November Edition

From the Head

SOBScript

 

 

From the Head

Congratulations to all those who were successful in getting new ARC and NH&MRC grants, all of which have been announced since the last Newsletter. Lists of the new grants appear later in this Newsletter. The School (and the Faculty, College and University) have all done remarkably well in gaining grants, and we can look forward to a period of great activity and productivity to come. I hope you all have time and energy to enjoy your research.

My heartiest commiseration to those who did not succeed. These are very tough competitions, and there can be surprising differences in outcomes from year to year. Also, of course, the way ARC grants are assessed, and some of the criteria, are changing for next year's round - so it is definitely worth persisting, revising your proposal and reapplying. There is really good support available for grant writing, and I urge everyone to use the advice of others in the School - I hope the nascent research groups can foster this sort of mutual help - and of the University. Merrilee Robb, the University's Director of Research Development, has lots of experience in advising on the optimal way to present your case. Talking to her early on in the writing of your grant applications may save you a lot of time.

We also have two promotions to celebrate - Bruce Lyon's to Senior Lecturer and Mary Peat's to Associate Professor - congratulations to you both!

This reminds me to say that, if you are thinking about applying for promotion or reclassification next year (or even planning for future years), it is a good idea to discuss this with me, or your PDR reviewer or supervisor, or someone who has experience on promotions committees (Maureen or I can suggest names) as soon as possible, so as to be able to develop the best possible case.

Both the School's major equipment requests (one for additional research equipment, to support the move of research labs from A12 to A08, and the other for computer imaging equipment, including servers) were successful. Because of the lack of support from the University for major teaching equipment this year, and for the foreseeable future, I have not yet called for requests for the money we allocated in the 2000 budget for "minor" equipment. The money is still there, untouched, and will be carried forward, untouched, into 2001. In spite of a further small cut in income, next year's School budget isn't too bad, and we will be able to set aside further funds for equipment from our 2001 income. Once needs for the new MBLG 2002 unit are clarified, there will be a chance to bid for equipment funds for teaching and research.

All in all it has been a good month, and we can look forward to next year with confidence.

I hope to see you at the Christmas party - the last chance for a while for us all to get together.

Roz

 

Head of Schools Report

The Head of School's Report for November,

 

Nov '00

HEAD OF SCHOOL'S REPORT

Staffing

Lectureship in Bioinformatics

Seminars were held on 13 November, and interviews and the University Selection Committee meeting on 14 November.

 

Grants Recieved for 2001

ARC GRANTS 2001
NAME
PROJECT TITLE
2001
2002
2003
TOTAL
ARC LARGE
          
Dr C Dickman Population dynamics of Australian desert rodents: effects of competition for food with ants 70,000 66,000 64,000 200,000
Dr T Madsen Parasites, immunogenetics and fitness: studies on a long-lived predator in tropical Australia 36,000 36,000 39,000 111,000
Dr J Melville Evolutionary ecology and molecular systematics of desert agamid and iguanid lizards 42,000 48,000 35,000 125,000
Dr B Oldroyd Does genetic diversity promote self organisation and task specialisation in social insects? 58,000 61,000 63,000 182,000
A/Prof R Overall Intercellular communication via plant endomembrane network 97,000 79,000 82,000 258,000
Dr K Raphael/Dr M Frommer/Dr A Meats Clock genes and mating behaviour in the Queensland fruit fly 63,000 60,100 58,250 181,350
Prof R Shine The evolutionary role of phenotypic plasticity in cold-climate reptile production 200,000 160,000 164,000 524,000
Dr J Sved/Dr M Frommer Genomic changes, population divergence and speciation in Queensland fruit flies 86,000 84,000 84,000 254,000
Dr M Thompson Evolution of viviparity in vertebrates: calcium transport 56,000 56,000 58,000 170,000
  Sub-total 708,000 650,100 647,250 2,005,350
ARC FELLOWSHIPS 2001
        
Dr T Madsen Senior Research Fellowship (for 5 years) 69,534 73,477 78,504 221,515
Dr J Melville Postdoctoral Research Fellowship 56,234 59,454 63,913 179,601
  Sub-total 125,768 132,931 142,417 401,116
ARC (SPIRT) 2001
A/Prof Kingsford (et.al.) The influence of commercial jellyfish on water quality in coastal New South Wales 98,000 89,000 91,000 278,000
Dr A Meats (includes1 APAI) Eradicating fruit flies from the Fruit Fly Exclusion Zone (FFEZ) 100,000 84,000 90,000 274,000
Underwood (et.al.) Reducing discards in the Hawkesbury River squid trawl fishery 75,860 73,000   148,860
Cox, Larkum et.al. (includes1 APDI) Fluorescent corals of the Great Barrier Reef: their distributional patterns, stress resistance and capacity to survive climate change 50,234 52,080 53,922 156,236
  Sub-total 324,094 298,080 234,922 857,096
           
