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April graduation!
Last week, we had one of the first live graduations we'd had for some time, and it was a bumper one - Angus, Marcus and Jen all graduated with their undergraduate degrees, as did Lou Irish from Ann's lab. So, it was all over to the old quad to congratulate them and grab a photo or two! Congratulations all - thoroughly deserved...
Ingrid becomes a mother….again!
Ingrid was as organized as usual, and gave birth to baby Scarlett at 7:20 am on April 9. Current reports are that Scarlett has not learned yet to cry, but communicates in a series of small toy-like squeaks - they can only hope that continues for some time... Ingrid, Scarlett - and Percy - are all doing well and no doubt girding their loins for an increased level of child care for the next 20 years or so...!
New research funding to develop selective insecticides!
Joel and Ron, teamed up with fellow SOLES academic Dr Emily Remnant, have been successful in procuring funding from Horticultural Innovation Australia (HIA) to create new insecticides that are safer and more selective. HIA collect levies from a wide range of produce growers and fund research into areas that will directly benefit those growers. Joel, Ron and Emily's project will focus on pollinator health, using structure-guided design approaches to create molecules that will selectively act on the honeybee pests Varroa destructor and/or the small hive beetle, while remaining innocuous to the honeybees themselves. The funding will complement a generous philanthropic donation that has...
Taylor Goes to New Zealand!
Over the holiday shutdown period, Taylor jumped over the Tasman for her first New Zealand visit (in the 11th hour of her PhD of course). It was an 8 day solo adventure with a jam packed schedule. One night in Auckland, 2 days in Rotorua, a...
Undiscovered Sydney – discovered (with Dave Gell)
Dave Gell was visiting from U Tasmania this week to determine the structure of a protein he has been working on for some time. Mario and Henry had kindly purified some protein for Dave - who's been busy with other work - and they grew some *beautiful* and very...
New lab paper accepted FEBS J
Mario's long journey to publish the carefully methodical work he and others have done on the inter-subunit interaction network within the NuRD complex has finally come to fruition as his paper is now accepted in FEBS J. We're quite fond of the paper because it...
Science in the swamp
As part of Science Week, Taylor, our outreach and media darling, has been demonstrating solar power (with robots of course) at the Science in the Swamp event, to an audience captivated small children... Note the "Nutty Scientists"...
You don’t often see horn players in bike shoes…
...but Ann captured Joel playing at the Con a few weeks ago breaking that little-known but cardinal rule of jazz...
Neil is done and dusted…
...with that PhD thing. Congratulations to Neil who got completion letter this week letting him know that has satisfied the requirements for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Officially we can't call him Dr Neil until the actual graduation ceremony,...
Chay wins a prize for her thesis!
Chayenne Ghazi, who worked with us recently, was awarded a prize for the thesis that she presented based on her work here. The HAS-prize is annually awarded to students who produce excellent gradutation assignments at lab schools. It is named after the 'Haagse...
Jason S ties the knot (in a sporren)
Jason has jetted half way round the world to we his betrothed in St Andrews on a glorious spring day. He was resplendent in a kilt made from the MacSchmidberger tartan. What a dashing couple they...
Ana and Callum become parents. Again!
Congratulations to Ana, Callum and Emma, who have just welcomed a new family member into the world - meet Elliot, everyone... Everyone is...
Katschi’s family portrait
Neil, Katschi and new (March 2017) arrival Livvy pose for the camera...
Taylor’s science communication career continues…
As one of the organizers of the Sydney version of the International March for Science, which is being held on Earth Day (22 April), Taylor can now be seen on youtube promoting the event here. We're expecting her to have her own youtube channel...
Katschi becomes a mum!
Katschi Bendak, formerly from Joel's lab and now working across at CCIA in Randwick, has taken a little time off to become a mum - and the result of her efforts is Olivia Marie Wilson, born on her due date (with German punctuality) of 15/03/17 at 51 cm and 3.4 kg....