In the lead up to Australia’s National Science Week this month (don’t forget to sign up for that), the Australia Museum is holding People’s Choice Awards for their Eureka Science Prizes.
GO VOTE. (There are prizes for Australian residents)
I actually have connections with one of these scientists! Squeee! I am like legitimate (or not…). Kathy Belov, nominated for her work regarding the genetics of the Tadmanian Devil facial tumour (DFTD). Marsupial immunology is a small field, so Kathy was one of the collaborators with my ex-supervisor on the launchblock for my research (one of my former lab-mates now has Kathy as a PhD co-supervisor) – near the end of my research our lab received some very useful American marsupial DNA libraries from her.Good luck Kathy.
And if transmissible facial cancer in devils is not cool enough for you there is also:
- a gamer-chick making diamond-based nanodrugs,
- a link between climate change and increasing danger of allergies,
- the discovery of five new species of glow-worms (and a parasitic wasp),
- not to be outdone, the discovery of almost 50 new sharks and rays (or over 100), and
- using radiocarbon dating to investigate what exactly caused cimate and atmospheric changes in the past to better udnerstand what is going on today
It's Alive!! 
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