Wizards of Oz: Recent Breakthroughs by Australian Scientists

Anyone who thinks Australia is a scientific backwater - that has given the world little more than vegemite, the wine dispensing cask and the hills-hoist clothes line - should think again. Who built the world's smallest machine? Whose studies of exploding stars billions of light years away suggested that the universe is expanding at an increasing rate? Who discovered the richest deposits of gold, silver, copper and zinc sulphide? Who developed a technique to reconstruct dinosaurs in colour, a method for mapping the oceans in three dimensions, a process to destroy ozone-depleting compounds, a system to date individual grains of sand up to 800,000 years old, one of the first truly washable water-based paints and the mauve carnation? The doyens of Australian science, that's who! These are just some of the scores of recent achievements unveiled in this skilfully crafted celebration of the collective talent of Australian researchers working in areas as diverse as palaeontology, astronomy, biotechnology and the environment.