  Grand total 1,157,862 1,081,111 1,024,589 3,263,562

 

NH&MRC Grants for 2001
NAME
PROJECT TITLE
2001
2002
2003
TOTAL
Prof R Skurray/Dr N Firth Molecular genetics and evolution of antibiotic resistant staphylococci 145,000 145,000 145,000 435,000
Prof R Skurray/ Dr M Brown Multidrug resistance regulatory protein QacR from Staphylococcus aureus 65,000 65,000 65,000 195,000
Dr M Brown/ Prof R Skurray QacA-mediated multidrug resistance and export in Staphylococcus aureus 145,000 145,000 145,000 435,000
Grand total 355,000 355,000 355,000 1,065,000

 

 

Publications

Publications received by the School Database since the last Newsletter

Book Chapter

Overall, R.L., White, R.G., Blackman, L.M. & J.E. Radford (2000). Actin and myosin in plasmodesmata. Actin, a dynamic framework for multiple plant cell functions. Kluwer. 497-515

Peat, M. (2000). Online assessment: the use of web-based self-assessment. Flexible futures in University teaching. Herrmann,A & M. Kulski (eds), CEA, Curtin Univ of Technol. 119-127

Conference

Peat, M. (2000). A virtual learning environment: supporting student learning on-line. 4th Pacific Rim first year in higher education conference 2000. Queensland University of technology, Brisbane.

Peat, M. (2000). Online assessment: the use of web-based self assessment materials to support self directed learning. Teaching and Learning Forum 2000.

Peat, M., Grant, A.M. & J.R. Dalziel (2000). The importance of forming social and academic networks for students in transition to university study. 4th Pacific Rim first year in higher education conference 2000. Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane.

Journal

Booth, D., Thompson, M.B. & S. Herring. (2000). How incubation temperature influences the physiology and growth of embryonic lizards. J. Comp. Physiol. B. 170:269-276

Cisternas, P.A. & P.J. Armati. (2000). Immune system cell markers in the northern brown bandicoot, Isoodon macrourus. Dev. Comp. Immunol. 24:771:782.

 

 

What is a Professor?

This year the School was graced by a number of Study Abroad students in our undergraduate courses. One of the students, Heather sent us this little precis of the Top Ten Things I've Learned at Sydney Uni (besides what they teach you in class!)

1. You don't have to read everything on the reading list.

2. Midterms are a GOOD thing.

3. There is no parallel to hands-on learning.

4. The steeper the learning curve, the worse it IS when you're doing it, and the better it WAS when you're done.

5. Australian lecturers like you to call them by their first names.

6. "Professor" is a prestigious position, not just a name for anyone who lectures at uni

7. Volunteering in a lab is fun (even when it's boring).

8. Someone discovered that animals learn better under stress -- underhanded justification for undergraduate examinations.

9. Studying alone in a comfy cafe is the best way to study.

10. I'm going to miss it.

Heather

Terrestrial Group Strategic Plan

Towards a Strategic Plan for the Terrestrial Group

I have been asked to develop a strategic plan for the aforementioned group, to address issues raised in Professor Skurray's letter on group tasks. I have had no previous experience with this kind of task, but have closely examined previous attempts within the School (and the wider community) to formulate such plans, and herewith offer the following draft. I believe it is
important that in this new Golden Age of Australian Universities, we should abandon our previous conservatism and adopt the up-to-date language of the marketplace.

(1) Postgraduate enrolments.

We propose to deliver out-of-the-box ROI by seizing customized models in order to
benchmark ubiquitous niches and ultimately, repurpose leading-edge partnerships. We envisage continuing work to streamline out-of-the-box systems and incentivize transparent relationships.

(2) Postgraduate completions.
The most feasible way for us to optimize distributed schemas is by way of revolutionising the enterprise communities involved. By doing so, we can harness the magnetic experiences of our students, facilitating end-to-end eyeballs.

(3) Research-active staff.
Clearly, the central issue is to seize enterprise infomediaries, in the hope that we can unleash enterprise vortals.

(4) Publications.
The group was unsure whether our emphasis should be to generate granular applications, or to disintermediate leading-edge e-business in this field.

(5) Grants and funding.
An enthusiastic engagement with dot-com infrastructures might help us to aggregate revolutionary action-items. Overall, our aim must be to innovate compelling platforms and incubate seamless architectures.

