It can tolerate heat, drought, even salinity, with new research revealing genes that could improve stress tolerance in the two species of cultivated rices that nearly five billion people rely on for their staple diet.

The full genetic code of Australian native rice Oryza australiensis has been published in Scientific Reports by a team led by Macquarie University.

Oryza australiensis grows across the tropical monsoon areas of northern Australia. It is one of four native Australian rices.

“This rice can grow up to three metres tall during the monsoon season,” says Honorary Professor Brian Atwell from the School of Natural Sciences. “Then in the dry season, its roots can survive through extreme heat and drought,” says Atwell.

“We’ve been interested in the survivability tricks of this native rice for many years,” he says. “But it has been challenging to tease out its secrets. The genome is twice the size of domesticated rice and much of it is in repeat sequences, so-called junk DNA.”

“Piecing together the genome was somewhat like doing a jigsaw puzzle of a polar bear on the ice during a snowstorm,” he explains.

Rice evolved about 45 million years ago. Today, there are 25 species of rice but only two have been domesticated: O. sativa in China more than 6000 years ago; and O. glaberrima in West Africa about 3000 years ago.

Most rice production now depends on a few high-yield strains of O. sativa. Australian wild rices evolved millions of years ago and, because of their ability to survive extreme conditions, they represent vast reservoirs of untapped genetic variation that could be harnessed for domestic rice improvement.

It’s a timely discovery, Atwell says: rice growers around the world are facing a range of climate challenges. Growers in Bangladesh are being challenged by salinity, Vietnamese growers are coping with higher summer temperatures, and water availability is always an issue in Australia.

“Now we have a complete genome, researchers around the world can use the knowledge in several ways: to create a new domesticated Australian rice; to determine how far we can push conventional rice breeding; or to modify conventional rice by introducing Australian rice genes to give it greater stress tolerance.”

The research was funded by Macquarie University with support from the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture.

Evie’s question is super interesting. I have spent many years studying and working with different kinds of bees and I’ve never seen a bee accidentally sting another bee – but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. So, I’ve done some reading to try to find out if anybody else has.

There are many different kinds of bees and some live in groups. The most famous of the bees that live in big groups are honey bees (probably because their honey is so tasty).

Honey bees that live in the same hive are called nestmates because they share a nest. The queen bee lays all the eggs in the hive and has mostly daughters. So usually nestmates are sister-bees that get along very well. They cooperate to feed their little sisters and brothers, collect food, build and protect their nests from animals (or bees from other nests) that want to eat them or their honey.

Because sometimes honey bees steal nectar (the main ingredient for making honey) from other nests, some bees, called guard bees, stand at the door and sniff the bees that land there with their antennae. If the newly landed bee smells like she belongs in the nest, the guard lets her nestmate in. If not, the guard will bite and sting the intruder bee, preventing the intruder from entering the nest.

In experiments where scientists investigate how bees tell whether a bee is their nestmate or not, bees sometimes fail to recognise their nestmates and end up accidentally stinging their sisters! They also sometimes let bees into the hive that are not their nestmates.

So yes, when trying to defend their nests from intruders, bees sometimes accidentally sting their nestmates, but only because they mistake their sisters for intruders.

I can’t say that I blame them. I’m not sure I’d be so good at recognising my sisters if I had thousands of them.

So, when a piece of research comes along that fits in with expectations, connects missing evidence and supports current research, it is welcomed and applauded like a long-lost friend.

This is the enviable position that a Macquarie researcher has found herself in and she couldn’t be more excited. Dr Kira Westaway from the Department of Environmental Sciences recently discovered the missing evidence that connects the human dispersal timeline from Africa round to Australia and supports an early arrival of modern humans into Australia.

Her lead-authored research recently published in Nature provides evidence for a human presence in Southeast Asia between 73,000-63,000 years ago – almost 20,000 years earlier than previously thought.

“You know that your research has been accepted when everyone collectively sighs in relief,” said Kira.

“We can now say with some confidence that modern humans had reached the island of Sumatra before 65ka (kilo annum) – when evidence suggests they had already made the crossing to Australia. This evidence has been greatly anticipated but has been a long time coming.”

