THE AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH COUNCIL

The Australian Research Council (ARC) is a non-corporate Commonwealth entity within the Australian
Government. The ARC’s purpose is to grow knowledge and innovation for the benefit of the Australian
community through funding the highest quality research, assessing the quality, engagement and impact of

A MESSAGE
research and providing advice on research matters.
The ARC funds research and researchers under the National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP). The NCGP
consists of two elements—Discovery and Linkage. Within these elements are a range of schemes structured
to provide a pathway of incentives for researchers to build the scope and scale of their work and collaborative

FROM OUR
partnerships. The majority of funding decisions under the NCGP are made on the basis of peer review.
The ARC evaluates the quality of Australian university research through the Excellence in Research for
Australia (ERA) program. ERA is an evaluation framework that identifies research excellence in Australian

CEO
universities by comparing Australia’s research effort against international benchmarks. ERA assesses quality
using a combination of indicators and expert review by research evaluation committees.

The ARC is also responsible for administering the Engagement and Impact (EI) assessment. EI assesses the
engagement of researchers with research end-users and shows how universities are translating their research
into economic, social, environmental, cultural and other impacts. Assessments are made by expert panels of Welcome to the third edition of the Australian Research
researchers and research end-users using narrative studies and supporting quantitative indicators. Council (ARC) Making a Difference publication,
featuring a snapshot of ARC-supported research
projects that have delivered notable outcomes in
i Front cover image: A scene from Cut
The Sky. Image courtesy: Rob
2018–19. Anyone with a natural curiosity will find
the diverse research stories in this publication to be
Maccoll. See story ‘Listening to
fascinating—from bull ant venom pain remedies, to a
Country’; page 43. Inside cover
image: Stock image—Golden hour in
performance-based research laboratory staged at sites
The Australian Research Council acknowledges the Traditional Owners and custodians of Country across the Kimberley, to a blast simulator that will test the
the bush. Image courtesy:
throughout Australia and their continuing connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respects to frontiers of explosives protection—and it is with great
iStock.com/shells1.
them, their cultures and Elders past, present and future. pleasure that we share them with you.
Back cover image: Post-fire Warrumbungle NP in 2013. Image
courtesy: Fritz Geiser. See story ‘The burning question—the effect of
Please note: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this publication may contain torpor on mammals during and after bushfires’; page 45. The ARC proudly supports some of the world’s
names and images of deceased persons. greatest fundamental and applied research, and we
take care in this publication to feature a sample
ISSN (Print) 2209-6000 drawn from a wide range of universities, and across a
ISSN (Online) 2209-7414 wide range of disciplines. This includes research that is
Published: July 2019 pure ‘blue-sky’ knowledge creation, as well as
industry-ready commercial outcomes, and a spectrum of
© Commonwealth of Australia 2019 projects that are conducted by early career researchers,
All material presented in this publication is provided under a CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
through to some of Australia’s most
(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence www.creativecommons.org > Licenses > by-nc-nd/4.0 with the exception of the Commonwealth
Coat of Arms, the Australian Research Council (ARC) logo, images, signatures and where otherwise stated. well-known research leaders. The ARC is unique in
Australia for its support of such research diversity.
The details of the relevant licence conditions are available on the Creative Commons website as is the full legal code for
the CC Attribution BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence www.creativecommons.org > licenses > by-nc-nd 4.0 legal code. Requests and Australia’s innovative strength is well known overseas,
enquiries regarding this licence should be addressed to ARC Legal Services on +61 2 6287 6600. and this strength is underpinned by the excellence that is
found across all research disciplines and in
universities all around the country—as we know, from
measuring Australian research against
world-standard benchmarks in our State of Australian University Research 2018–19: ERA National Report.
The impact of this research on the lives of ordinary Australians is also significant, as is illustrated in so
many more stories also available to explore, drawn from our inaugural 2018 Engagement and Impact
Assessment.
The Australian research sector is a wonderful community to support, with new incredible stories of
innovation and discovery year on year. Our lives and culture are much richer for the work of our research
community, and I thank them for what they give back to us all.

