Blog buddy

It’s true, ours was not the first. Blog that is. CSIRO blog that is. But that’s ok, because if it wasn’t for Tania over at CSIROsolarblog.com, we probably would still be talking about ROI and representation of the logo and the personal/public divide.

So here we are!

Generally we don’t like to brag (well, Huw does but he’s not here so ‘we’ refers to me) but we’ve survived 6 months now and we’re having some laughs. We hope you occasionally read a post and find yourself nodding and muttering under your breath ‘ahh… that’s interesting’.

So you can imagine our paternal delight in seeing another blog in our midst.

Only a few weeks ago, Sarah went live with CSIROFRVblog.com. We could give you the lowdown on the Future Research Vessel… but perhaps you could just read the blog?

Just DO NOT miss these photos of the shipyard or the LEGO models.

And then there were 3.

It’s all about the money

This morning, I really needed coffee. Technically I needed more sleep but coffee was going to be my substitute. As I looked at my 35 cents in my pathetic excuse for a wallet I realised I was going to have to walk to the university across the road to find an ATM.  Whilst smiling lovingly at the polymer banknotes that fell into my hands – and dreaming of the coffee that was soon to follow – I realised that the organisation that pays me also invented the money that they pay me with.

Now, of course, money was around before CSIRO but for hundreds of years banknotes were made from rag-based paper, which, since the dawn of photography, isn’t the best material for making currency. These days our money is made from polymers and Australia is the first country in the world to use ‘plastic’ bank notes.

Australia was the first country to use ‘plastic’ bank notes.

In 1966, when Australia converted from the Imperial system to decimal currency, new state-of-the-art bank notes were introduced. Unfortunately, within a year of their release quality forgeries of the $10 note were already circulating. So that was when CSIRO was asked to step in. It was our expertise in polymer and synthetic chemistry that was used to develop a non-fibrous and non-porous plastic film, which the banknotes are printed on.

In addition to the plastic film we also developed optically variable devices (OVDs) – devices that change its appearance when something external to the note is changed. For example, if the note is held between the fingers the pressure causes a colour change; if the note is rotated a colour change occurs or an image moves across the note etc. These OVD’s cant be photographed and hence make the notes difficult to forge. I guess the appropriate word at this point is, winning! Our nifty polymer bank note technology is now being used overseas, in 22 countries, as commemorative or circulating notes.

Polymers are long chains of molecules strung together; think of them as like beads on a string. And they are in a lot of things, such as paints, mobile phones, car parts, and clothing. Making polymers was an inexact science and the process of making polymers needed to be controlled to allow scientists to design their polymers for specific purposes. The same guy who led the team that made the polymer bank notes, Professor David Solomon, also led the teams that developed two separate systems that gave us better control when making polymers: Nitroxide Mediated Polymerisation and RAFT.

Organic light emitting diode panel.

Professor Solomon along with Dr Ezio Rizzardo developed RAFT, a process which is being used in almost every university chemistry department. RAFT is helping other researchers make new polymers and develop new products that will eventually be used by us. One such product is the organic light emitting diode (OLED). A while a go we mentioned how OLEDs would be a good way to Lighten the Load of planes. OLED panels emit light in a very diffuse and even way across a range of colours. They are already being used in television screens, computer monitors, mobile phones and cameras.

If you like polymers – or money – you might want to go see the David and Ezio talk about how they made money and revolutionised polymer science on Monday night, 7 May. They will be at CSIRO Discovery in Canberra discussing all the technologies they have instrumental in developing. Check out the details of the talk.

Warming altering ocean salinity and the water cycle

A clear change in salinity has been detected in the world’s oceans, signalling shifts and an acceleration in the global rainfall and evaporation cycle.

In a paper published today in the journal Science, Australian scientists from the CSIRO and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, reported changing patterns of salinity in the global ocean during the past 50 years, marking a clear fingerprint of climate change.

Lead author, Dr Paul Durack, said that by looking at observed ocean salinity changes and the relationship between salinity, rainfall and evaporation in climate models, they determined the water cycle has strengthened by four percent from 1950-2000. This is twice the response projected by current generation global climate models.

“Salinity shifts in the ocean confirm climate and the global water cycle have changed.

“These changes suggest that arid regions have become drier and high rainfall regions have become wetter in response to observed global warming,” said Dr Durack, a post-doctoral fellow at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

With a projected temperature rise of 3ºC by the end of the century, the researchers estimate a 24 per cent acceleration of the water cycle is possible.

Scientists have struggled to determine coherent estimates of water cycle changes from land-based data because surface observations of rainfall and evaporation are sparse. However, according to the team, global oceans provide a much clearer picture.

“The ocean matters to climate – it stores 97 per cent of the world’s water; receives 80 per cent of the all surface rainfall and; it has absorbed 90 per cent of the Earth’s energy increase associated with past atmospheric warming,” said co-author, Dr Richard Matear of CSIRO’s Wealth from Oceans Flagship.

“Warming of the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere is expected to strengthen the water cycle largely driven by the ability of warmer air to hold and redistribute more moisture.”

