An international team of astronomy researchers led by Swinburne University of Technology's Professor Duncan Forbes and Dr Mike Beasley, have been awarded seven nights of observation time on the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii - worth around $1 million.

International health authorities have gone on high alert as more reports emerge from south-east Asian countries of deaths and illness caused by an unidentified, potentially lethal pneumonia-like infection dubbed Hong Kong severe acute respiratory syndrome. [ + ]

The American Academy of Neurology has given its 2003 Potamkin Award for research into Alzheimer's disease to Dr Ashley Bush, co-founder of Melbourne biotechnology company Prana Biotechnology (ASX: PBT). [ + ]

The Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) and the University of Adelaide are to extend their collaborative research efforts with the recent announcement of the establishment of a Chair in Photonics and Chair in Microwave Radar at the university.

A research team has created a computer model device that could help to reduce car crash injuries. The device - a collapsing spring fitted between the seat and the floor pan of the car - absorbs most of the impact in a motoring accident without bouncing back and thereby reduces the severity of whiplash injury.

Pioneering materials research could ensure that consumers' electricity bills stay as low as possible in the future. The investigation is taking place at Loughborough University in the English Midlands.

Technology to connect conventional fuel filling stations to the gas supply system, enabling them to refuel hydrogen-powered vehicles of the future, is being developed in a project led by researchers of the Warwick Process Technology Group, part of Warwick University, England.

A colourful combination of red light, blue dye and a plant hormone can be used to kill cancer cells with a lethal flurry of chemicals, according to a study by Cancer Research UK scientists.

"Most farmers' knowledge level when it comes to GM crops is just too low for them to make informed decisions." So says Angus Macneil, Chair of the Association Grains Committee, NSW Farmers' Association. [ + ]

Melbourne has been chosen as the site for the world's first Diabetes Vaccine Development Centre, a joint initiative of the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International. [ + ]

A drug manufacturing contract signed between two Brisbane biotech companies shows how Queensland's maturing biotech sector is creating opportunities for cross-pollination between its different layers. [ + ]

If Labor is re-elected to office in NSW on March 22 it will create a new State Minister for Science and Medical Research, and would also set up a new cancer institute, Premier Bob Carr has announced. [ + ]

Melbourne-based Genetic Technologies (GTG) has inked its biggest deal yet, with Swedish DNA company Pyrosequencing. [ + ]

US anti-cancer therapeutics company ImClone Systems has signed an agreement with UK antibody engineering company Domantis, to use Domantis' proprietary domain-antibody technology to develop new therapeutics. [ + ]

There's no easy way of popping a gene into human cells to repair or replace a defective gene -- at least, not yet. But Dr Andy Choo's research team at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Melbourne is developing such a technology: a sort of plug-and-play gene 'cassette' employing a tiny, but fully functional human artificial chromosome. [ + ]