Professor Sue Thomas Chief Executive Officer Australian Research Council

 2 15 27 36 47 53 62 75
COLLABORATION DEVELOPING ADVANCING
SUPPORTING STRIVING FOR
UNDERSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVING HEALTH RESEARCH
AND GENERATING INNOVATIVE INDIGENOUS CULTURAL AND
OUR WORLD SCIENCE AND AND WELL-BEING LEADERSHIP
ECONOMIC IMPACTS TECHNOLOGIES RESEARCH SOCIAL OUTCOMES
MANAGEMENT

4 Fossil record of early humans
may forget the wet
6 What a dog’s colour can tell
us
7 Better understanding animal
reproductive processes
8 Masquerade of galactic
proportions detected by
Hubble
9 Building a new bacterial
‘tree of life’
11 The attractive power of purple
plumage
12 Bizarre ‘platypus fish’ found
on
Australia’s original reef
13 On the dog’s trail
16 Droughts and bushfires
predicted from space months in
advance
18 Ceramic particles confer
fire-resistance to lightweight
cladding
19 Emergency lights connect
devices for smart buildings
20 Fresher, longer lasting
baby spinach
23 Having a blast
24 A new Motif for cognitive tests
25 Magnetic polymers improve
tainted wine
29 Optical microchip brings us
closer to quantum computing
30 New extremely sensitive
‘ultra-ultrasound’
31 New citizen science app for
storm hunters
32 Autonomous robotic systems to
maintain global infrastructure
33 Putting the quantum into battery
35 First untethered Australian
autonomous underwater vehicle
dives under Antarctic ice shelf
39 Restoring biodiversity to
rehabilitated mines
40 3D imaging reveals leaf
complexity
41 Warming microbes may
shrink Southern Ocean
carbon sink
42 Restoring fish habitat to
improve sustainability of
fisheries
44 Freezing polar oceans—a
great place for fish species
formation
45 The burning question—the
effect of torpor on
mammals during and after
bushfires
48 Listening to Country
50 Creative prison writing program
provides voice for Indigenous
men
51 Studying Aboriginal stone-walled
fish traps in the Gulf of
Carpentaria
55 Support needed in
Australia’s growing craft
economy
56 Lifting millions from poverty by
increasing access to basic
financial services
57 The staggered pathways to
Australia
58 The Prosecution Project
59 Translating an ancient
Manichean papyrus
manuscript
61 New approaches to copyright
64 Diamond coating brings 76 Mentoring the next generation
bone-bling to biomedical of mathematicians
implants
79 Leadership in many languages
65 Sex differences in
hormone
exposure linked to anxiety
67 Scientists determine the
chemistry of moist eyes
68 The Australian Cancer Atlas
69 Bull ant venom could actually
kill pain
70 X-ray triggering nano-bubbles
to target cancer
72 Getting people up to speed
73 Breakthrough blood sample for
pregnant women

CONTENTS
iii
1
DERSTANDING OUR WORLD
alactic proportions detected by Hubble
cterial ‘tree of life’
wer of purple plumage
fish’ found on Australia’s

