New company Vaxxas Pty Ltd will enable Professor Mark Kendall from UQ’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology to continue his pioneering research and development of the Nanopatch.

The AUD$15 million investment is led by OneVentures, with co-investors Brandon Capital, the Medical Research Commercialisation Fund and US-based HealthCare Ventures.

The Nanopatch has thousands of small projections designed to deliver the vaccine to abundant immune cells in the skin, whereas the traditional syringe hits the muscle where these are sparse.

Early stage testing in animals has shown a Nanopatch-delivered flu vaccine is effective with only 1/150th of the dose compared to a syringe.

In addition to improving the efficiency of delivery, the Nanopatch has the potential to dramatically improve patient convenience and reduce the complications associated with needle phobia, needle-stick injuries and cross contamination, which are key global health issues.

The Nanopatch is designed for thermostability and to not need refrigeration, making transport much cheaper and easier, particularly to developing nations around the world.

Professor Kendall said in the developed world about 14 percent of a vaccine’s costs were in maintaining the cold chain – while in the developing world the impact was even greater.

Member of the Vaxxas Board of Directors Douglas E. Onsi said the Nanopatch had the potential to transform vaccine delivery for the pharmaceutical industry and for patients around the world.

By Erik de Wit

UQ linguists are playing their part to preserve Aboriginal languages

As the number of Aboriginal languages dwindles, UQ researchers are intensifying their studies to protect and document those that remain.

Research in Australian languages is a focus at UQ, with the University hosting one of the largest clusters of Aboriginal language academics in the country. The group includes researchers Dr Ilana Mushin, Dr Rob Pensalfini, Dr Myf Turpin, Dr Felicity Meakins and Dr Erich Round.

There were approximately 250 Indigenous languages before settlement and now only 20 remain. UQ linguists are involved in practical community-based research, which includes creating and releasing Aboriginal dictionaries, books and collaborating with schools.

“There is no doubt Aboriginal language continues to change,” Dr Meakins said.

“I’m hoping to document older language and test to see if younger people are speaking in the same way.”

Early next year, linguists from around Australia will meet at UQ to discuss current Aboriginal language research.

The 2012 Australian Languages Workshop will be hosted by the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies and will be held at the UQ Moreton Bay Research Station from March 9–11.

By Dania Lawrence

New research has shown an increasing number of Australians choose to live alone

One in four Australian households are single occupancy homes, and it’s predicted that in the coming decades millions more will choose to live alone.

It’s a lifestyle that’s often labelled as a lonely existence, but for some people it’s a preference.

This rise in living alone is the focus of a recent study – the first of its kind – which was conducted by Executive Dean of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences Professor David de Vaus. Living alone is an increasingly common living arrangement in developed economies and the increase of Australian households being occupied by just one person is a pattern that has been growing steadily in all western countries since World War II.

Based on interviews with 4300 Australian households, the study discovered more than 40 percent of people will spend a period in their adult lives living alone but most of these spells will be short – about 2.5 years.

“For many, solo living is a transitional period within a more complex life course. Solo living comes between periods in group households, follows relationship breakdown or after other family changes like leaving home or after children leave,” Professor de Vaus said.

“This style of living does not signal a rejection of family living, but does reflect changes in the way in which people arrange their family life course.

“Today we delay marriage, have fewer children and are more likely to end relationships. All these make for periods of living alone.”

The study also found people who typically chose to live alone were not abandoned to a life of isolation, and usually re-entered some form of family living.

“Those who live alone do so because they want to; they do so for relatively short periods and then re-engage in family households,” Professor de Vaus said.

“Living alone springs partly from the fact that people in advanced economies are simply wealthier and healthier and can afford to live alone. They are also healthy enough in old age to manage on their own.”

By Kristen Bastian

UQ research has shown men and women respond to the common cold differently

Researchers from the School of Medicine have made an important discovery about how the immune system reacts to rhinoviruses responsible for the common cold.

The team, led by Professor John Upham, found young women make a stronger immune response to rhinoviruses than young men. These differences disappear after menopause, so are probably regulated by sex hormones.

Professor Upham said the discovery was crucially important for finding new ways of combating rhinoviruses.

“While these viruses are just a nuisance in healthy people, they can make people with asthma or other chronic lung diseases very unwell,” he said.

“In our efforts to find new ways to prevent these infections, we need to take into account the effects of hormones, and how they affect the immune system.”

The researchers are studying how the immune system worked – or didn’t work – in people with asthma, in addition to tracing the effects of hormones on the immune system, with long-term plans for development of a vaccine.

By Jan King

UQ's Dr Emma Collier-Baker has travelled to Indonesia to better understand the comparative psychology of orangutans and children

A UQ researcher will spend part of the next three years working in Indonesia to better understand the comparative psychology of orangutans and children.

Dr Emma Collier-Baker from the School of Psychology arrived in Jakarta in September to commence a joint venture between UQ and Universitas Indonesia.

Dr Collier-Baker is a comparative psychologist who has been investigating the mental capacities of children, great apes and other species for the past 10 years.

