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UQ’s research into South East Queensland’s wildlife corridors aims to protect our marsupials including the Koala. Koalas were widely hunted during the 1920s and 1930s, and their populations plunged. Helped by reintroduction, they have reappeared over much of their former range, but their populations are smaller and scattered. Koalas need a lot of space—about a hundred trees per animal—a pressing problem as Australia's woodlands continue to shrink.

School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management

Predator!

UQ’s research into South East Queensland’s wildlife corridors aims to protect our marsupials including the Antechinus, a small mouse-sized marsupial. While the Antechinus may seem like a mouse it certainly has little in common with mice. An insectivorous predator, this fascinating marsupial was even the subject of Catalyst episode due to its interesting sex life!

School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management

Turbulent Marine Research

Rough seas and gale-force winds are one of the many challenges faced by geologists, oceanographers, biologists, and other scientists studying the marine environment. This photo was taken in 2005 during a voyage to understand the age and origin of the marine Naturaliste Plateau, which lies off Western Australia. Another challenge is the remoteness of the study area – the rocks of the seafloor - which lie over 3 kilometres beneath the turbulent surface!

School of Earth Sciences 

Night Lights

This is an image of the night-time eruptions of Stromboli, a small island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the north coast of Sicily, containing one of the three active volcanoes in Italy.

School of Earth Sciences

The Human Skull (and no Crossbones)

This is a pencil sketch of a skull from a female Homo sapiens sapiens. It’s amazing how far we’ve evolved.  The skull was sketched from a picture from www.skullsite.co.uk

School of Biomedical Sciences

HSV cell infection

This image captures a novel strain of the Herpes Simplex Virus (green) invading cultured African Green Monkey Kidney cells (blue).

Photo was captured in the Airway Neurobiology Lab by Alice McGovern, School of Biomedical Science.

Mammalian Cell Biology

This image captures localisation of hnRNP A2 (green) and spliceosomal protein U2AF65 (red), following treatment of mammalian cells (HeLa) with an inhibitor of transcription. Under these conditions, hnRNP A2 (green), has translocated to the cytoplasm while U2AF65 (red) remains in the nucleus. The remnants of the nucleolus are marked with arrows. Image captured on the Zeiss LSM 510 Meta confocal microscope.

School of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences 

Pink Warrior

Evimirus Mite Mesostigmata, Eviphididae

This small (0.400 mm) pink, dome-shaped mite is a member of the Evimirus uropodinus complex - a cluster of pan-tropical tramps that have been introduced into Australia. This mite feeds on nematodes in garden soils in St Lucia, Queensland, and has invaded some marginal subtropical rainforests. Related species in tropical Far North Queensland can be found in disturbed tropical rainforest soils. 

Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis

Pitch Drop

The Pitch Drop Experiment was created by UQ’s foundation Professor of Physics, Thomas Parnell, in 1927 and is now the longest running scientific experiment in the world. The experiment demonstrates that pitch, while appearing to be a solid, is actually an extremely dense liquid. In the 83 years since the experiment began, eight drops of pitch have fallen. It falls at such a slow rate because pitch has a viscosity of approximately 100 billion times that of water. You can see the experiment for yourself in the foyer of the Parnell Building (Building 7) on the Great Court.  

Current El Nino

In January sea surface heights across the cental & eastern equatorial Pacific were elevated (red), but not extremely, potentially a sign that El Niño was weaking. But in early February a strong sea level anomaly appeared NE of Australia. This swell of deep, warm water is the start of the Kelvin wave, and by late February, had spread eastward into the central Pacific & re-invigorated the current En Niño.

Centre for Spatial Environmental Research (CSER)

Outwit - Outplay - Out Science

BIOL2001 Students get to experience the flora and fauna of Australia first hand.  Here, the students are on a five-day fieldtrip to the world’s largest sand island, Fraser Island, 230 km north of Brisbane. The trip includes several hikes and four-wheel-drive excursions to various island ecosystems, ranging from the endless beaches to the towering inland rainforest. Highlights include hikes to perched freshwater lakes and giant sand dunes (like this one!), as well as spotlighting for dingos.

School of Biological Sciences

Photon goes on a quantum walkabout

Physicists at the quantum technology laboratory send a single photon on a quantum random walk. On the right of the photo single photons are injected into an interferometric network which spreads the photon out across 7 separate spatial modes. Quantum random walks are useful tools in many areas of theoretical science, from quantum computation to the simulation of quantum processes in biological systems.

Photo courtesy of Matthew Broome, Quantum Technology Laboratory  

Fly Foot

Apart from two claws the foot posseses two membranous flaps, the Pulvilli, which are covered with tiny hooked hairs. Their adhesiveness enable the fly to 'stick' to almost any surface. Flies use their feet for many purposes. The claws can grab to hold on. The small hairs will adhere to smooth surfaces through surface tension. Other hairs are sensory organs, allowing flies to taste with their feet.

Image courtesy of the Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis 

Ornate Falso Spider Mite

Tuckerella, Prostigmata, Tuckerellidae

Ornate false spider mites (Prostigmata, Tuckerellidae) are believed to be the earliest derivative family in the Tetranychoidea (spider mites and their relatives). Unlike most plant-parasitic mites, Australian species of Tuckerella tend to be found on the stems of woody plants - usually in the cracks on small twigs - where they appear to feed on the cambium. However, other species of Tuckerella are associated with grasses. The long plumose posterior setae that can extend the length of the body (they are truncated in this picture) may help these mites to disperse on wind currents, but the function of the leaf-like body setae is unknown.

