Zealand, but this is incorrect.

Federated Farmers of New Zealand has not invited Lord Monckton to tour. Nor is Federated Farmers of New Zealand sponsoring or organising his tour either directly or indirectly.

Federated Farmers of New Zealand is aware our Marlborough province may be supporting the tour in some capacity and that some farmers may be involved, but the national body is not.

The Federated Farmers rebuke would have been gnawing at Monckton as he took to the stage at a University of Auckland public lecture to enthusiastic applause – from the Flat Earth Society for Climate Realists:

He didn’t seem to like us cheering and applauding his every joke and saw it as a reason to call security, but we managed to persuade security that we were FRIENDS, not foes!

He seemed a bit cross with everyone in the end, which was confusing as we are all about cooperation and collaboration.

Then came this morning’s account in the Northern Advocate of a meeting Monckton spoke at in the Whangarei library. Reporter Lindy Laird admitted she found it hard to take Monckton seriously:

It’s because he reminds me of Spike Milligan. Maybe it’s the eyes, the self-deprecating Englishness, or a delivery that turns a serious subject into the bizarre. I tell myself to get serious, be professional, I’m on a job.

This is not The Goon Show, and although the grass outside is frying in the blazing April sun and people mutter “driest in 70 years” no one looks likely to burst into ludicrous song at any moment. “Ning Nang Nong…”

At least Monckton may be able to drown out his detractors when he comes to Wellington. He is holding his public lecture there in the Bose audio store.

You wonder at this stage whether Monckton wouldn’t be better served just bypassing the despicable mainstream media and accepting an interview with The Civilian. At the very least he’ll share their penchant for bowler hats…

Screen Shot 2013-04-08 at 5.34.29 PM

 

RIP Sciblogger John Nixon Peter Griffin Apr 02

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We received some sad news here at Sciblogs today – contributor John Nixon, an optical engineer and author of the Light My Fibre blog passed away on March 19, aged 71.

John Nixon (right) dining with telecommunications analyst Paul Budde.

John Nixon (right) dining with telecommunications analyst Paul Budde.

John’s daughter Dominique Annonier wrote from her home in New Caledonia:

I’m very sad to announce that my Dad John Nixon passed away on Tuesday March 19th in Australia.

We buried him on the Gold Coast as per his wishes.

My apologies to people whom I was unable to contact sooner.

I first met John when I was a telecommunications reporter for the New Zealand Herald and regularly drew on his considerable knowledge of broadband networks and fibre optics. As a network engineer, John worked all over New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific islands advising on the design and construction of optical networks.

John was excited about the potential of fibre to revolutionise business and consumer life in New Zealand.

He came onboard Sciblogs in 2010, filing updates from his travels and keeping tabs on the build-out of fibre optic networks on both sides of the Tasman. It is particularly sad that John didn’t live to see these networks completed.

We knew John had been ill with cancer, but his death came out of the blue all the same. We will miss him and the Sciblogs team send our condolences to his family and friends.

Peter Griffin

Sciblogs editor

The most influential scientists of 2012? Peter Griffin Mar 21

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Who produced the most significant science in 2012 worldwide?

Any top-10 list would be hotly contested – and the one below will be no different. It was put together as one of those pleasant-looking infographics designed to lure you to one of those dubious advertising websites – in this case “Best College Reviews”.

So don’t bother clicking at the link at the bottom, you’ll just find yourself in spam hell. But the infographic itself is well put together and touches on some of the big science-related events of 2012. But are these the most influential scientists of 2012? An interesting question to consider…

The Most Influential Scientists of 2012
Source: Best College Reviews

Can Obama turn rhetoric into action on climate change? Peter Griffin Jan 22

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I just stood in the cold on the National Mall in Washington D.C. along with 600,000 people to listen to Barack Obama’s inauguration speech.

The National Mall in all its glory photo: Peter Griffin

Factions of the media have analyzed it as a very “progressive” or “liberal” speech. I didn’t take that away from it. For me it was a very American speech. It was full of references to Dr Martin Luther King, the founding fathers, 1776, the Constitution, the military, the greatness of America. It was clearly a fairly liberal crowd surrounding me, but Obama was tugging the heart strings of all Americans with his words.

It also, refreshingly, paid tribute to science and technology and urged America to harness both to reclaim the country’s position as a leader in innovation.

We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries. We must claim its promise. That’s how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure, our forests and waterways, our crop lands and snow capped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.