She has experience conducting behavioural research with captive primates in various institutions in Australia and around the world, and last year returned from five months of field work funded by an Endeavour Research Fellowship observing wild orangutans in the rainforests of Sumatra.

Her goal in Indonesia is to develop a primate cognition and child development laboratory, conducting non-invasive behavioural research with orangutans and other primates, and with children in a pre-school centre at the university campus.

Dr Collier-Baker said a major aim of the project was to see Indonesian students and staff become involved in the growing study of comparative cognition.

“They are ideally placed to do so in a country which is home to many primate species, including Asia’s only great ape,” she said.

“I hope with more Indonesian researchers involved we will not only see new contributions to knowledge but to conservation, by raising the profile of endangered species like the orangutan.”

By Kristen Bastian

A UQ researcher has designed synthetic compounds that mimic the antioxidant properties of red wine and chocolate

Red wine and chocolate are part of the working week for UQ researcher Dr Aaron Micallef.

Dr Micallef, from the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, recently designed and prepared new compounds that mimic the activity of antioxidants found in the two popular products.

He hopes the compounds can promote the body’s natural antioxidant defences, neutralise damaging free radicals in the body and fight the onset of associated diseases such as heart disease and arthritis.

To mark National Science Week in August, Dr Micallef explained his research as part of a popular wine and chocolate tasting event at the Queensland Museum at South Bank.

Dr Micallef discussed antioxidants in wine and chocolate, their relationship to his AIBN research, and his role as an associate investigator for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Free Radical Chemistry and Biotechnology.

“I want people to realise that there are links between chemistry, chemical research, the foods we eat and our health,” Dr Micallef said.

“Free radicals are implicated in many processes in the body, such as inflammation, ageing and cancer. They can be very damaging, but we are conducting research into how we can use antioxidants to neutralise free radicals and prevent this damage.

“Eating foods rich in antioxidants can help mop up damaging free radicals in the body. It means we are taking the guilt out of pleasures such as red wine and chocolate.

“I have a soft spot for a good glass of red wine and dark chocolate myself, so the research is definitely very appealing.”

Reactive free radicals are believed to be the cause of the accumulated damage in cells that contributes to ageing and degenerative diseases. Antioxidants can protect against this damage, either neutralising the radicals directly or promoting the body’s natural antioxidant defences.

Dr Micallef said his synthetic compounds would have potential applications in fighting disease if they were found to mimic the protective properties of the antioxidants found in red wine and chocolate.

Called “Radical Wine and Chocolate”, the event featured guest speakers and tastings from Ballandean Estate and Sirromet Winery. Local chocolatiers from Bittersweet, Mayfield and Ballandean Estate were also in attendance.

By Erik de Wit

UQ researchers are leading a project aimed at eliminating dengue fever. Image Chris Stacey

In an effort to eliminate the global burden of dengue fever, an Australian-led international research team has completed a 12-week field trial in several Cairns suburbs.

“From January to March we released approximately 40 mosquitoes from every fourth house within the field trial areas of Yorkeys Knob and Gordonvale,” said Eliminate Dengue project leader Professor Scott O’Neill of the School of Biological Sciences.

“We should know soon if we are on the right track in our bid to stop the Aedes-aegypti mosquito from being able to transmit the dengue virus between people.”

The project is funded by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health as part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative.

It also receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council as well as the Queensland Government.

The field trial involved introducing strains of a naturally occurring bacterium called Wolbachia into the mosquito population, which through laboratory research has been shown to act like a vaccine for the mosquito.

Wolbachia mosquitoes have been bred in a purpose-built mosquito facility at James Cook University in Cairns.

In the lead up to January’s world-first release, the Eliminate Dengue team engaged in extensive community consultation to ensure local residents were fully aware of the project.

This resulted in large numbers of residents registering to allow the field team to release the mosquitoes from their back yards.

“Without the permission from residents to enter their yards, the field team would have to release the mosquitoes from the street which would not give us the best results,” Professor O’Neill said.

Prior to the release, the research team spent December visiting homes in the field trial areas and manually reducing existing natural mosquito numbers.

“If these initial trials are successful they will be followed by similar trials in Vietnam towards the end of 2011,” Professor O’Neill said.

“If those experiments are successful then we might expect to see full implementation and control of dengue in the Cairns region in a two to four year timeframe.”

A QBI study on mice could lead to a treatment for Huntington's disease. Image istockphoto

Surprising findings from a study into the brains of transgenic mice carrying the Huntington’s disease mutation could pave the way for treatments which delay the onset and progression of this devastating genetic disease.

Researchers at UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute have found the brains of mice with Huntington’s disease retain populations of the precursor and stem cells which can give rise to new neurons.

The potential for stimulating the production of new neurons in Huntington’s disease patients remain high, according to Dr Tara Walker, the postdoctoral fellow who carried out the work in the laboratory of Professor Perry Bartlett.

“Combined with previous findings which show that environmental enrichment and antidepressant treatment delayed both the onset and progression of Huntington’s disease in mice, these findings are encouraging,” she said.

“Now we know that the capacity to generate neurons is retained in animals in even advanced stages of Huntington’s disease, further research will need to explore what stops this process from occurring.

