Division of Environmental and Life Sciences

News From the Deane
The weekly update from the Dean of Division, Prof Liz Deane

Exploring the limits of life
Stefan Leuko from the Australian Centre for Astrobiology reports on a field trip to Kamchatka, Russia

Opportunities
- Australian Government Envirofund Round 9 Grants
- General Staff Development Grants - still open!
- The New Inventors Saving Water Special - be part of the audience

Events
- Law Seminar Series - "Regulation Reconceived"
- Earth and Planetary Sciences Seminar
- Biological Sciences Seminar
- ELS Seminar Series

News from the Dean

Dear Colleagues

Thanks to Kevin McCracken for sitting in the hot seat for the last three weeks whilst I was in India. You may have missed it, but ELS students featured in a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald about Indian research students in Sydney. ELS has the largest cohort in the university primarily in our strong research CORE areas of Proteomics and Genomics. ELS currently also has the largest number of research higher degree students and in the recent ARC Discovery round submitted 42 applications, the highest of any Division and ~ 30% of the total applications - here's hoping we have a high success rate!

We have had a few recent successes in gaining research $. The ARC Centre of Bioinformatics has been given extension funding for 2008 - 2010 and has been designated an ARC Centre of Excellence. Congratulations to Shoba Ranganathan who leads the Macquarie node for this. Congratulations also to Simon George who has just received an Antarctic Research grant and a matched Macquarie external grant to fund his geochemistry research and to Michelle Power and Michael Gillings who have also received an Antarctic Research grant to investigate impacts of sewage to the Antarctic environment. Michelle Power has also been awarded a grant from the Ian Potter Foundation to investigate wildlife disease potential in brushtailed rock wallabies. Congratulations Michelle.

As I plough through three weeks of emails, I will no doubt find more for next week's newsletter!

Till next week

Liz

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Exploring the Limits of Life

Stefan Leuko from the Australian Centre for Astrobiology
reports on a field trip to Kamchatka, Russia

Kamchatka is a vast land of 'fire and ice', being home to 10% of the most active volcanoes on Earth with many surrounded by glaciers.

The highest and most active volcano in Kamchatka is called Kluchevsky - the destination of this expedition. Our international team with members from America, Russia and Australia, traveled to this magnificent place located in the Bering Sea to collect samples and test several tools to improve our ability to detect life in such places and on other planets.

Arriving after a 9-hour flight from Moscow, the Kamchatka Tiger Team (KTT) with Jake Maule (US), Penny Morille (US), Alison Shaw (US) and myself (Austria), made its way to the base camp near Tolbachik Volcano to meet our Russian colleagues, led by Andrey Abramov.

The first part of the project involved drilling deep into permafrost (25 m; see Fig. 1 and Fig. 2) near Tolbachik volcano and testing the drill cores on site for the presence of ATP and lipids. Hammered by gale force winds and retrieving a 20 m long drill core by hand made us appreciate the next part of the journey.

At the foot of the majestic Kluchevsky volcano (4,300 m altitude), we were searching recent volcanic domes and lava flows for olivines, which contain tiny melt inclusions. Our volcanologist, Alison, hopes to learn more about the role of volatiles, such as water and carbon dioxide, in generating these melts.

The next target site at Mudnovsky Volcano was a place called "Dachnoye Spring" (Fig 3.). This incredible place looks like the entrance to hell. Bubbling mud ponds are surrounded by hydrothermal springs and there is a strong smell of sulfur in the air (Fig. 3). This was the place for me to grab as many samples as I could for further investigations back at Macquarie University.

Being allowed to participate on this expedition was a great pleasure for me and I hope the samples I collected are a source of many interesting and novel results, maybe helping us to better understand the evolution of life.

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ELS Congratulates Mark Taylor with Masters Student Sophia Findlay

Mark's research team’s work with Ku-ring-gai Council’s Open Space Department has focused developing river ecosystem health assessment tools and strategies to protect and improve the condition of our urban watercourses. Mark take's the view that there is no single metric or solution to measure and resolve issues of catchment health.

"My research strategy has been to develop an integrated approach to resolving issues associated with catchment condition and future prospects." he says.