In the unlikely event that that the above plan is not judged suitable, I will prepare a more conventional alternative early in the New Year.

Rick Shine

The Burgess Shale

BURGESS SHALE FOSSIL TRIP - By Angela Low

On the 18th. September my husband and I drove from Lake Louise in British Columbia, Canada to a tiny town called Field. We were going to walk to the Burgess Shale fossil site. The weather was rainy and miserable as we arrived at the rendez-vous. It was immediately apparent that the 'Senior Steamers' over-60's group we had booked for had gone by the board. This group of 15 walkers plus guide looked young, fit and eager and included people who made their living as mountain guides and ski instructors. What had we let ourselves in for?!!

After a brief introduction we drove to Takakkaw Falls near Whiskey Jack Hostel (named for a local bird) and set off or should I say UP!! The first half hour was STEEP....killing. We then had a rest and introduced ourselves. Our guide, Paul, was a palaeontology Ph.D student from Calgary, working on dinosaurs. This was his summer job. He had done the walk 7 times in 9 days, once in 2 feet of snow. Amongst the others were a retired physician, a science journalist and a human anatomist. They all pointed to me as the most likely to pilfer fossils when I said I worked in a university museum and put up a student display each year on The Burgess Shale fossils. If only.... the site is of course fiercely protected with remote cameras at all times.

We were headed to Walcott's Quarry, found in 1909 by Charles Doolittle Walcott, a site from which he collected some 65,000 fossils from the early Cambrian, 520 million years ago. Continuing up along the same track used by Walcott for his ponies and mules we experienced some of the most spectacular scenery in the world. These walking trails were established by the railways to encourage tourism when trains first crossed The Rocky Mountains. We were asked to keep to the track to minimise soil damage. Autumn colours were superb and the weather gradually cleared to reveal snow covered peaks, glaciers hanging over valleys forming huge waterfalls and abundant wildlife. Many birds, a lemming and a pika were identified. The guide had seen a black bear on the previous trip and showed us the exact spot but no luck (in spite of my husband excitedly pointing to a shadowed rock.)

We stopped for lunch above the tree line overlooking Emerald Lake far below, gorgeously blue-green. After this we came to the scree slope of discards from the quarry and spent some time fossicking. Burgess Shale fossils are famous for their exquisite preservation of soft bodied animals including internal organs. We saw a priapulid worm, Ottoia, with its complete gut intact. Also trilobites and weird arthropods including Walcott's first famous organism Marella, the tiny 'Lace crab'. Over 15,000 of these have been collected from this site. The one I saw looked perfect. The last stage of the walk up to the quarry looked simple but was a very challenging series of switchbacks taking us to nearly 8,000 feet (2400m).

The quarry is tiny, just over head height and maybe 100 yards long, though we could see where recent excavations have extended it down, yielding even more fossils and more new species. Much of this work is still to be published. So far over 125 genera have been described and placed in as many as 50 different phyla, up to 20 of which are not known today. These interpretations are much debated and controversial but the array of animal forms is astounding and gave the first indication of the huge proliferation of life called The Cambrian Explosion. There is even a chordate. Looking around from the quarry the scenery is breathtaking, huge rocky Mt. Wapta above, Emerald Lake now way below and snowy peaks of the President Range in the distance. I attempted a panoramic photograph to emulate Walcott's famous black and white shot. We then headed down and reached the car after 6pm., a 10 hour day covering 21 km and 750 m UP and back.

Completely exhausted we drove back to Lake Louise and there, by the side of the highway, we saw a bear.

SOBScript

The public profile of the School just keeps getting better. Thanks to the efforts of one of our senior lecturers, the joys and mysteries of entomology have been revealed to a much wider audience. Dr Dieter "no not all the snack foods were for me" Hochuli, was featured in an article in the very respected and informative gentlemens magazine, Ralph. Dieter was consulted at length as to the likely survival of cockroaches after a nuclear incident. Dieter was completely shocked when confronted by the fact the magazine was not an industry publication for the technical staff of the School named in honour of one of our staff members, but was in fact directed at hormone infested post teenage males with highly disposable incomes and completely redundant IQ's.

The Neuroscience unit is flying high yet again. Assoc. Prof Patsy Armati has recieved an extension of her Glaxo Wellcome funding for another year and Emily Mathey gave a platform presentation at the recent National Multiple Sclerosis Society of Australia Annual meeting at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute.

Rick Shine has taken off for Vanuatu to team up with Sohan Shetty and Rob Reid in an endevour to investigate the design and ergomonics of hammocks ( Rick keeps saying that he is playing with banded sea snakes, but we know the truth!).