“This may not only allow the restoration of neurogenesis, but may also allow this process to be harnessed to repair other areas of neuronal cell loss.”

To learn more about how you can support QBI research, contact Jenny Valentine on (07) 3346 6413 or j.valentine1@uq.edu.au

By Denise Cullen

Ancient larvae could provide insights into Australia's climate change history. Image stock.xchng

Ancient larvae found in lakes could provide the answer to how climate change has affected Australia’s weather over the past 21,000 years.

Dr Craig Woodward from UQ’s School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management is working on a project that aims to demonstrate how climate systems in south-east Australia responded to large-scale global change during Australia’s last ice age.

The research team is led by colleague Professor James Shulmeister, with the larvae that Dr Woodward works with possibly holding the key to some important answers.

“The heads of the larvae (called head capsules) are made of a substance called chitin that is resistant to decay. In the right conditions, the larval head capsules can be preserved for hundreds of thousands of years as fossils in the layers of mud at the bottom of lakes,” Dr Woodward said.

“You could think of the head capsule as a time capsule. The chemical composition ‘records’ a snapshot of environmental conditions in the lake in the season the larvae were living.”

Dr Woodward said the remains incorporated stable isotopes of oxygen and hydrogen which helped paint a picture of different weather patterns over time, including rainfall.

“This is important because we currently don’t have a good grasp of how rainfall varies in Australia over long periods,” he said.

To collect the specimens is a painstaking process that involves selecting individual heads from a sample with tweezers and the aid of a microscope, for further analysis by a mass spectrometer. Dr Woodward is currently working on a new technique to measurethe isotopic composition of a single specimen.

The results of this research may have significant impacts on climate models currently used for predicting global warming.

“Much of our understanding of past climates is based on very old and incomplete data. As these are used to verify future climate predictions all our current climate models may be way off base,” Professor Shulmeister said.

“Almost 80 percent of Australia’s population and agricultural and industrial production falls in the region being investigated, making significant economic and environmental impacts likely as a result of altered climate systems.”

By Kate Swanson

UQ researchers have developed a new version of the Triple P Positive Parenting Program for grandparents. Image istockphoto

University of Queensland researchers are helping grandparents to refine their parenting skills.

James Kirby and Professor Matthew Sanders developed the new version of the award-winning Triple P Positive Parenting Program and recently trialled it with 40 willing grandparents over a nine-week period at St Lucia.

“Grandparents bring a great deal of experience and expertise to the role when providing care to their grandkids, as they have been parents before,” Professor Sanders said.

“But what we are finding from our research is that some grandparents want to update their parenting knowledge and ideas, as it has been a while since they have had to care for children on a regular basis.”

Professor Sanders said approximately 20 percent of Australian children received informal care from their grandparents, with grandparents spending an average of 12 hours per week in childcare roles.

Triple P promotes good communication and relationships between grandparents, parents, and grandchildren.

This type of positive approach helps grandparents promote their grandchildren’s development and manage their grandchildren’s behaviour in a constructive way.

To support the Triple P Program, contact Susan Chenoweth on (07) 3346 3923 or susan.chenoweth@uq.edu.au

By Penny Robinson

An Australian honey has been found to have the most powerful anti-bacterial properties of any honey in the world. Image istockphoto

Honey sourced from an Australian native myrtle tree has been found to have the most powerful anti-bacterial properties of any honey in the world.

A Brisbane-based research group found the honey had very high levels of the anti-bacterial compound Methylglyoxal (MGO) and could be used to treat antibiotic-resistant infections that commonly occur in hospitals and nursing homes.

Led by the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), a partnership between The University of Queensland and the Queensland Government’s Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation (DEEDI), the research is being carried out in conjunction with The Australian Organic Honey Company & Medi Bioactive Australia.

The project has involved comprehensive trials with honey harvested from a native species of myrtle (leptospermum polygalifolium), which is distributed along the Australian eastern seaboard from the south coast of NSW to Cape York.

CEO of The Australian Organic Honey Company & Medi Bioactive Australia, Carolyn MacGill, said the findings had shown anti-bacterial potency levels that could allow for the development of highly effective anti-bacterial treatments.

Chief researcher, QAAFI scientist Dr Yasmina Sultanbawa, said the potency of the honeys meant only a small amount was required to fight infections such as Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

“The sheer strength, due to high levels of active compounds, has meant that we have been able to completely inhibit MRSA for example in in-vitro studies with a relatively small quantity of the honey,” Dr Sultanbawa said.

“This means potential products could maintain significant levels of anti-bacterial activity even in surface wounds where the honey is diluted in the bed of the infection.

“The presence of MRSA in a wound is a matter of concern and MRSA-colonised wounds are an increasingly urgent problem in hospitals and nursing homes.”

By Julie Lloyd

Ms Thornton is interviewed for the project in January. Image Margaret Henderson

When activist and former University of Queensland academic Merle Thornton chained herself to the bar at the Regatta Hotel in the mid-60s, it was a landmark moment for women’s rights in Australia.

Four decades later, a UQ researcher is working to ensure the achievements of the era aren’t forgotten.

