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The Australian National University is celebrating the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Physics to Professor Brian Schmidt.Announced in Stockholm, Sweden overnight, the award is shared with two US scientists – Professor Adam Riess from Johns Hopkins University and Professor Saul Perlmutter from the University of California, Berkeley.
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Mt Stromlo Centenary Celebrations - Tales Of Stars and Stellar SystemsAstronomy has arguably the single largest impact on the development of science, human society and culture over the past 10,000 years. On our journey through space and time we will explore the glorious life of our sun, learn how astrophysical knowledge acquired 100 years ago can help to solve the energy crisis on Earth today, and find out why we should rightfully call ourselves the children of the stars. The discovery of exoplanets is a regular topic in the international news. I will explain how astronomers measure the faint signal from these distant island worlds, show where our place in the Milky Way is, and disclose how the Universe grew a million times bigger on the night of October 6, 1923.
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As part of Mt Stromlo’s centenary celebrations for 2011, this lecture series provides an opportunity to hear from experts in space science technology. In order to understand fully the causes of climate change we must understand the complex interactions that control our environment on a global scale. Space assets provide the most effective way of studying the conditions, composition and changes of our atmosphere/biosphere on a planet-wide scale. This talk will first explore what is 'known' about climate change and then explain how space technology can deliver the precision and coverage that will be necessary to give confidence to our model-based predictions of the future. Climate mitigation strategies begin with understanding. Space technology can provide that knowledge.
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People are constantly asking how today's climate compares with detailed climate records from tens of thousands of years ago to tens of millions of years ago. To the best of our knowledge, we have to search back 55 million years to find a time interval where the rate temperature changes were anywhere near the rate of change that is occurring now. This time interval is called the Paleocene- Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). In this lecture, Dr Opdyke compared data from the Eocene to data collected from around Australia in the Late Quaternary (the past half million years). He the finished with some facts and figures concerning the modern climate and some of the misinformation that has been liberally spread in the public arena.
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Over the past few months, the climate change challenge has taken some odd twists and turns. The COP15 meeting in Copenhagen was widely condemned in the press as a failure; the Australian Government has been unable to get its emission trading scheme through the Senate; Europe and North America have been hit by cold and snowy winters; and there has been a surge in public attacks on the veracity of climate change science. What is going on? This talk focuses on the post-Copenhagen climate - both physical and political- examining what the credible science is really saying about the state of the climate system, and what might be in store for us in the coming decades, including the prospects for rural and regional Australia. Looking beyond the stories in the popular media about what was not achieved at COP15 the progress that actually was made in Copenhagen will be explored. With the recent surge in sceptic attacks on climate science this talk will also examine why the climate change challenge has suddenly become so much more difficult.
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What really went on at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference? Was it a fiasco or a positive step forward? Those are some of the questions that were addressed by a panel of experts at The Australian National University.The panel discussion - Post Copenhagen: Where do we go now? - will brought together people who experienced the COP15 discussions first hand. They discussed and reviewed what really happened at the negotiations, what the failure to reach a binding agreement means and what comes next.
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A stable and sustainable energy supply is one of the major issues of this Century. World-energy demand is expected to increase by about 70% in the coming 20 years, while the production of petroleum - our main source of energy - is likely to peak in this period. The combination of rising demand and declining production of conventional oil raises the question: What is the plan? In the absence of a plan for a sustainable energy supply, coal and non-conventional oil are likely to become the main source of energy. These energy sources lead to much higher CO2 emissions per unit energy than the sources currently used. Combined with the expected increase in energy use, this aggravates global warming. We face the challenge to develop a strategy to develop a sustainable energy system with acceptable environmental impact. In his presentation Professor Snieder will give examples what one can do as a teacher, student, consumer, businessman and as a citizen to make progress towards a more sustainable energy system.