The site, Lida Ajer, was a ‘lost cave’ excavated over 120 years ago by the ‘Java Man’ discoverer and Dutch palaeoanthropologist, Eugen Dubois. His findings were not lost, now housed in the Lieden museum in the Netherlands, but the exact location of the cave had been lost to scientific and even local knowledge.

Armed with a copy of a 120-year-old map and plan of the cave, Kira searched endlessly to rediscover this lost archive of evidence that was crucial to the human dispersal story.

“I sometimes feel like my life is like an Indiana Jones movie – finding lost caves in tropical jungles using a weathered old map, recovering fossil treasure to bring back to the museums,” she said.

Why was Lida Ajer so worth finding?

Nestled in amongst the dense array of orangutan teeth, Dubois also found two human teeth that were thought to be of great antiquity. Kira and her colleagues rediscovered the site with the intention of establishing a firm chronology for the evidence and testing the modern human attribution of the teeth.

“The hardest part was trying to find the site again.

“We only had a sketch of the cave and a rough map from a copy of Dubois’s original field notebook. We stumbled across the cave almost by accident. But, the minute I saw a large calcite column in the entrance I knew we had found the cave dug by Dubois over 120 years earlier.”

The Lida Ajer human teeth were identified as modern human 70 years ago by Hooijer, a Dutch palaeontologist studying orangutan fossils, and while the study was convincing, it lacked comparative studies of contemporaneous human fossils.

The teeth were reanalysed using state-of-the-art imaging techniques, allowing insight into enamel thicknesses and junctions between the enamel and dentine, critical for distinguishing human from other primate teeth. The analyses confirmed that the teeth are anatomically modern human, indicating that they were present on the Sumatran landscape at that time.

A barrage of dating techniques were applied to the sediment around the fossils, to overlying and underlying rock deposits in the cave and to associated mammal teeth, indicating that the deposit and fossils were laid down between 73-63 thousand years ago.

“Along with the location of the cave the importance and significance of these teeth had been lost due to an inability to confidently identify and date them. We finished off what Dubois had started all that time ago – but we had modern dating techniques and state-of-the-art scanning techniques on our side.

“I see this research as a triumph of modern scientific techniques applied to a long-standing problem.”

Despite fitting in with the recent human dispersal evidence from Morocco and northern Australia and providing the missing 20,000 years in Southeast Asian evidence, the research was not without its surprises.

“No one could have expected that the oldest evidence of modern humans would be found to the west of the expected dispersal route, so far inland, and up in the mountains within a dense rainforest environment – that was a surprise!”

It is generally accepted that modern humans dispersed via coastal routes due to ease of movement and plentiful resources. Rainforests are considered difficult environments to live in ­– they require technological innovations and sophisticated hunting techniques. Finding a modern human presence in a rainforest location at 73-63 thousand years ago suggests that these skills were in place by this time. This research supports a short chronology of human dispersal across the globe – meaning that they dispersed much quicker than originally anticipated.

“The capability of early modern humans is constantly surprising us – finding their presence in Lida Ajer at this time means that they dispersed much quicker and over a wider area, were more resourceful, and had more skills than we have ever acknowledged. I have a new-found respect for these early members of our species.”

Demonstrating its global appeal, this research has reached all corners of the globe with Kira being interviewed by news channels in Australia, Spain, Brazil, China, Russia and UK.

“Everyone has been really supportive and the general feeling is that at last Southeast Asia evidence can take its rightful place on the timeline of modern human dispersal from Africa to Australia.”

Antibiotic resistance is the ability of bacteria to overcome the actions of antibiotics or the drugs that we use to treat disease. One of the issues is that commensal bacteria, such as E. coli, have acquired resistance and other characteristics that turn them from friendly types to those that cause disease. These drug-resistant bacteria were initially problematic in hospitals, but now have made their way into the community.

In 2016, Australia released the National Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy which identifies a need for a One Health approach to fighting resistance. One Health recognises that disease spread, and control, spans to the health of humans, domesticated animals, wildlife and the environment – hence the fight against resistance falls to those affiliated to these areas and requires a community-wide approach.

As the end users of antibiotics, the issue of resistance should be conveyed to the whole community. There are ways each and every one of us can contribute to combating resistance.