Dr Margaret Henderson from the School of English, Media Studies and Art History recently interviewed Ms Thornton as part of an oral history project for the National Library of Australia.

“Merle was ahead of her time in her fight for women’s rights,” Dr Henderson said.

“She formed the Equal Opportunities Association for Women, which campaigned for a number of reforms across a wealth of areas that women may take for granted today.”

Dr Henderson and Associate Professor Maryanne Dever from the University of Newcastle started the project after identifying significant gaps in the formal records of women’s grass-roots activism.

The interview was presented to the National Library as part of the Archiving Australian Feminism: The Personal Papers of Merle Thornton project. Supported by the Sidney Myer Foundation and the Queensland Government, a range of Ms Thornton’s documents and records were also deposited including letters, manuscripts and petitions for action.

By Cameron Pegg

Dr Andrew Fairbairn

The world’s earliest known high-altitude human settlement, dating back 49,000 years, has been found buried under volcanic ash in the mountains of Papua New Guinea.

The team of archaeologists, which includes UQ’s Dr Andrew Fairbairn (pictured), discovered campsites at altitudes of 2000m that were occupied 44–49,000 years ago during the last ice age – the highest altitude sites occupied by Homo sapiens ever recorded. Their findings were published recently in Science.

The discovery also reveals Australasia’s first colonisers rapidly moved from coastal regions after their arrival from South East Asia to also inhabit the highlands.

The prehistoric highlanders, who lived in the Ivane Valley of Papua New Guinea’s Owen Stanley Range Mountain near Kokoda, made stone tools, hunted small animals and ate yams and nuts of the local Pandanus tree.

Dr Fairbairn said the team uncovered almost perfectly preserved nutshells at the campsites, which is the first time that such ancient plant material has been found in the region.

“The volcanic ash layers seem to have produced a unique microenvironment that has fought off the rain and cold to preserve nutshells and yam leftovers, which are present in large quantities and give us exciting and unique evidence of the diet of the first New Guineans,” he said.

The campsites were occupied during a relatively warm part of the last ice age – the Pleistocene – when Papua New Guinea was joined to Australia as part of the continent of Sahul. However, the ancient highlanders would still have experienced temperatures below 0°C.

Dr Fairbairn said the discoveries provided an unusually detailed view of a mobile and resourceful community that adapted to unfamiliar territory and environments by carefully targeting high-energy plant and animal foods.

“Papua New Guinea’s mountains have long held surprises for the scientific community and here is another one – maybe they were the home of Homo sapiens’ earliest mountaineers,” he said.

Joining Dr Fairbairn on the research team were Glenn R. Summerhayes, Matthew Leavesley, Herman Mandui, Judith Field, Anne Ford and Richard Fullagar.

By Kathy Grube

The Deep Australia project team are studying mysterious creatures living in the darkest depths of our oceans

Queensland Brain Institute scientists have used high-tech equipment to capture underwater creatures at depths not documented before.

Using deep-sea cameras and instrument platforms new to Australia, prehistoric six-gilled sharks, giant oil fish, swarms of crustaceans and many unidentified fish were caught on camera in July 1,400m below sea level at Osprey Reef, 350km northeast of Cairns.

The team, led by Professor Justin Marshall, captured the creatures using low-light sensitive, remote-controlled cameras, which sat on the sea floor. The Australian Research Council funded the equipment that was built at The Harbour Branch Oceanographic Institute in Florida.

“As well as understanding life at the surface, we need to plunge off the walls of Osprey to describe the deep-sea life that lives down to 2000m. We simply do not know what life is down there and our cameras can now record the behaviour and life in Australia’s largest biosphere, the deep-sea,” Professor Marshall said.

Scientists working on the Deep Australia project also collected amazing footage of the Nautilus, a relative of the squid or octopus that still lives in a shell as they have done for millions of years.

Researchers measured these “living fossils” to find out more about their biology before returning them to sea.

“Learning more about these creatures’ primitive eyes and brain could help neuroscientists to better understand human vision,” research student Andy Dunstan said.

Professor Marshall said most of our knowledge on how nerve cells functioned and communicated was first pioneered through work on giant squid nerve cells.

“We are now returning to these original model systems, both for their own intrinsic interest and also to better understand brain disorders which lead to conditions such as epilepsy,” he said.

In September, the scientists travelled to the Peruvian Trench off South America where they filmed and captured deep-sea species 2,000m below the surface.

By Anna Bednarek

Indigenous postgraduate Katherine Williams

Closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous postgraduate participation is the aim of a new UQ website.

Developed by staff at the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit, the Postgraduate Meeting Place offers networking opportunities and contains student profiles and information about scholarships.

Project team member Dr Katelyn Barney said the site responded to concerns raised by current and past postgraduates.

“Many Indigenous postgraduates noted a lack of social networking opportunities,” Dr Barney said.

“Many said that they were not aware of other Indigenous postgraduates or that they were the only person in their course who was Indigenous.

“We’ve had very positive feedback about the website and the project in general.

“The website is also assisting students to network, or ‘take your mob with you’, as one student noted.”