He said the intensification is an enhancement in the patterns of exchange between evaporation and rainfall and with oceans accounting for 71 per cent of the global surface area the change is clearly represented in ocean surface salinity patterns.

In the study, the scientists combined 50-year observed global surface salinity changes with changes from global climate models and found “robust evidence of an intensified global water cycle at a rate of about eight percent per degree of surface warming,” Dr Durack said.

Dr Durack said the patterns are not uniform, with regional variations agreeing with the ‘rich get richer’ mechanism, where wet regions get wetter and dry regions drier.

He said a change in freshwater availability in response to climate change poses a more significant risk to human societies and ecosystems than warming alone.

“Changes to the global water cycle and the corresponding redistribution of rainfall will affect food availability, stability, access and utilization,” Dr Durack said.

Dr Susan Wijffels, co-Chair of the global Argo project and a co-author on the study, said maintenance of the present fleet of around 3500 profilers is critical to observing continuing changes to salinity in the upper oceans.

Resistant starch may help protect against bowel cancer

Even though Australians eat more dietary fibre than many other western countries, bowel cancer is still the second most commonly reported cancer in Australia with 30 new cases diagnosed every day.

Dr David Topping, from CSIRO’s Food Futures Flagship, said this is referred to as ‘the Australian paradox’.

“We have been trying to find out why Australians aren’t showing a reduction in bowel cancer rates and we think the answer is that we don’t eat enough resistant starch, which is one of the major components of dietary fibre,” Dr Topping said.

These findings, published in the latest issue of The Journal of Nutrition, reinforce the fact that dietary fibre is beneficial for human health, but go further to show that fibre rich in resistant starch is even better.

“It’s not just the amount of fibre that we eat that’s important, but the diversity of fibre in our diet,” Dr Topping said.

“We studied various sources of resistant starch, including corn and wheat, and the results suggest they could all protect against DNA damage in the colon, which is what can cause cancer.”

Dr Trevor Lockett, colorectal cancer researcher with CSIRO’s Preventative Health Flagship, said Australia has one of the highest incidence rates of bowel cancer in the world.

“Research suggests that improving our diets could go a long way to reducing our personal risk of developing this disease, which would also have the follow-on benefit of reducing healthcare costs associated with bowel cancer.

“These new studies suggest that increasing the amount of resistant starch in our diets may be one important step along the path to reducing the burden of bowel cancer. It takes about 15 years from the time of the first bowel cancer-initiating DNA damage to the development of full-blown bowel cancer, so the earlier we improve our diets the better,” Dr Lockett said.

The recommended intake of resistant starch is around 20 grams a day, which is almost four times greater than a typical western diet provides. Twenty grams is equivalent to eating three cups of cooked lentils.

“Currently, it is difficult for Australians to get this much from a typical diet,” Dr Topping said.

“We have already had success in developing barley with high levels of resistant starch, and now our focus is on increasing the levels of resistant starch in commonly consumed grains like wheat.  These grains could then be used in breads and cereals to make it easier for Australians to get enough resistant starch from their diet.”

Resistant starch is a component of dietary fibre that resists digestion in the small intestine and instead passes through to the bowel where it has positive effects on bowel health. Resistant starch is sometimes called the third type of dietary fibre (in addition to soluble and insoluble fibre) and is found in legumes, some wholegrain breads and cereals, firm bananas and cooked and cooled potatoes, pasta and rice.

Ironing the bugs out of insect silk

Thanks to exceptional strength and toughness, insect silk is potentially a key component in a wide range of new products and applications from composite fibres for the aviation and marine industries, to medical applications including wound repair, drug delivery, and repairing and replacing human tissues such as membranes, ligaments, blood vessels and cartilage.

Woven artificial bee silk.

Bringing the new insect silk products to the global market is the focus of a partnership between CIRO and life science industry supplier, Lonza. The agreement is to advance and market new insect silks for a broad range of medical and industrial applications.

CSIRO is bringing scientific discovery, biomedical and materials science expertise to the partnership, according to CSIRO Business Development and Commercialisation General Manager, Cameron Begley.

“CSIRO has identified a broad range of insect silks that could be produced sustainably and used for a wide range of industrial and medical applications,” Mr Begley said.

“We have found ways to convert the bee silk into a range of different forms, from micro-particles and sponges through to spun fibres that can lead to knitted and woven fabrics.”

Lonza brings its biotechnology and life-science product and service expertise to the partnership and is already providing process development for the recombinant bee silk protein.

“Lonza is excited by the potential of insect silks as a relatively untapped route to sustainable and life enhancing products for our current markets and beyond, and it is encouraging to see such strong projects resulting from our Lonza Innovation for Future Technology initiative,” Allison Haitz, Lonza’s Head of Global Innovation, said.

“Lonza has been very impressed with CSIRO’s research and development work. This is a world class combination with CSIRO’s research team developing new ways of processing silks and achieving continuous strong silk fibre production, and Lonza’s experience and capability in manufacturing to take that research to the marketplace and support the successful commercialisation.”