Research News
New insight into history
Sometimes scientific breakthroughs are the result of happy accidents or chance encounters. At a chance meeting between Dr John Magnussen, Professor of Radiology at the Australian School of Advanced Medicine, and Roman pottery expert Dr Jaye McKenzie-Clark, an Early Career Fellow at Macquarie’s Department of Ancient History, she lamented that analysing the composition of pottery samples us...
The next level of early diagnosis
It’s a known fact that early detection of diseases saves lives. If, for instance, doctors could diagnose cancer when malignant cells are first developing, treatment could begin before they do any harm. Macquarie researcher Dr Dayong Jin, the Australian Research Council Future Fellow at Macquarie’s Advanced Cytometry Laboratories, is at the forefront of the creation of hypersensitive molecu...
Teaming up to fight a killer
Until recently, Australian researchers trying to unlock the mysteries of motor neurone disease (MND) worked in relative isolation. Based at universities and laboratories in Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart, they usually only saw each other at medical research conferences. Then, in 2010 while attending an MND meeting, the leaders of five research teams decided to combine their expertise – gene...
Pioneers of the wired world
These days we take Wi-Fi for granted, but 20 years ago any thoughts of linking computers wirelessly were largely theoretical. A determined and hardworking team of researchers at Macquarie University and CSIRO helped turned Wi-Fi into a reality. In the early 1990s, Dr David Skellern, then head of Macquarie’s Department of Electronics, joined forces with CSIRO and Dr Neil Weste, a professor...
Resilience – the key to coping with emotional distress
Helping people handle stress, deal with change and bounce back from failure is becoming increasingly common everywhere from the military to banks, the sports field – and schools. “All psychology is basically about resilience,” says Professor Ron Rapee, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology and Director of the Centre for Emotional Health (CEH). “Being able to man...
In the workplace, it’s about control
While researching and developing ways to help people become more emotionally resilient is an evolving, increasingly significant area of scientific enquiry, bringing resilience training into the world of work can be problematic, according to Professor Robert Spillane, Professor and past Director of the Macquarie Graduate School of Management. Trained in psychology and a teacher of philo...