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Rod Quantock says, "If climate change doesn't scare you, then you don't get the science." Fortunately Quantock does, and when he gives you his take on the physics, chemistry, biology, geology, palaeontology, cosmology and meteorology of climate science you'll get it too. And then... you'll be scared. It's win-win. Sounds like great fun doesn't? It's an edgy mix of panic and hysteria. But that's what you'd expect from someone whose comedy has been described as ‘medicinal'. In his irreverent style and clever humour has proven to be a great avenue to deliver powerful messages about the reality of climate change, water issues and possible outcomes. This lecture was introduced by Jon Ward, Manager, Environmental Policy, Toyota Motor Corporation Australia.
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"God may not play dice with the universe, but something strange is going on with the prime numbers" - Paul ErdosThe prime numbers are a fascinating blend of both structure and randomness. It is widely believed that beyond the ‘obvious' structures in the primes, they otherwise behave as if they were distributed randomly; this ‘pseudorandomness' then underlies our belief in many unsolved conjectures about the primes, from the twin prime conjecture to the Riemann hypothesis. This pseudorandomness has been frustratingly elusive to actually prove rigorously, but recently there has been progress to establish new results about the primes, such as that they contain arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions. Some of these developments will be discussed in this lecture.
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Evidence has been accumulating for several decades that many galaxies harbor central mass concentrations that may be in the form of black holes with masses between a few million to a few billion time the mass of the Sun. Professor Reinhard Genzel discussed measurements over the last two decades, employing high resolution infrared and radio imaging and spectroscopy on large ground-based telescopes that prove the existence of such a massive black hole in the Centre of our Milky Way, beyond any reasonable doubt. These data also provide key insights into its properties and environment. Future interferometric studies of the Galactics Centre black hole promise to be able to test gravity in its strong field limit. He also briefly summarised the cosmological evolution of massive black holes.
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The supply of secure, clean, sustainable energy is arguably the most important scientific and technical challenge facing humanity in the 21st century. Rising living standards of a growing world population will cause global energy consumption to increase dramatically over the next half century. Within our lifetimes, energy consumption will increase at least two-fold. This additional energy needed is not attainable from long discussed sources, the global appetite for energy is simply too much. Petroleum-based fuel sources could be increased. However, deleterious consequences resulting from external drivers of economy, the environment, and global security dictate that this energy need be met by renewable and sustainable sources.Of the possible sustainable and renewable carbon-neutral energy sources, sunlight is preeminent. If photosynthesis can be duplicated outside of the leaf - an artificial photosynthesis if you will - then the sun's energy can be harnessed as a fuel. The combination of water and light from the sun can be used to produce hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen can then be combined with the oxygen in a fuel cell to give back water and energy. This lecture placed the scale of the global energy issue in perspective and then discussed how an artificial photosynthesis to power our planet might be achieved.This lecture was the 2009 Birch Lecture, presented by the ANU Research School of Chemistry.
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Human beings are, by nature, curious about their beginnings. Often, such questions of "how we came to be" are confined to the origins of modern society, or the development of human beings as a species. In this lecture, Professor Timothy Beers will endeavour to take the discussion all the way back to the VERY beginning, to the origin of the primary elements required to construct life as we know it -- carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and oxygen (O).Over the past few decades, astronomers and physicists have outlined plausible pathways for the astrophysical production of these elements (and others), from the explosive burning associated with massive stars and the slower contributions of lower-mass stars like the Sun over the history of the Universe. Professor Beers explains how the chemical signatures which can be read in the spectra of stars that are still shining today have provided the clues needed to reconstruct this remarkable story, and how future observations (many of which involve the work of Australian astronomers) will be used to fill out the rich detail of this map of creation.