"Therefore, in order to plan successfully for ‘sustainable catchments’, we have
adopted a multi-disciplinary approach."

The team have undertaken a catchment wide assessment of riparian systems to determine the health and condition of urban creek networks. To achieve this, they have developed a ‘Rapid Riparian Assessment’ (RRA) tool (Taylor et al., 2005; Findlay et al., in review). The application of this tool has meant that for the first time in the Council’s history the entire creek network (c. 230 km) has been mapped and assessed for its condition.

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Sydney Harbour Institute of Marine Science Open Day

A big thanks to all those existing and former ELS staff  involved in the very successful first Open Day at SHIMS held on Sunday 4 March.  Certainly, from what I saw on Sunday morning, it seemed that whole family groups were enjoying learning something about marine organisms as well as being entertained. SHIMS promises to be a major research and teaching hub of which ELS should quite rightly feel proud to be a part.

For those of you who have not visited SHIMS which is located at Chowder Bay at Mosman on  Sydney Harbour, it is a must.  It's simply a stunning part of Sydney's impressive coastline.

Geoff Humphreys
Associate Dean, Research

For further info on SHIMS, see: www.shims.org.au

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Opportunities

Australian Government EnviroFund

Grants for up to $50,000 are available from the Australian Government Envirofund for community groups and individuals to undertake small on-ground projects tackling important local natural resource management problems.

Examples of activities that are eligible for Round 9 include:

• Planting native vegetation
• Rehab of coastal dunes
• Controlling weeds and feral animals to protect threatened native species
• Montoring water quality or other natural resources
• Raising awareness of local natural resource management issues.

For further examples and more information please see www.nht.gov.au/envirofund .

Applications close Friday 27 April 2007.

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Division General Staff Professional Development Grants

Did you know the Division has funding available to support the professional development of its general staff? If there is a course you have been wanting to do or any other opportunity that extends your professional development, you should consider applying. The closing date for the 1st round of 2007 Staff Development Grants for General Staff in ELS is Friday the 27th April 2007. For more details and the application form, please refer to
http://www.els.mq.edu.au/staff/generalpd_info.htm

When making the ELS application, please also complete the CPD
application for Specialist Support Grants - details and application form can be found at http://www.cpd.mq.edu.au/leadership/award_specialist.htp

A second round of applications for both programmes will be called for in September.

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THE NEW INVENTORS - SAVING WATER SPECIAL

with host James O'Loghlin

A one-off half-hour special looking at new ways we can all save water

from domestic to the big picture. from now to the future.

COME AND BE PART OF THE AUDIENCE

When: 30 MARCH : 5.30 to 8.30 pm

How: Call Janice on 8333 2652 during office hours

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Events

Law Seminar Series:
A Place at the Table; Regulation Reconceived

When: Thursdays 1-2 pm (with light lunch)
Where: Trevor Martin Moot Court, Building W3A, Macquarie University

29 March
Professor Julia Black, London School of Economics
Risk Based Regulation

5 April
Dr Nick James, University of Queensland
Distracting the Masses: Corporate Convictions and the Legitimisation of Neoliberalism

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Earth and Planetary Sciences Upcoming Seminars

Seminar One:

When: 1.05pm, FRIDAY 16 March
Where: E5A-119
Topic: "An Indonesian Recipe for Making Volcanoes"
Speaker: Dr Heather Handley, GEMOC

Seminar Two:

When: 1.05pm FRIDAY 23 March
Where: E5A-119
Topic: 'Early Palaeozoic accretionary tectonics of the southern tasmanides, eastern Australia: terranes, arcs and gold."
Speaker: Dr Richard Glen, Principal Research Scientist, Geological Survey of NSW

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Biological Sciences Seminar

When: 21/03/2007 13:00:00
Where: E8A290
Speaker: Prof Dick Frankham, Macquarie University
Topic: Loss of genetic diversity in captive populations: A surprising tale of balancing selection and selective sweeps

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ELS Seminar Series

Departments in ELS host seminars covering a wide range of topics associated with ongoing research projects and other areas of interest. The seminars are delivered by academics, research staff, and students from within the Division, as well as guest speakers from other institutions and industry. Details of times, dates, locations and topics of seminars to be held over the next few weeks are listed here.

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Snippets

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