Funded through the Higher Education Equity Support Program, the project was led by Professor Ian Lilley.

Dr Barney and researcher and student support officer Monique Proud conducted individual interviews with Indigenous graduates, current Indigenous postgraduates and non-completed postgraduate students about their university experiences.

“These findings have the potential to assist in reshaping universities in order to provide culturally appropriate support mechanisms to Indigenous postgraduate students,” Dr Barney said.

“By knowing and acting upon the kinds of mechanisms that can assist Indigenous postgraduate students, we hope that the disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous student participation in postgraduate study can be addressed.”

Dr Barney said the next steps were to establish a mentoring program connecting completed and commencing postgraduates with staff in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit and other UQ faculties, schools and centres, the Graduate School and Student Services.

The team also wants to start an Indigenous postgraduate seminar series or Indigenous postgraduate conference at UQ, with invitations to both postgraduate and undergraduate students, particularly those in honours year.

By Penny Robinson

Mosques in Instanbul

Muslim countries are caught between developing their tourism industries and making sure their culture is not eroded in the process, according to a UQ researcher.

Fear of cultural erosion is leading the governments of some Muslim countries to pick and choose the tourists they target in their marketing, School of Tourism senior lecturer Dr Noel Scott said.

Dr Scott said this also reinforced the need for tourists to ensure they understood the nature of Islamic law and respected customs.

The comments follow the release of a paper Dr Scott wrote with Hassan Saad Sanad and Ayman Mounier Kassem from Minia University in Egypt.

“Tourism is a focus for change in society and I suspect tourism is a leading sector that is being used in Muslim countries to explore issues of how society should develop,” Dr Scott said.

Tourists were exposing people in Muslim countries to different values and beliefs because tourism was “a microcosm of everyday life”.

But western tourists needed to do their homework because acceptable behaviour differed from one country to the next.

“Saudi Arabia does not want western tourists to come along and offend local people. They want economic development from tourism, but they are not prepared to compromise their principles to have it,” he said.

By Erik de Wit

Dr Punyadeera

An award-winning UQ research project aims to detect, prevent and manage heart disease using a simple saliva test.

Dr Chamindie Punyadeera received a 2010 UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award to investigate the diagnostic potential of saliva as a sample rather than blood – an Australian first.

Dr Punyadeera has been successful in the detection of the C-Reactive Protein (CRP) biomolecule in saliva, which is elevated in cardiac patients and people who have heart disease.

Previously, the only way to detect the presence of this biomolecule was to use a blood test.

Dr Punyadeera has proven a correlation between the CRP biomolecules present in saliva and in blood, and is developing tests to detect heart failure and heart attack more easily.

“Saliva is a very effective tool for measuring the human body’s health and well being, however to date saliva has been regarded as inferior to blood-based tests,” Dr Punyadeera said.

“Because saliva testing is non-invasive, easy for practitioners and patients, and does not require sample pre-processing, you should be able to have accurate heart diagnosis in less than 15 minutes.”

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) refers to diseases of the heart and blood vessels and is the number one cause of death in Australia.

With one person dying of this debilitating disease every 10 minutes, early detection and intervention will lead to a significant reduction in CVD-related deaths.

Dr Punyadeera is also the recipient of a Queensland Government Smart Future Award, which was presented by Premier Anna Bligh in April.

By Izzy Koh

UQ researchers are studying the changing perceptions of marriage

A team from UQ’s Institute for Social Science Research has found that marriage no longer enjoys the privileged status it once did.

Contributing to the change in status is an increase in couples divorcing, marrying later or not at all, having fewer children and the changing experiences of intimate relationships.

One of the most dramatic social trends is the rapid rise in rates of de facto cohabitation, indicating a significant shift in attitudes towards intimate relationships outside of marriage.

Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow Professor Janeen Baxter is leading two projects investigating these issues and is contributing to international understanding by investigating marriage and cohabitation patterns and experiences.

Working with Dr Belinda Hewitt, Associate Professor Michele Haynes, Professor Mark Western, and PhD students Sandra Buchler and Maelisa McNeil, Professor Baxter is developing new ways of understanding the changing significance of marriage.

Professor Baxter said the knowledge gained from these projects would lead to more effective social policies as well as new theories about the social organisation of personal relationships.

By Beth Hensler

University of Queensland research is opening up a new insight into the lives of the mightiest of all dinosaurs, and it isn’t pretty.

A reconstruction showing the jaw of a Tyrannosaurus rex with the avian infection. Image: Chris Glen

UQ palaeontologist Dr Steve Salisbury, together with American colleagues, has found Tyrannosaurus rex and its close relatives suffered from a deadly infectious disease similar to one that occurs in birds today.

Dr Salisbury said the evidence came from unnatural holes in the back of their lower jaws. The research has been published in scientific journal PLoS ONE.

“Some of the world’s most famous T. rex specimens have these holes in their jaws, including ‘Sue’ at the Field Museum in Chicago,” he said.

Dr Salisbury said tyrannosaurs were known to have marks on their heads from biting each other, presumably during territorial disputes or mating, but the holes he and his colleagues were interested in were at the back of the jaws, too far back to be bite marks.