Scoop a Poop

We have developed the Scoop a Poop citizen science project to align to goals of the National Resistance Strategy. We recently received an Australian Government Citizen Science grant that extends a pilot project funded through an MQ Learning and Teaching Strategic Priority grant. The beauty of Scoop a Poop is that it connects high school students to Macquarie’s undergraduate students within the framework of real science addressing a global issue.

Scooping the poop (or scat) falls to high school students who will collect possum samples from their backyards. Before the scat collection, students will learn about diverse aspects of antibiotic resistance from researchers visiting their schools. For example, what are the ‘superbugs’, what diseases resistant bacteria pose to humans and wildlife, through to the genetic basis of resistance.

The scat samples are then analysed by undergraduates in my unit,  BIOL364 Symbiosis in health and disease. Undergrads will extract the DNA from the scat and then perform a test to determine if bacteria in possum poop carry antibiotic resistance genes.

Engaging the community

Citizen science projects involve non-professionals taking part in crowdsourcing, data analysis, and data collection. The idea is to break down big tasks into understandable components that anyone can perform.

Essential to a project of this calibre is the diversity of the team that has been instrumental in getting the project off the ground; the research team includes Koa Webster and Michael Gillings (MQU), Clare MacArthur (USYD) and Peter Harlow (Taronga). Engineering and Education undergrads may get involved in the future. Individuals and teams from Learning and Teaching, Ethics, Biosafety, Group Marketing, Future Students and Legal have all contributed in some way. The support and enthusiasm from colleagues has been fantastic.

We have also partnered with Taronga Zoo’s Youth at the Zoo for the project, with the aim of expanding the scope of citizens engaged in the activity.

Protecting our wildlife

Additionally, our research also aims to determine if these resistant bacteria present a conservation threat by impacting wildlife health. We are not only studying resistance in possums but also bats, seals, penguins, and Tasmanian devils. Partnering with Taronga Conservation Society – who also has a vested issue in wildlife health – shows how research, industry and the community are connected and can work together to address global issues.

For the occasion, Professor Pretorius chose a tie from his native Africa, one he hasn’t worn in more than 15 years.

“She is a person who observes everything.  It took her only half a second to say, ‘you are wearing an African tie,’” Professor Pretorius said.

After a photo op, the pair made their way to Macquarie Theatre for Dr Goodall’s lecture on how people – particularly youth – can help contribute to a more sustainable future.

As she greeted the sold-out crowd of nearly 500 guests, Dr Goodall spoke in a language very familiar to her – that of the chimpanzee. Luckily for the audience, she also provided the translation of the traditional greeting shared among the animals with whom she is so familiar.

“This is me. This is Jane.”

The world-renowned activist now travels 300 days a year at 83 years old to speak to audiences around the world with her message of conservation and hope.

“If there was one person who has had an impact on people worldwide – millions if not billions of people – it is Dr Jane Goodall,” said Professor Pretorius. “It must be very rewarding to have that kind of career and positive impact worldwide. It’s an honour to have her on the Macquarie University campus – we share the same goal of contributing to a more secure planet and resilient society.”

Staff and students at Macquarie were thrilled to see Dr Goodall in person, and many participated in the competition to win free tickets for the lecture. Five staff members and 10 students received tickets for their winning responses about what conservation means to them.

Winning staff members included Georgette Roumanos, Elaine Ren, Kathryn Whittingham, Stephney Whillier and Shelley Broadbridge.

“Jane Goodall is such an amazing person with the most interesting life experiences. Her humble and inspiring approach to nature and nurture and conservation is so grabbing. The crowd was so encapsulated by her and the discussions,” says Georgette from Professional and Community Engagement (PACE).

“She was wonderful to listen to – I could have sat there all evening listening to her experiences. The world needs more Jane Goodall’s fighting for it, and the Roots & Shoots program gives me hope that the foundation is being set for a whole generation of passionate, engaged environmental warriors to continue her work,” added Shelley from the University’s City Campus.

The lecture was also live-streamed to university viewing hubs around Australia to engage university supporters across the continent – a first for the Jane Goodall Institute Australia (JGIA) and an innovation for the Jane Goodall Institute worldwide.