There’s a dark hint in that first sentence that the US feels its technological lead has been wrested from it by illegitimate means. Its attempts to tighten up intellectual property law, its distrust of Chinese technology giants like Huawei, are testament to that partly justified paranoia.

But before it came something more fundamental and universal on an issue that got hardly any play during the election campaign.

 We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.

The cheer that went up around me almost drowned out the following:

Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But American cannot resist this transition. We must lead it.

The overwhelming judgement of science.

I haven’t listened to many inauguration speeches but I doubt such a strong statement about science has ever been made by a President on such an occasion.

Now the reality bites. As the fiscal cliff negotiations illustrated, US politics is more partisan than it has been in a long time. The economy is not growing, America is spending beyond its means. Many will be asking what Obama is going to do in the next four years about these immediate problems. Climate change mitigation doesn’t enter those discussions, it is considered a cost, a nice to have, something we can do when they lower the deficit, return the economy to a path of growth, return the US to a position of hegemony in the world.

Obama’s challenge, and if he can rise to it, he deserves another Nobel, is to change the thinking so that the issue of tackling climate change is central to all of the above. He is jubilant at this moment, he has avoided becoming a one-term president, his place in history is secure. But the real judgement of him will be measured by what he does in the next four years, where he has a mandate to pursue the agenda he laid out in the election campaign.

With several precious moments of his inauguration speech devoted to science, technology and the effort to mitigate climate change, there’s a strong hint he will pursue the issues in this space that were left on the table in his first term.

Science, suicide and open access – RIP Aaron Swartz Peter Griffin Jan 18

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What a mess the US Government has got itself into over the Aaron Swartz affair. The heavy handedness that the US attorney’s office pursued the hacker, entrepreneur and Reddit co-founder has shades of the efforts to extradite Kim Dotcom to face copyright infringement, money laundering and racketeering charges in the US.

Aaron Swartz

But this is a different deal altogether given the outcome – Aaron Swartz, 26, who had previously suffered depression, committed suicide in New York a week ago. He was facing a federal indictment in Boston for wire fraud, millions of dollars worth of fines and a possible sentence of 35 years in jail. What did he do?

The indictment papers say Swartz broke into a wiring closet at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and gained access to the JSTOR database of academic articles, downloading millions of them which he allegedly planned to distribute for free on the internet.

Swartz was, to put it mildly, an open access advocate. In 2008 he wrote a bit of a manifesto, proclaiming:

“The world’s entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our own copies and share it with the world.

Many scientists would endorse his statements, even if they themselves wouldn’t go to the lengths he allegedly did to unlock the academic content for all to read freely.

The irony of Swartz’s death is that more official efforts are underway around the world to achieve the exact end he had in mind. Many US institutions and the UK Government have demanded that research funded by the tax payer be made open access, freely available for all to read via the internet. In a decade’s time, Swartz’s manifesto will be official, Government-mandated practice for academia in most countries.

Swartz, like Dotcom, was a disruptor. Also a hacker, he was part of the team that developed RSS – Really Simple Syndication, which is used by millions of websites, including Sciblogs, to effortlessly share and update information on the internet. He was 14 when he worked on RSS. With Reddit, his mantra of openness was again evident as the website set out to aggregate news sources from all over the world and rank them based on their popularity among the Reddit community.

There will be a lot of soul-searching over this case. Were the prosecutors too heavy-handed in pushing for Swartz to spend time in prison. Did they indeed have a “humanity deficit” in brushing asides concerns about his mental health? What role did MIT play in all of this? After all, JSTOR had declined to press charges against Swartz, so the momentum for an indictment came from elsewhere. Looking at it cynically, you could say that it was simply in line with the US Government’s desire to send a message to those who attempt to unlawfully take intellectual property.

The US has lost one of its great, young innovators. In all likelihood, the conviction would only have added to Swartz’s credibility and reputation, in the same way that Kim Dotcom’s early brushes with the law, helped build the mythos around him. but we can’t imagine what was going through his head as he faced the immense pressure of a federal indictment. All we can do is continue to discuss how we can make Swartz’s vision a reality, legally, ethically and for the benefit of those who pay for it – tax-paying members of society.

The biggest tech fest in the world Peter Griffin Jan 07

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I’m about to leave for Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, which sets the tone annually for the year in terms of what technology will hit the market.

The Vuzix M100

I’ll be posting updates throughout the week from CES here and at Listener Online, so keep an eye on the websites or follow my twitter feed (@petergnz) for new posts.