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New Horizons is the first scientific investigation to obtain a close look at Pluto and its moon Charon. Scientists hope to find answers to basic questions about the surface properties, geology, interior makeup and atmospheres on these bodies, the last in our solar system to be visited by a spacecraft. The mission could also visit one or more Kuiper Belt objects. New Horizons launched on January 19, 2006. It will swing past Jupiter for a gravity boost & scientific studies in early 2007 and reach Pluto in July 2015. Then, as part of an extended mission, the spacecraft would head deeper into the Kuiper Belt to study one or more of the icy mini-worlds in the region a billion miles beyond Neptune's orbit. To get to Pluto, which is 3 billion miles from Earth, in just 9.5 years, the spacecraft will speed by the planet at a velocity of about 27,000 miles per hour. The instruments on New Horizons will start taking data on Pluto and Charon months before it arrives. About three months from the closest approach - when Pluto and Charon are about 65 million miles away - the instruments will take pictures and spectra measurements and begin to make the first maps. This Toyota-ANU Public Lecture described the New Horizons mission and its progress since its launch on January 19 2006.
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As part of National Science Week, the ANU College of Science recently pitted 5 Physics PhD students against each other in a competition to showcase their presentation skills, passion and ability to communicate their phd topic.
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As a pioneer in paleoceanography who has contributed to three
generations of scientific ocean drilling programs, Ted Moore questions
whether lessons learned from Earth's past will help us better
appreciate the extensive changes that could be brought on by higher
global temperatures, rising sea level, and more intense storms
predicted for the future. He draws upon the 50-million-year-old climate
records of the Eocene to offer insights into the impacts of increased
global greenhouse gases and the expectations for Earth's future climate.
Professor Moore's lecture is part of the inaugural DRILLS lecture
series - a new scientific lecture series that features prominent,
internationally known scientists describing scientific ocean drilling
from first-hand experience. -
Professor Silk discusses how our understanding of cosmology has evolved
in recent years from the old Big Bang cosmology of the Einstein era.
Observations have shown us that the universe is mostly dark. This is
one of the greatest mysteries in the cosmos. Not only is the observed
night sky dark, but also most of the matter in the universe is dark.
Astronomers today are seeking to unravel the nature of the mysterious
but pervasive dark matter and dark energy, which account for two-thirds
of the mass-energy density of the universe. -
Leading expert scientists from ANU and Stanford University presentedcritiques of the ABC televised program from the previous eveningentitled 'The Great Global Warming Swindle'. The forum was then openedfor general discussion and questions.
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Throughout Earth’s history, mass extinctions of species were closelyrelated to physical and chemical changes in the atmosphere and theoceans. These variations were controlled by heat from the sun, thedistribution of oceans and continents, the extent of ice sheets;volcanic eruptions and asteroid impacts, air-borne particles, theeruption of methane and greenhouse effects. Greenhouse episodes were amplified by carbon dioxide and methanefeedback effects from warming oceans and drying vegetation, and bychanged reflection effects due to the extent of ice and snow. Currentclimate changes, triggered by human-generated emissions, will lead toshifts in the Earth’s climate zones toward the poles. The instabilityof ice sheets melting may lead to significant sea level rises over atime scale of decades.
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NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) was launched in 2005 to searchfor evidence that water persisted on the surface of Mars for a longperiod of time. While other Mars missions have shown that water flowedacross the surface in Mars' history, it remains a mystery whetherliquid water existed long enough to provide a habitat for life.After a year’s cruise and aerobraking to reach its science orbit inSeptember 2006, the MRO has begun to study the history of water on Marswith a suite of high-resolution observing cameras, spectrometers andnavigational instruments. In this lecture, the MRO team describe theirinitial findings.
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The Earth is hit each day by the bright flash of gamma rays lastingfrom a fraction of a second to several minutes. These bursts originatein distant galaxies as stars collapse and form black holes. The mostdistant bursts yet observed are from stellar explosions that occurredover 13 billion years ago, when the universe was only a few hundredmillion years old.Professor Edward PJ van den Heuvel considers whether these burstsprovide us with a glimpse of the first short-lived massive stars thatformed during the ‘dark ages’ of the universe. He also discusses thepotential dangers for life on Earth if a burst occurred nearby in ourgalaxy.
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