“What inspired me on the night was seeing young people from Macquarie University and JGIA working together: our National Youth Leaders, Centre for Environmental Law volunteers, and Media PACE interns. They are exceptional individuals who are continuing Dr Goodall’s legacy in the spirit of her most beloved initiative, Roots & Shoots,” said Associate Lecturer and JGIA Board Director Zara Bending.

How to get involved

• Start a Roots & Shoots project by emailing Dr K-Lynn Smith, a researcher at Macquarie.
• Learn more about the Jane Goodall Institute Australia.
• Follow Roots & Shoots Australia on Facebook.

When an animal sneezes, it’s their way of getting rid of annoying bits and pieces that have floated inside their nose and mouth.

While many animals, including humans, elephants, pandas and even seals can sneeze, sharks, unfortunately, cannot. To be able to sneeze, an animal needs to move air (or water) from the lungs through its nose to the outside.

Sharks have two nostrils (called nares) below their snout that are used for smelling, but they don’t join up to the back of the throat like our nose does, so they can’t sneeze like we do. If something floats into their nares, they might try to shake it out.

Sharks breathe through the gills at the back of the mouth. Most of their ‘smelling’ is done using a process called chemoreception, which allows sharks to sense tiny pieces of stuff, called molecules, hiding in the water as they pass through their nares.

Sharks can find and recognise these molecules – like parts of blood – that have been released from wounded animals or other prey, because their sense of smell is much better than ours.

Nares are loaded with powerful sensors. Once a shark has locked onto a smell, it can then work out where it came from by swimming towards it and moving its head slightly from side to side. It’s a bit like us following the smell of a freshly baked cake.

Legend has it that sharks can smell a single drop of blood in the ocean, but that’s an exaggeration. What they can do is detect blood at one part per million, which is similar to detecting tiny drops of blood in the water from up to five kilometres away!

While some have claimed to capture sightings of sharks sneezing on video, it just isn’t physically possible. You might think the below shark is sneezing, but trust me – it’s not.

The movement people confuse with sneezing is likely the animal’s attempt at getting rid of unwanted objects from their mouth or stomach area.

Sharks can actually make their stomach stick out of their mouth for brief moments to get rid of things they have eaten that they don’t like, such as tyres, licence plates, fish bones and fish hooks. This is called gastric eversion and it’s a very cool trick.

Alternatively, a shark stretching its jaws, which they sometimes do after a meal, might be mistaken for a sneeze.

While sharks can’t sneeze like we do, they can smell and they have other great ways of getting rid of unwanted things from inside them.

One of the highest honours in Australia in the Earth Sciences, the Anton Hales Medal, has been awarded to our very own Associate Professor Juan Carlos Afonso for his distinguished research contributions to his field.

The early-career award is offered by the Australian Academy of Science to researchers who are within 10 years of completing their PhD and are Australian residents or have conducted most of their research in Australia. Juan, who originally hails from Argentina, received the award for his research exploring and improving our understanding of the internal constitution of the Earth and plate tectonics.

“When I found out I had been selected for the 2017 Anton Hales medal, two thoughts came immediately to my mind. First, I wanted to thank all the people that helped me during my career and therefore contributed to this achievement; this award is not only for me, but for all of them as well. Second, it made me reflect on my personal path to become a scientist and all the sacrifices I had to make. This sort of recognition makes it all worthwhile,” said Juan.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Sakkie Pretorius says that Juan’s research into the mechanical and geochemical interactions that affect tectonic processes is a powerful example of research with global impact.

“As a world-leading research-intensive university, we have a responsibility to produce knowledge and solutions that help communities remain resilient in the face of natural disasters and long-term hazards. Associate Professor Afonso’s research is a prime example of this, having aided our understanding of the nuances of Earth’s tectonics and increasing our insights into the internal constitution and dynamics of the Earth’s interior.”

The Anton Hales Medal honours the contributions of the late Professor Anton L Hales FAA to the Earth Sciences. Learn more.

Here, Sophia Aharonovich, PhD student in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, talks about her time on board an international drilling vessel, collecting samples that reconstruct past climates to inform future climate modelling.

I find the correlation between human evolution and climate change fascinating; by using small pieces of information preserved in sediments, we can recreate a full picture of the environment thousands of years ago.