The pre-show buzz suggests it will be a good year for new technology. Here are some of the highlights I’m expecting…

4K TV goes mainstream

Just when we’ve got used to the idea of high-definition TV comes ultra HD, a new video format that delivers four times the resolution of existing high definition TV. That means spectacular picture quality and realism, but also requires you to upgrade your TV to handle all that extra information displayed on the screen. Ultra HD TVs have been developed so far mainly by Japanese and Chinese electronics makers but will go mainstream around the world this year.

I expect to see some large screen (60 inch and above) 4K TVs wowing CES attendees at the show this year. The TV industry is struggling with tight margins and strong competition, so needs a new technology to re-start the TV upgrade cycle. 4K could be the ticket if compelling content is made available in the format. This will take a few years to get going, but is a development anyone who appreciates screen quality will welcome.

Smarter TV

Smart TV features are built into most new TV sets these days, but uptake of these services has been sluggish. Apps on the TV are great – they let you surf the web, make a Skype call or watch Youtube videos – right on the main screen in the lounge. But they need a whole level of integration with broadcast TV to become really useful. At least three CES shows ago I saw this type of integration shown off, but rolling out such services across the broadcast network takes a lot of time. At CES, we’ll see a lot of action in this space from the likes of Samsung, which has a new smart TV interface ready to go.

Elsewhere, Google will be pushing Google TV, its smart TV system that’s yet to make it to New Zealand. New Google TV sets from Asus, Sony and LG will be on show.

Reality check

The gadget that had people in awe last year was the pair of augmented reality glasses unveiled by Google. Google Glass displays a screen in front of the wearer’s eye which can feed updates from the internet, email, maps and video. Built into the glasses is a GPS chip, so the glasses know where you are and what direction you are facing, and a phone can be operated by voice. It could be what the relatively clunky mobile phone morphs into in the coming years.

Google Glass isn’t ready for CES yet, but a nimble rival, Vuzix, has stolen a march on Google and will launch the M100 augmented reality glasses at the show. I’m eager to try them on. What they and Google Glass represent is an effort to allow a more naturalistic, effortless interaction with consumer electronics and I’m all for that.

Elesewhere, the likes of Nokia will present augmented reality features of mobile phones – such as the ability to point your phone at a store and see what sales are on offer. That will be the start of the augmented reality movement, which is likely to become massive as it opens up a wealth of opportunities in the tricky area of mobile advertising.

“Phablet” frenzy

Almost negating the trend towards more naturalistic interaction with your mobile is the move to larger devices that function as a phone and a tablet – a phablet, if you like.

Samsung kicked off the movement a couple of years ago with the ridiculous-looking, 5-inch, Samsung Galaxy Note. Guess What – it was a major success. The screen size of smart phones has been inching up – for around 3.5 inches to over four inches. CES will see that trend continue with new phones at the 6 inch format which starts to put them squarely in the iPad Mini space. The idea, I suppose, is that instead of shelling out upwards of $800 for a smart phone and as much again for a high-end tablet, you get two in the same device.

That makes sense, but what doesn’t in my book, is the ergonomics of holding a 6 inch slab of glass and silicon to your ear to take a call. Anyway, I will test drive a phablet and report back.

Apps galore

Here’s an interesting fact – in Christmas week 2012 an estimated 1.76 billion apps were downloaded from Apple’s App Store, Google Play and other similar online marketplaces. That’s a massive number and shows the popularity of small bundles of software that are easy to download and install and provide a much better experience than navigating on a mobile web browser.

We’ll see some cool apps launched at CES and I’ll wrap up the best of them here.

Where’s Steve?

One big difference at CES this year will be the lack of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer pacing the stage on opening night giving the traditional Microsoft opening keynote.

Microsoft has pulled out of CES, preferring to copy the Apple and Google model of launching products at its own stage-managed events. That may not change the tone of things too much – Windows is so dominant that there will be plenty of talk about Windows 8. But Microsoft may well be ruing the decision to choose this year to exit CES. Sales of Windows 8 have been disappointing and its own Surface tablet hasn’t set the tech world on fire yet. Microsoft has a new “pro” version of the Surface coming out at the end of the month, so it could have done with the bump a spectacular CES keynote could have delivered.

Doing the basics better

Often overlooked among the hype around new TVs and smartphones, ultrabooks and tablets, are the improvements  that make live easier for gadget lovers. Its the better battery life, the faster internet access, more secure web browsing.

I’ll be over the moon if I see battery technology at CES that brings the charge-once-a-week ethos of old Nokia handsets to the smart phone world. WiGig devices will feature at CES – the new wireless networking standard boosts transmission rates across wireless networks to 7 gigabits per second. It is those sorts of behind the scenes changes that makes the user experience all the better.