“These holes don’t show any of the normal characteristics of bite marks,” he said.

“It’s as if someone took to the jaws with a hot poker. Some specimens look like Swiss cheese.

“We now believe that these holes are caused by an infectious disease called trichomonosis.”

He said trichomonosis was a modern avian disease caused by a parasite and is most prevalent in pigeons, which are generally immune.

“Birds of prey are particularly susceptible to trichomonosis if they eat infected pigeons,” he said.

Dr Salisbury and fellow researchers Ewan Wolff, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Jack Horner and David Varricchio from Montana State University, examined many T. rex fossils as part of their study including ‘Sue’, the most famous and complete specimen of all.

Dr Salisbury said the link in disease was not surprising given the evolutionary relationship of dinosaurs to birds, but the discovery represented a major step forward in understanding of disease history in birds and their dinosaurian precursors.

Dr Salisbury said the disease appeared to be quite common in tyrannosaurs and would have been deadly to those that were infected.

“Fighting and specifically head-biting would have been an ideal mechanism for spreading the disease among tyrannosaurs. We can see similarities with what has been happening to Tasmanian devils recently, where a malignant and debilitating oral cancer is being spread by animals fighting and biting each other’s faces,” he said.

To learn more about Dr Salisbury’s work, visit his laboratory’s webpage.

By Andrew Dunne

UQ research has found when it comes to camels, staying cool may be the key to reproductive success.

Male camels in central Australia

Emeritus Professor Gordon Grigg, from UQ’s School of Biological Sciences, and a team of colleagues working in Central Australia, have found male camels have an ability to drop their body temperature which may help them last longer in rutting displays.

“Rutting involves very energetic daily display ‘fighting’ during which bulls contest ownership of a herd of females,” Professor Grigg said.

“By starting each day cooler, a bull can postpone heat stress, compete for longer, win more contests and potentially sire more offspring.”

He said the ability of camels to drop body temperature in the mornings, invoking hypothermia, was once thought to be only a mechanism for conserving water in very hot and dry conditions.

“But what we saw cannot be for saving water as we saw it only in winter, only in bulls during rut and they had water freely available and used it routinely,” he said.

“So we speculate that by lowering their minimum temperature each morning during rut, bulls increase their chance of winning a harem.

“By starting the day cool, a bull will enhance his capacity to store heat generated by the strenuous activity, thus prolonging the onset of heat stress.

“A bull that can sustain a contest for longer is more likely to win it and, so, control a herd of females and get more matings.

“That is, the daily hypothermias we observed could have a direct bearing on reproductive success.”

Professor Grigg said the rutting habits of male camels were fascinating as competing bulls perform elaborate, ritualised and intense competitive behaviour including posing and strutting side-by-side, inflating and exposing the dulaa (a sac-like extension of the palate), jostling, exhibiting flehmen (curling the upper lip), running together and fighting.

Professor Grigg was joined by Jürgen Heuke and Birgit Dörges (University of Braunschweig), Jocelyn Coventry (veterinarian), Alex Coppock (cattleman) and School of Biological Science colleagues Lyn Beard and Simon Blomberg for the project. Their findings have been published online in scientific journal Biology Letters.

By Andrew Dunne

PhD student Jereme Spiers with a bottle of Serenascent

Serenascent, which smells like cut grass and claims to make the wearer happier and less stressed, was launched by the State Treasurer and Minister for Employment and Economic Development, Andrew Fraser.

Mr Fraser congratulated researchers Dr Lavidis and retired pharmacologist Associate Professor Rosemarie Einstein for their seven-year research project.

Dr Lavidis said he first had the idea for Serenascent on a trip to Yosemite National Park in America more than 20 years ago.

“Three days in the park felt like a three-month holiday,” he said.

“I didn’t realise at the time that it was the actual combination of feel-good chemicals released by the pine trees, the lush vegetation and the cut grass that made me feel so relaxed.

“Years later my neighbour commented on the wonderful smell of cut grass after I had mowed the lawn and it all clicked into place.”

Dr Lavidis said the aroma of Serenascent worked directly on the brain, in particular the emotional and memory parts known as the amygdala and the hippocampus.

“These two areas form the limbic system that controls the sympathetic nervous system,” he said.

“They are responsible for the ‘flight or fight’ response and the endocrine system, which controls the releasing of stress hormones like corticosteroids. The new spray appears to regulate these areas.”

By Jan King

A national survey conducted by UQ researchers has found that the majority of same-sex attracted Australians reported marriage to be their personal preference for relationship recognition.

UQ research shows same sex couples want to marry

The findings dispel the myth that most same-sex couples do not wish to marry or are content with de facto status, and form part of the larger Not So Private Lives survey.

The study is the first national survey to investigate same-sex attracted Australians’ preferences for various forms of relationship recognition since the introduction of de facto status for same-sex couples at a Federal level.

Findings showed that the majority (54.1 percent) of same-sex attracted participants selected marriage as their personal choice and close to 80 percent felt marriage should be an option for same-sex couples in Australia.