After studying pollen grains and phytoliths (silica remains of plants) in soil during my Masters in Archaeology at the University of Haifa, Israel, I discovered that it is possible to reconstruct past climates using organic molecules preserved in soils and rocks, going back not thousands, but millions of years.

One of my favourite parts of my PhD research at Macquarie University was the 60 days I spent on-board the JOIDES Resolution, an international scientific drilling vessel, for the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition in the Arabian Sea last year. The JOIDES Resolution has a fully equipped coring facility and laboratory.

I was on-board as an organic geochemist and was the only Australian among 30 scientists from a mix of languages and cultures and at different career stages. We all had something in common – a passion for science. We worked hard during our 12 hour shifts and had a lot of fun in between. Some of us saw 60 sunrises over the Indian Ocean and some saw 60 sunsets. We left the JOIDES Resolution as good friends and research collaborators. We collected samples in seas 3.5 km deep and drilled down over one kilometre into sediments and rocks that were dated to more than 13 million years old. We discovered signs of correlation between uplift of the Himalayas and changes in the summer monsoon intensity, a weather period that currently impacts 70 per cent of the world’s population.

With a better understanding of past climate changes and human influence on the planet, we can predict future climate changes. In my Macquarie Minds session, we’ll explore the geological evidence of past climate change episodes, their correlation with global patterns of extinction and the rise and fall of civilisations, as well as impacts on human technological evolution.

Register for Sophia’s session Is Climate Change Really Much Ado About Nothing?, as part of the Macquarie Minds Showcase 13-14 December 2016. Dr Kira Westaway, Professor Simon George and Professor Michael Gillings are also participating.

In a few sentences can you explain a little about what your work involves?
My research is focused on understanding how and why rivers and wetlands are created and modified over time, and how biophysical processes cause change in fluvial landscapes.

Take us back to the beginning – where did it all begin?
I first started my research about 15 years ago as a student, and I have visited the Macquarie Marshes and other wetlands each year since. The marshes themselves are iconic – the beauty and expanse of the landscape are striking, as is the stark contrast between the wet and dry parts of the wetlands.

Why is this work important?
This work is critical for understanding, conserving, and managing rivers and wetlands in a long-term context. For example, the Macquarie Marshes are very dynamic – they are ever-changing – and several other rivers and wetlands in dry landscapes around the world are similar to them. My research seeks to explain how quickly biophysical changes are occurring in systems like the Macquarie Marshes and the Okavango Delta in Botswana, and what factors are controlling, or moderating, them.

You have recently returned from a field trip to Okavango Delta, Botswana. Tell us a little bit about your work there.
The field trip was mainly funded by a Macquarie University Research Development Grant and the project was titled “Sediment and carbon in ‘wetlands and drylands’: understanding long-term biophysical change in iconic ecosystems”.

A key factor that causes significant change in rivers and wetlands is avulsion, the process of channel relocation on the floodplain that can lead to a river abandoning its course (i.e. channel failure) in favour of a new one (i.e. channel formation). This type of channel change often modifies wetlands with rich habitats, biodiversity, and biomass.

This project seeks to better understand the key forces that influence channel failure and formation in the Panhandle region of the Okavango Delta. The style and frequency of avulsion have implications for the distribution of water, sediment and nutrients in the system, which influence aquatic productivity, vegetation growth and decay, and long-term carbon storage in these iconic wetlands.

So what’s next?
I have another research trip coming up in December, when I will travel to the Nile River, Egypt to work as part of a team with Dr Yann Tristant from Macquarie’s Department of Ancient History to investigate the links between environmental change and human use of the temple at Dendara.

Arguably the longest, most impressive and complex rock art sequence anywhere in the world can be found in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia.

Dr Kira Westaway from the Department of Environmental Sciences worked alongside researchers from the University of New England and the University of Wollongong, as well as Aboriginal Traditional Owners based in Kandiwal and Kalumburu, on the collaborative Australian Research Council project which aimed to date the art of this region.

The story has made headlines around Australia, and Dr Westaway has also been interviewed by international editions of National Geographic. Here’s what the media are saying:

Interested in seeing how Macquarie University is being reported in the media? Sign up for the Daily Media Report by emailing communications@mq.edu.au.