News and views

The Australian Academy of Science has announced Professor Barry Ninham AO FAA as the recipient of the Matthew Flinders Medal and Lecture—one of Australia’s most prestigious honours for work in the physical sciences.

For more than 30 years, NASA has been working on how to grow crops in space, to support human life in orbit or on other planets. Plants could provide not only fresh food for human space travellers, they could remove CO2 and provide oxygen in enclosed habitats, as well as turning waste water into drinking water. They can also have a positive psychological effect, enhancing the environment of small and often stark space stations.

The Australian Academy of Science has launched two new reports on the future of Australian science in the areas of accelerator science and energy.

The Australian Academy congratulates all the recipients of the 2016 Eureka Prizes, including Academy Fellow Professor Gordon Wallace, and EMCR Executive member Associate Professor Sharath Sriram.

Applications have now closed. Please apply next year. The EMCR Forum is the national voice of Australia's emerging scientists, representing researchers who are up to 15 years post-PhD (or other research higher degree), irrespective of their professional appointment.

The internationally renowned event, Falling Walls Lab, will be held in Australia for the first time next week, hosted by the Australian Academy of Science.

Australia’s Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) Pilot today announced former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick as Chair of its Expert Advisory Group, and the acceptance of eight new institutions into its Pilot of the UK-based Athena SWAN Charter.

Former Academy President Professor Brian Anderson and polymers pioneer Professor David Solomon have been recognised with Australia's highest honour, Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia, in the 2016 Queen's Birthday Honours list.

A Prime Minister’s Prize-winning epilepsy specialist, an internationally recognised astrophysicist, a geotechnical engineer and a Southern Ocean climate scientist have joined the Council of the Australian Academy of Science.