Researcher Sharon Dane, from UQ’s School of Psychology, said marriage was still the personal choice of the majority, irrespective of the current legal status of participants’ same-sex relationships.

“Importantly, the majority showing a personal preference for marriage was even more substantial among those currently in a state or municipal civil partnership or an overseas civil union,” Ms Dane said.

“This suggests that alternatives to marriage, such as civil unions, can be important for those who do not wish to marry but are clearly not a substitute for the many who do.”

By Melinda Kopanakis

Judy Watson

A new form of scientific collaboration was unveiled at UQ when Indigenous artist Judy Watson exhibited her latest works in October.

Ms Watson was artist-in-residence at the Heron Island Research Station in February 2009, her visit coinciding with the official reopening of the facility, which was destroyed by fire in 2007.

Staged at the UQ Art Museum, Judy Watson: Heron Island explored findings made by scientists the artist met during the residency and featured graphs about ocean acidification, changes to sea-surface temperature, El Niño weather patterns and global warming.

“Watson turned her attention to what scientists are saying is happening in the marine environment, with works ranging from an extraordinary ‘freshwater lens’ – a large blue-green brass sculpture suspended in the gallery space – to a series of brilliantly coloured etchings, paintings, works on paper, video and a sound work,” museum Director Nick Mitzevich said.

Heron Island number 13

The exhibition built on previous projects, particularly the Indigenous use of native plants, but also the idea of a subterranean water source.

“I was fascinated by the idea of a lens-shaped body of fresh water that lies beneath the coral cay above the salt water, the fresh water helping to sustain the plant life and the island ecology,” Ms Watson said.

“The freshwater lens is an amazing resource, whose purity is threatened by rising sea levels and storm surges, so even though it’s something you can’t actually see, I decided it would be the perfect floating sculptural form.”

Story by Michele Helmrich, video courtesy Judy Watson and Maria Barbagallo

UQ PhD candidate and nutritionist Christine Houghton is investigating whether broccoli could help in the fight against diabetes.

PhD student Christine Houghton is exploring the health benefits of broccoli

Ms Houghton’s research focuses on sulforaphane – a substance produced when broccoli sprouts are cut or chewed that has been found to protect against heart disease, some types of cancers and act as an anti-ageing agent.

“Sulforaphane essentially talks to the DNA within your cells and can help to optimise several of your body’s natural defence systems,” Ms Houghton said.

“Studies have found that sulforaphane influences about 200 genes of the cell’s defence system.

“Regular consumption of broccoli or broccoli sprouts is a simple way to activate your body’s own protective mechanisms which naturally decline as we age or are unwell.”

Ms Houghton is currently trying to find out exactly how much sulforaphane is produced in 500mg of encapsulated broccoli sprout powder.

Using this product, she hopes to start a clinical trial this year for patients with impaired glucose tolerance.

“Evidence in invitro and animal studies indicates that sulforaphane can reduce the complications of diabetes, with improved biochemical markers evident,” Ms Houghton said.

Ms Houghton is completing her PhD through the School of Human Movement Studies, and discussed the potential health benefits of sulforaphane at the 2009 Australasian Academy of Anti-Ageing Medicine Conference in Melbourne.

A turtle hatchling on Heron Island

Research is uncovering the true cost of how baby turtles make their dash from hatching in the dunes to the relative safety of the ocean.

Zoologist Dr David Booth, from UQ’s School of Integrative Biology, said his research was aimed at discovering how much energy the hatchlings needed to reach safe deep water.

“Having run the gauntlet of air and land predators to make it to the sea, the tiny voyager must also evade hungry fish patrolling the beaches in its bid for freedom,” Dr Booth said.

Curious to know how much energy the youngsters needed to reach safe deep water, Dr Booth measured the hatchling’s oxygen consumption and found they had enough energy reserves to survive 10 days at sea without feeding.

Basing his research at UQ’s Heron Island Research Station, Dr Booth took advantage of the unique laboratory facilities that are within metres of a green turtle nesting beach.

“At hatching time, I corralled the nest in order to catch several youngsters as they reached the sand’s surface about 100 metres away from the lab before they could reach the sea,” he said.

“I then fitted each hatchling with a lycra swim suit with a cord attached to a force transducer, before setting the youngster free in a seawater aquarium.”

Dr Booth said initially the animals swam very hard using their front flippers with their heads down, only switching to a “doggy paddle” as they came up for air before returning to fast front-flipper swimming.

“But as time drew on, the youngsters’ activity slowed,” he said.

“They spent more time doggy paddling and less time pulling with their front flippers until they eventually began taking the odd break after about 12 hours.”

Calculating the amount of energy the hatchlings consumed during their 18-hour swim, Dr Booth said the turtles carried almost 10 times as much energy in their yolk remnants as they needed to reach safety.

“So the youngsters aren’t at risk of running out of energy before making it to safety,” he said.

“They can probably survive 10 days in the open ocean before finding food.”

Dr Booth said the baby turtles were released into the ocean following the experiment. The experiment was conducted with the approval of the Environmental Protection Agency as well as UQ’s ethical research guidelines.

