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Canberra boffins take out four of the 15 Eureka Prizes.

wheat

ACT scientists had reason to celebrate this week, taking out four of the 15 prizes awarded for outstanding Australian science.

The Australian Museum Eureka Prizes are the country’s most comprehensive national science awards. The Eureka Prizes have been rewarding science since 1990—celebrating 25 years in 2014.

The Canberra based winners were:

Through the Looking Glass

Two ACT photographers placed first and second in the New Scientist Eureka Prize for Science Photography.

CSIRO scientist Mark Talbot has been awarded first place for his image Wheat through the looking glass captures the birth of a seed using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), combining images from two different modes of the SEM, artificially coloured to highlight cell outlines (blue) and nuclei (orange). This unique method used to create these images unexpectedly revealed details normally invisible using SEM technology.

Taking out second place was Charles Tambiah from the Australian National University, with his photograph Unravelling a basket star. Charles composed a striking image of a basket star by combining fibre-optics and imaging software to ‘paint’ hidden spaces.

All ten images are available for publication, and are online.

The science behind why trees look green

Sixth-grader Ella Cuthbert from Majura Primary (ACT) came second in the University of Sydney Sleek Geeks Science Eureka Prize – Primary.

Ella’s video entry What colour is a tree in the dark? is an enlightening exploration of what makes trees look green and apples look red.

Sponsored by the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Science, the Sleek Geeks Science Eureka Prize, named in honour of Dr Karl Kruszelnicki and Adam Spencer, recognises short films that communicate a scientific concept in an accessible and engaging way.

More wheat without adding water

The Water Use Efficiency team from Canberra has discovered a few deceivingly simple changes in farming practice that can make staggering differences to water-yield efficiencies.

For their game-changing success developing more water-efficient grain-farming methods, the Water Use Efficiency Initiative team consisting of CSIRO’s John Kirkegaard and James Hunt, and Stuart Kearns of the Grains Research and Development Corporation, have been awarded the Department of Agriculture Landcare Eureka Prize for Sustainable Agriculture.

The gains are not just theoretical. On farms across Victoria, NSW and WA, grains farmers are seeing the light, sometimes after initial reluctance, and are adjusting time-honoured practices to switch to the new Water Use Efficiency principles.

Turning smartphones into science labs for $2

Steve Lee from the Australian National University and Tri Phan from the Garvan Institute in Sydney have invented a $2 microscope that is transforming smartphones into mobile laboratories.

For 400 years the traditional microscope has been bulky, expensive, inaccessible to most and near impossible to carry in the field. Steve Lee and Tri Phan have changed that. Their patented technology, creating optically superb lenses cheaply by simply curing a droplet of plastic as it hangs upside down, has won the ANSTO Eureka Prize for Innovative Use of Technology.

Inspired by the high-quality camera and powerful programming interface of the everyday smartphone, the team invented a lens that could be cheaply constructed and fitted to a smartphone, transforming it into a mobile laboratory.

For around one cent their lens can magnify up to 160x—high enough resolution to view structures smaller than human blood cells. Add a simple 3D-printed lens holder and LED light source, and you have a cheap, portable, digital, web-enabled microscope with access to a powerful programming interface, and potentially, custom apps.

The simple, $2 device can achieve higher magnification and better image quality than $1000 devices in clinical use, and has been benchmarked against a $20,000 device.

“By making microscopy inexpensive and accessible to the public the droplet lens will inspire a new generation of amateur scientists and adventurers to explore and discover the hidden microscopic world,” Australian Museum Director and CEO Kim McKay said. “Who knows what this could lead to next.”

[Photo: Wheat Through the Looking Glass, Dr Mark Talbot]

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