Engines of ingenuity

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Having trouble viewing this email? Read it online THE WEEKLY EMAIL NEWSLETTER FROM AUSTRALIA'S #1 SCIENCE MAGAZINE NEWS FEATURES OPINION BLOGS REVIEWS 19 Jan 2012 THIS WEEK'S COMPETITIONS! We've got two copies of Catherine Brady's book, Elizabeth Blackburn and the Story of Telomeres, to give away! For your chance to win, send your answer to the question below to online@cosmosmagazine.com. Our favourite, most creative answers will win. Question: Elizabeth Blackburn was Australia’s first female Nobel Prize winner. What woman in science, working now or in the past, do you admire and why? And we're still running our animals-only Where in the COSMOS? competition, so send a photo of an animal reading an issue of COSMOS magazine to online@cosmosmagazine.com for your chance to win one of three TINTIN - The Complete Collection DVDs. The three winning photos will also feature in an upcoming issue of the magazine! And congratulations to Christopher Storey, Ursula Mahaffey and Ann Clancy - your lightning-fast responses to last week's question won each of you a copy of Cosmic Heritage! POLL RESULT The Doomsday Clock is a meaningless gimmick, according to 37% of you, while 35% of you think that while the message is important, it doesn't need to be written on a giant clock. Twenty-eight percent of you think this is an important way of communicating how dire the situation is. View the full results and add your comments NEW POLL: Do you think energy drinks should be treated like non-prescription drugs? Have your say. TOP NEWS Dogs are receptive to human communication cues in a similar way to how human infants read their parents, according to a new study. Climate change could quadruple deaths Climate change may quadruple the loss of life due to extreme heat in Brisbane, an Australian study has predicted. Cognitive ageing is partly in the genes Differences in our genes contribute to how well we maintain our cognitive abilities over the course of our lives, according to a new study. Climate cycle reveals Titan as Earth-like Saturn's moon Titan is more Earth-like than previously thought, with two distinct layers in the lower atmosphere that affect the moon's wind patterns, dune spacing and cloud formation. Emergency calls highlight energy drink danger The dangerous side effects of energy drinks have been highlighted by a reported increase in calls to emergency departments and poisons centres, say Australian scientists. Phobos-Grunt crashes into Pacific Ocean In a spectacular end to a failed mission, pieces of a Russian spacecraft Phobos-Grunt appear to have crashed into the Pacific Ocean in the early hours of Monday morning. 4th Annual National Communication Officers' Conference 2012 by Liquid Learning Essential skills and practical tools to enhance the performance of communication professionals in a rapidly evolving environment. EXPLORE: Maintaining Alignment between Communication Strategy and Patterns of Media Use; Effectively Engaging the Media, Stakeholders and the Community in an Ongoing Conversation; Apply Proactive Approaches to Crisis Communication & Reputation Management; Achieving a Measurable Results from Social Media and Online Communication. Download the brochure here (PDF) or visit www.liquidlearning.com.au. IN FOCUS Engines of ingenuity ~ Wilson da Silva GOLD RUSHES can make a city: the feverish migration of fortune seekers brings a sharp economic stimulus, massive government spending on infrastructure and a general feeling of prosperity. Cities such as Melbourne, San Francisco and Dunedin were made rich and cultured by their respective gold rushes. San Francisco – a tiny settlement of 200 in 1846 in a California then under U.S. military occupation following the Mexican-American War – grew to a boomtown of 36,000 by 1852. Roads, churches, schools and new towns rapidly sprang up across the state. In Dunedin, which I visited for the first time in November 2011 for the inaugural ScienceTeller Festival, the gold rush brought New Zealand's first daily newspaper, art school, medical school and public art gallery, as well as a remarkable architectural flowering that is still resplendent today. READ MORE>> THIS WEEK'S FEATURES Why the Australian Synchrotron matters Funding for the operation of the Australian Synchrotron is in crisis. Should you care? And what is it anyway? River of life The birthplace of both agriculture and civilisation, Syria's Euphrates River is again facing turmoil and change - environmental as well as political. Fiona MacDonald travels to the ancient waterway. Sexual evolution While sex purges our genome of harmful mutations and pushes biodiversity, it's a costly exercise for the average organism. So when, and why, did it all begin? John Long trawls the fossil record to find out. THIS WEEK'S BLOGS Beware the zombie parasites COSMOS intern Jenna takes a look into the bizarre world of parasites and parasitoids in a gruesome tale of zombies. A cyborg reality Research into cyborg technology is ever-increasing, but what would a 'cyborg world' look like? COSMOS intern Renae ponders the possibilities. Engines of ingenuity Australia has unparalleled opportunity to leapfrog beyond painful boom-bust economic cycles by investing in our intellectual capital to ensure prosperity. But will we? THIS WEEK'S PROFILES The sex lives of sea slugs As Aplysia sea slugs gather en masse, looking for love on the ocean floor, Scott Cummins is there to study them. Down to the wire The fabrication of the thinnest-ever conducting silicon wire is providing the next step towards the world's first quantum computer, thanks to PhD student Bent Weber. THIS WEEK'S REVIEWS Seven Wonders of the Universe that You Probably Took for Granted This author makes a big promise: to explore seven wonders of not just the world, but of the entire universe, in a book only a few hundred pages long. The Polluters The Polluters looks at the U.S.'s pollution history from the 1860s to the 1960s, and reveals the buried truth about how industries used economic and political power to dodge environmental regulation. CURRENT ISSUE IN STORE NOW! As we face a global ageing epidemic and the prospect of brain deterioration, a revolution in genetics is transforming the way we'll live in the future. Are you ready for a smarter, longer lifetime? It may be closer than you think. Plus, we look at the shaky foundations for putting the science of predicting earthquakes on trial, meet the world’s most astonishing predator, discover a clock so precise it would lose less than a second in the entire history of the universe and travel to South Australia to find out about the cutting-edge science and technology transforming this resource-rich state. Order your copy now! Read the digital edition immediately, or have a print edition sent to you. Poll Do you think adjusting the Doomsday Clock is a worthwhile exercise? Yes, it reminds us of how dire the situation is here on Earth 28% No, it's just a gimmick, it doesn't mean anything 37% Maybe, but I don't need a clock to tell me things are bad 35% Older polls If you wish to opt out from future messages please click the Unsubscribe link below.

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