]]> http://margaretpuls.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/pollgenefaq/feed/ 0 margaretpuls PolledGeneFAQ Beef CRC Fact Sheet http://margaretpuls.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/labtube-tv/ http://margaretpuls.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/labtube-tv/#comments Sat, 01 Oct 2011 04:27:36 +0000 margaretpuls http://margaretpuls.wordpress.com/?p=898 ]]> Have you checked out LabTube TV yet? LabTube is an online space where scientific or biomedical videos can be shared with the wider community.

JK Connections new logo:

JK’s old logo (right): 

 We are pleased to work on the Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation(ARCAA) annual review document. Check out our cover concept.

Sustainable food production, animal welfare and the brave  new world of designer livestock breeding were the focus of a major  international conference hosted jointly by the Beef, Dairy and Sheep  Cooperative Research Centres held in Melbourne on 2-5 May 2011.

The Applied Genomics for Sustainable Livestock Breeding conference was funded as part of the Sir Mark Oliphant Conference Series through the Australian Academy of
Science and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering,
to stage strategically significant international conferences in Australia on
high priority, cutting edge, multi-disciplinary themes. Over 360 delegates from
23 countries attended. Conference outcomes included new international
collaborations that build on the CRCs’ existing international genomics
collaborations and consensus across livestock industries in Australia on the
best ways to implement new genomic technologies.

The conference attracted approx 400 participants from 23 countries, with 20 sponsors.

Listen to Genomics to improve livestock productivity - an ABC radio Bush Telegraph interview with conference host, Professor Mike Goddard, 4 May 2011.

View and search video presentations from the conference here.

The conference dinner at the Melbourne Cricket Ground was a highlight of the event. View conference photos here.

I recently organised an Open Science event, on behalf of the CSIRO Staff Association, featuring leaders in this field including Dr Terry Cutler, Professor Anne Fitzgerald and Dr Stefan Hajkowicz.

For me, the key messages were:

- data is more effective when it is not locked up in closed loops

- open data is an enabler for innovation

- we need to rethink data access and re-use processes

- unlocking Government data (like Centrelink customer data) is fraught with privacy issues but clever models can be developed to use and model key demographic data to gain new and powerful insights into current and future services.

We did not get to hear about the Centrelink mobile phone application but instead got a far more interesting insight into ways of modelling open government data that addresses some (although not all) privacy concerns.

Julian Assange very effectively communicates his message for open government and open information in this July 2010 interview with ABC’s Nightline program. At the same time, another global media giant also from Australia, Rupert Murdoch, is moving to shut down open access to New’s Corporation’s content by installing pay firewalls on content of selected news websites (this link to analysis by Clay Shirky is well worth reading).

In a much debated antithesis to the open access model that has spurred growth of the internet over the past 30 years, Murdoch’s aim is for people to become paid subscribers to to receive full and open access to this information.

I have heard one analyst say that the conversion rate of open web traffic to paid subscribers for one of News Corp’s UK media publications was around one percent.

Interesting days…

A new animation illustrating how gold behaves at the nanoscale.

The animation has been designed as a communication tool for secondary school curriculums to use the example of gold to illustrate how bulk properties change at the nanoscale.

The National Enabling Technologies Strategy (NETS-PACE) has been expanding the reach of the national nanotechnology secondary school resources at AccessNano.

The animation was created by Bridge8 with the help of James Hutson, to explain the nanoscale and properties of nanogold. It could also be used in Scale, Properties, or the Health and Medicine NanoGold modules.

The start of the animation is also a good general introduction to the nanoscale for broader audiences.

Angeles Duran, a 49 year old Spanish woman, claims to own the sun – and she plans to start charging users for its warming rays. You go girl!

Ms Duran says that the Sun officially belongs to her  after she had the sun registered in her name at a local notary office.

She told the online edition of daily El Mundo she took the step in September after reading about an American man who had registered himself as the owner of the moon and most planets in our solar system.

There is an international agreement which states that no country may claim ownership of a planet or star, but it says nothing about individuals, she added.

‘There was no snag, I backed my claim legally, I am not stupid, I know the law. I did it but anyone else could have done it, it simply occurred to me first.’

The document issued by the notary public declares Ms Duran to be the ‘owner of the Sun, a star of spectral type G2, located in the centre of the solar system, located at an average distance from Earth of about 149,600,000 kilometers’.

The sun’s new owner is already making plans to charge every single person on this planet who uses the sun a fee, although she is not yet sure how she will enforce this. She says she will give half of her earnings to the Spanish government, 20% to her country’s pension fund, 10% to research, 10% to end world hunger and 10% to herself.

I wonder how she will disconnect supply to those who refuse to pay?

Read more in the Daily Mail.