I’ll also be tracking how technology is shaping the future of the news media as part of a Fulbright-Harkness Fellowship that will see me travelling around the US over the next couple of months. Check out Futurenews.co.nz for updates.

The big scientific discoveries of 2012 Peter Griffin Dec 27

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As we close out a year of scientific discoveries, many of which attracted discussion here on Sciblogs, its worth looking at some of the big science-related stories that captured public attention in 2012.

My colleagues at the Australian Science Media Centre has done most of the work for me – issuing just before Christmas a top 10 of scientific discoveries of 2012. I’ve included it below – minus a couple I’ve swapped out with discoveries I think are more significant.

The science media has also been busy assembling its top 10 lists.

Here’s Wired magazine’s, Wikipedia has an extensive list, New Scientist chips in too.

And here’s the list put together by the AusSMC, with some changes included by me (numbers 4, 7, 9 and 10).

1. Physicists found signs of the Higgs boson

Higgs had it!

– CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research) announced in July that the long-sought-after Higgs boson is real following a series of experiments conducted in the Large Hadron Collider. The Higgs boson, first postulated by Peter Higgs in the 1960s and often referred to as the ‘God particle’, explains why mass exists, and is the final particle required to confirm the Standard Model of physics. “Australian researchers have played a significant role in this research,” said Dr Martin White, a Research Associate with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics at the Terascale and the University of Melbourne.

2. Curiosity landed on the red planet – NASA’s $US2.5bn rover Curiosity landed on Mars in August. After a 36-week voyage, the rover has started studying potentially habitable Martian environments. The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex (CDSCC), which CSIRO manages on NASA’s behalf, was the main tracking station for landing activities. See NASA media release.

3. Our genome was unravelled – Far from being junk, the vast majority of our DNA acts in at least one biochemical event in at least one cell type, according to the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) Project. Analysing the entire genome to map regions of function and modification has expanded our understanding of how our blueprint is modified, and has identified new leads for understanding the genetic basis of many common diseases. ENCODE was published in over thirty research papers in four journals, including Nature.

4. SpaceX successful mission to ISS – Not a discovery, but proof that the private sector can play an integral role in the future of space travel and exploration. The mission wasn’t flawless with an engine outage causing engineers some heart in mouth moments. But ultimately, the Dragon capsule docked successfully with the ISS paving the way for a deeper partnership between SpaceX and NASA.

5. A quantum leap: Aussie ‘spin doctors’ led the field in quantum computing – Australian engineers brought the futuristic world of quantum computers a step closer in September. UNSW-led researchers created the first working quantum bit (qubit), the basis of quantum computing, by controlling the electron ‘spin’ – or magnetic orientation – of a single atom in a silicon chip. The research was published in the prestigious journal Nature. Several other discoveries by this research team helped move the reality of quantum computers closer this year. They created the narrowest silicon conducting wire and the smallest transistor.

6. Our microbial companions were mapped – A consortium of scientists mapped for the first time the genomes of the microbial community that lives on or within the human body. Healthy humans host ten times as many microbial cells as human cells, including bacteria and viruses, and our minute companions play a critical role in human health and disease, say The Human Microbiome Project scientists. This research was published in Nature and PLoS ONE.

7. Scientists drill through to Lake Vostock – A Russian team of scientists drilled down 2.2 miles through Antarctic ice to reach the largest underground body of fresh water in Antarctica. The water there has been sealed away for as many as 20 millions years. Scientists testing samples of the water have found no signs of life, but further searches are underway.

8. The first embryonic stem cell study in humans was completed – In the first report of embryonic stem cells being used in humans for any purpose, US researchers reported that transplants for eye disease (macular degeneration) in two patients appeared safe and gave them some improvement in vision after four months. This was published in the The Lancet.

9. Scientists create synthetic DNA that can evolve – Scientists created a new molecule – dubbed XNA that is similar to DNA and RNA but slightly tweaked. The synthetic molecules carried genetic information but were also able to evolve. Scientists suggest the new molecules could be more useful than DNA and RNA in various applications of bioscience and could form the building blocks of new forms of life.

10. Jame’s Cameron’s record-breaking dive – Movie director and explorer James Cameron took his one-man submarine to a record 11 kilometres below the Pacific Ocean, reaching the floor of the Mariana Trench – the deepest point on the Earth’s surface. It was the first solo descent of its kind and during the short period Cameron was on the sea floor, several previously unknown life forms were observed.

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