The research was published in The Journal of Experimental Biology.

By Andrew Dunne

UQ will participate in the new $60 million National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training recently announced by the Federal Government.

UQ is a member of a new groundwater research centre

Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong, and Minister for Innovation and Research, Senator Kim Carr, said the new centre, led by Flinders University, was an investment in securing Australia’s water supplies.

Hydrology Chair Professor David Lockington will lead the UQ component, with his team focusing on the groundwater dynamics and biogeochemistry of key coastal environments from local to regional scales.

Other key UQ investigators will be Professor Ling Li, Associate Professor Catherine Lovelock, and Associate Professor Massimo Gasparon.

“Australia’s extensive coastline has an incredibly diverse range of terrestrial and shallow water conditions and habitats, which are home to complex and sensitive ecosystems of rich biodiversity, and are subject to major development pressure as well as climate change impacts,” Professor Lockington said.

The $60 million centre has $30 million in joint funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Water Commission, with $30 million in additional contributions from the 20 organisations involved. Partners include the University of New South Wales, the Australian National University, CSIRO, Geoscience Australia, and the governments of NSW and South Australia.

Former Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor David Siddle welcomed the Australian Government’s recognition of the importance of groundwater research, and said UQ’s inclusion in the successful bid reflected on its high quality research into the coastal and marine interface.

By Jan King

A UQ researcher has gone backstage to some of Australia’s biggest music festivals to discover what makes them tick.

Screamfeeder perform during the Pig City concert at UQ in 2007

And the answer is the corporate dollar, but unlike days gone by, today’s music fans are comfortable with that situation.

Dr Nic Carah, a lecturer within UQ’s School of Journalism and Communication, studied the way corporations use music festivals to help build their brands, finding that, rather than alienating young people, these branding practices were embraced.

“Instead of being seen as an outsider of youth culture, they gain authenticity by being part of these events,” Dr Carah said.

He said while in the past some of these strategies may have been looked upon as suspicious, young people today understood marketing practices and accepted them as part of festival culture.

“Young people aren’t fooled by these tactics, they don’t get sucked in by them,” he said.

He said events such as the V Festival – a very overt branding exercise – were acceptable as long as there was value in it for the concert goer.

“If Virgin brings popular bands to a festival, then the audience is comfortable to use their phones and cameras to send texts and pictures to giant branded screens,” he said.

“The audience perceive they get something and the company develops brand value by associating itself with such an event.”

Dr Carah is working on a book about his research to be titled Pop Brands: branding, popular music and young people, which is expected to be published next year.

By Andrew Dunne

An Australian-first alliance between Queensland’s three largest universities will expand higher learning in a range of Asian and European languages.

Three Queensland universities have pooled together their language teaching programs

With $2.27 million in Australian Government funding, The University of Queensland, Griffith University and Queensland University of Technology will pool teaching of at least nine languages so their students can learn them as part of formal studies.

Students at all three institutions will be able to major in Chinese, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish. Provided they study at award level at one of the three universities, they will be credited as if they were studying at their own institutions.

The alliance is the first of its kind involving multiple languages and three Australian universities. It arises from a determination by the three vice-chancellors that major world languages must continue to be offered at university level in Brisbane, even though enrolments are in single digits at some institutions.

“If we applied accounting principles alone some of these languages would disappear from university curricula,” UQ Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Greenfield said.
“However the three universities’ bottom line is that we can’t afford to see language scholarship atrophy in Australia’s third biggest capital city.”

“This alliance is the most comprehensive educational collaboration ever undertaken among our universities,” QUT Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Coaldrake said.
“Together we can provide a more sustainable and wide-ranging offering of languages to our students than is possible as individual universities.”

Griffith University Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian O’Connor said the initiative would build on the university’s existing strengths in Asian and European languages.

“This is a tangible move to cater for any student who wants to develop their passion for languages by providing access and opportunity to study where it suits them,” he said.

The alliance builds on recent initiatives by the universities to boost interest in language education, starting at the high school level. All three have offered bonus points to school leavers applying for university who have succeeded in a language other than English in year 12.

The virtual opening of CEIT in Second Life

The University of Queensland’s new Centre for Educational Innovation and Technology positions UQ at the forefront of research into teaching and learning technologies to be disseminated to universities around the world.

From remote online laboratories where students and educators are provided with unlimited access to iLab experiments, to lecture browsers that allow students to pinpoint words or phrases from within a lecture stream, the research potential of CEIT is endless.

CEIT’s digital innovations are continuations of projects started with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) iCampus Project, a Microsoft/MIT Research and Development partnership.

UQ Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) Professor Deborah Terry said UQ was proud to be leading Australia when it came to educational innovation.
“The potential impact of CEIT on teaching and learning worldwide is enormous and at the centre is the intellectual synergy of The University of Queensland’s researchers and academics, powering a new digital education age,” Professor Terry said.

CEIT founding Director UQ Professor Phil Long, who comes to the University from MIT, will help create access to research on technology-assisted teaching and learning, assisted by UQ iCampus co-ordinator Dr Mark Schulz as the centre’s associate director.

By Eliza Plant