Image courtesy of Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis

Martian Wink

Prostigmata, Parasitengona. This structure, which appears rather like the eye of a character straight from science fiction, is the genital opening of a terrestrial parasitengone mite and the three oval structures are the genital papillae. Genital papillae are remnants of opisthosomal limb segments in acariform mites (and still retain the segmented condition in some primitive oribatid mites) and are probably homologous with the spinnerets of spiders. Although spiders use their opisthosomal limb remnants for spinning silk, acariform mites probably use theirs for osmoregulatory activities, possibly including drinking. 

Image courtesy of the Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis

Kiss, Anyone?

Think twice about eating something a fly has eaten. When a fly lands on food, it will first extend its mouth parts until the mop of a pseudo trachea touches the food. Then it gulps the food through the pores of this mop. The digestive juices start to dissolve the food until it can be swallowed like a liquid. However, the stomach content of the fly may contain nasty bacteria or other disease. 

Image courtesy of the Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis

Assassin Bug

These insects prey on other insects and benefit people. This group is characterized by the elongated, narrow head with the three-segmented beak folded back under the head.

Both adults and nymphs are predacious, they live on bushes and tall vegetation where they catch other insects and suck them dry.

Image courtesy of the Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis

Experience Slime @ Experience Science

An initiative of The University of Queensland’s Science Faculty, Experience Science exposes senior high school students to a diverse range of science disciplines including biotechnology, chemistry, environmental science, food sciences, health science, information technology, marine science, maths and physic. In this program, students in years 10-12 with a passion for science can discover what studying science is like at UQ and how science is applied in industry and our everyday lives. Students can explore a wide range of workshops and are presented with information on career opportunities.

Image courtesy of Kaylene Biggs, for the Faculty of Science

A G-protein Coupled Receptor (GPCR) in a cell membrane environment

A G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR) as studied by molecular dynamics simulation of the receptor model in a realistic physiological environment of a cell membrane lipid bilayer surrounded by water. Such model systems provide an opportunity to understand mechanism of molecular recognition and receptor activation at an atomic level, which is beyond the limits of experimental methods and also facilitate structure-based drug design.

Image courtesy of Dr. Alpeshkumar Malde , School of Chemistry and Molecular Biology 

Photoconversion of the epiphysis

Confocal image showing the dorso-ventral diencephalic tract (DVDT) in red among the green neurons of the 24 hours old living zebrafish brain. The embryo used was transgenic, expressing the photoconvertible protein “Kaede” in all mature neurons in the brain. The epiphysial neurons were photoconverted from green to red using a UV laser beam directed selectively at them. After several minutes, the photoconverted protein had diffused to the tip of the axons of these cells allowing to visualize the entire DVDT.

Image courtesy of Dr Arnaud Gaudin , School of Biomedical Science

Diabolical Conical Intersections (Flush the other way)

 When molecules get excited by light, then decay at points called "conical intersections". Understanding the location and nature of these points is important to understanding photochemistry. This picture shows the extent of conical intersection seams for a model of a conjugated dye (left) and the localization of molecular charge near the intersections (right). The charge distribution in the molecule changes abruptly near the intersection, suggesting how environmental effects can tune photochemical outcomes.

Image courtesy of Dr. Seth Olsen, Centre for Organic Photonics & Electronics; School of Mathematics & Physics

Snapshot of the binding of a substrate to the enzyme purple acid phosphate

In order to understand how an enzyme works and how to modify its action it is very useful to visualize its interactions with substrates. Here, we used a mimic of an actual substrate to model its initial binding to the enzyme and the rearrangements that are required before catalysis (i.e. hydrolysis) can take place.

Image courtesy of  Associate Professor, Gary Schenk, SCMB, School of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences 

CNS-MRI-ART

Central Nervous System (CNS) Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) art. The image above is a coloured volume rendering of the adult zebrafish brain obtained from an isotropic 10µm Magnetic Resonance Histology (MRH) image set. 

Photo courtesy of  Jeremy F.P. Ullmann, School of Biomedical Sciences      

Seeing Hypersonic Flow

Holographic interferometry can be used to visualise transparent flows. The interference fringes (light and dark bands) bend where there are gradients in the flow density. This image shows hypersonic flow over a simulated space craft (the sphere to the left of the image) followed by an attached “ballute” balloon parachute used to slow the vehicle as it enters a planetary atmosphere. The original image was recorded holographically in the X2 Expansion Tube. White light is used to reconstruct the image which is then recorded on a digital camera. 

Photo courtesy of Dr Tim McIntyre, School of Maths and Physics

Quantum Computer used to calculate the precise energy of molecular hydrogen

A groundbreaking approach to molecular simulations, created by UQ physicists and Harvard chemists, could have profound implications not just for chemistry, but also for a range of fields from cryptography to materials science.

Photo courtesy of Ben Lanyon, School of Maths and Physics 

Pongamia Pinnata Power

This picture shows the oil droplets (O), protein (P) and starch (S) that can be found in a seed from the legume tree Pongamia pinnata. At the ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Legume Research, scientists work diligently on these oil seeds, which have the potential to make a significant contribution to resolving the future energy dilemma. Pongamia seeds contain a high percentage (40-45%) of oils that are composed of fatty acids and triglycerides ideal for biodiesel production.

Photo courtesy of Prof Ray Rose, ARC Centre of Excellence for Intergrative Legume Research

Stem Girdling: Giving Plants a Wax Job

With a nifty method including hot wax, Dr Brett Ferguson from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Legume Research kills isolated segments of a plant stem. The method is called ‘girdling’ and is used to control how signals travel through the plant. This technique allows the plant parts located above and below the girdle to continue to grow. Using stem girdling, one can investigate how long-distance signals move and what developmental processes they are required for.

Photo courtesy of Dr Brett Feguson, ARC Centre of Excellence for Intergrative Legume Research