JULY 2004

FEATURES

CSIRO Spins Senators a Doosra
(207 kb PDF)
Peter Pockley monitored Senate Estimates hearings last month as Senator Kim Carr hit the deliveries of CSIRO’s captain and vice-captain straight back down the wicket.

Vampire Bats as Stroke Saviours
Rob Medcalf analyses a clot-busting agent found in the saliva of vampire bats that could improve current treatments for stroke victims.

Tender Loving Leeches
Leeches are caring parents, building nests, carrying broods of eggs or young, and capturing prey to feed them. Fredric Govedich examines the evolution of parental care in leeches.

Microbial Gold Prospectors
Frank Reith reveals how microorganisms play a fundamental role in the transport of gold in the soil and the accumulation of gold nuggets.

Exotic Ants Threaten Indigenous Lands
Exotic ant infestations cost aboriginal communities in northern Australia $1 million annually. Ben Hoffmann describes the main culprits, and efforts to control them.

Insights from a Drunken Worm
Andrew Davies explains how inebriated worms are providing fresh insights into how alcohol works on the nervous system and how alcoholics develop acute tolerance to alcohol.

Evolutionary Clues to Prion Protein Diseases
Prions responsible for Creutzfeld-Jacob disease, mad cow disease and scrapie have no known function. Marko Premzl, Jill Gready and Jennifer Marshall Graves’ discovery of the genes responsible provides a possible reason why.

The Dopamine Connection
As Parkinson’s disease progresses, nerve cells compensate for the death of neurones by increasing the number of connections they make. However, Malcolm Horne has found that an accompanying tenfold increase in the production of the neurotransmitter dopamine sends the disease spiralling out of control.

CSIRO’s Budget Riches Are Fool’s Gold (175kb PDF)
Max Whitten says the figures don’t add up for CSIRO.

Water Recycling Options for the Thirsty Country
Most of the water used for agriculture and half of the water used in cities for industrial and domestic purposes does not need to be of drinking quality. John Radcliffe describes the potential for recycling wastewater, stormwater and rainwater in these cases.