Beautiful background of the starry sky, colorful nebula, star light, shine.
2 Credit: iStock.com/MARIIA VASILEVA
3
FOSSIL RECORD OF EARLY
HUMANS MAY FORGET THE
WET
A research team based at La Trobe University
and The University of Melbourne has conducted
a ten-year study into gaps in the fossil record Uranium-lead dating
of early humans from the so-called ‘Cradle revealed that the fossils
of Humankind’ caves in South Africa. The in these caves date to
team—which includes Dr Robyn Pickering,
ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher six narrow time-windows
Award (DECRA) recipient, Professor Andy between 3.2 and 1.3 million
Herries, supported through the ARC Future years ago.
Fellowships scheme, and ARC Australian
Laureate Fellowship recipient, Professor Jon
Woodhead—has discovered that the fossil
record is biased towards periods of drier climate,
suggesting there might be significant holes in our
understanding of the evolution of early humans.
The caves in which the fossils are found have
significantly eroded over the years, and the
expected age range of the fossils makes dating
the fossils difficult. In recent years, one method
that has shown to be successful is the
uranium-lead dating of the flowstone (a calcium
carbonate cave formation that grows during wet
periods) that occurs in layers between
fossil-rich cave sediment. The researchers
found that flowstones formed in multiple caves
in the region at the same time, allowing the
various sequences to be directly correlated for
the first time. Moreover, the work suggests that
periods when fossils were deposited in the
caves were biased towards drier periods when
flowstone was not forming.
The research team included 10 scientists from
Australia, South Africa and the US and
received additional support through the ARC’s
Discovery
Projects scheme. The deroofed Drimolen Palaeocave deposits in South Africa from which
flowstones were dated. In South Africa, such caves have yielded the
4 UNDERSTANDING OUR WORLD remains of our early ancestors between 3.1 and 1.3
million years ago.
UNDERSTANDING OUR WORLD 5 Credit: Professor Andy I.R. Herries.
Chocolate-coloured Labrador retrievers
have, on average, 10% shorter lives
than black or yellow Labradors,
according to a study of veterinary
records.
6 UNDERSTANDING OUR
WHAT A DOG’S COLOUR
CAN TELL US
ARC-funded researcher, Professor Paul McGreevy,
and his research team at The University of Sydney, in
collaboration with the Royal Veterinary College (UK),
has revealed that the life expectancy of increasingly
popular chocolate Labrador retrievers is much lower
than their black or yellow counterparts.
The study of more than 33,000 United
Kingdom-based Labrador retrievers of all colours
shows chocolate Labradors also have a higher
incidence of ear infections and skin disease. Part
of the ARC Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and
Facilities (LIEF) scheme-supported
VetCompass™ Programme, which collects and
analyses demographic and clinical information on
dogs in
Australia, the research is being replicated in
Australia, where Labrador retrievers are the most
popular breed of pet dog. The LIEF funding has
united all of the nation’s veterinary schools on a
single project for the first time.
The research found that the prevalence of
pyo-traumatic dermatitis (a skin condition) in black
dogs was 1.1%, in yellow dogs it was 1.6%, and
this figure rose to 4% in chocolate-coloured dogs.
Meanwhile, otitis externa (an ear infection) was found
in 12.8% of black dogs, 17% of yellow dogs and
23.4% of chocolate-coloured dogs.
Professor McGreevy said the relationship between
coat colour and disease came as a surprise to
researchers and that the study confirms the dangers
of breeding for colour if health is not monitored at the
same time. The findings point to previously unknown
genetic connections between coat colour and disease
in dogs, which warrant further investigation.
WORLD
BETTER UNDERSTANDING
ANIMAL REPRODUCTIVE
PROCESSES
ARC-supported researchers from The University
of Western Australia have found that some fish
species are highly selective when it comes
to choosing the father of their offspring. ARC
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award
(DECRA) recipient, Dr Clelia Gasparini, and
Associate Professor Jon Evans, have discovered
that female Poecilia reticulata (guppy) fish
may mate with several males—like many other
species—but they also exercise great control
over which males will ultimately be successful in
fathering their offspring.
The researchers found that females can affect
reproductive outcomes and fertilise their eggs by
differentially using sperm from different males—
speculating that the females may be controlling
the way it is stored in their body after mating, as
a way of sorting the ‘best’ from the ‘worst’.
The researchers say that the study provided a
clear demonstration that female guppies have
subtle but powerful control over what happens
at the gamete (reproductive cells) level after
mating. This research may have implications
for our understanding of reproductive
processes and evolutionary mechanisms
across a range of animal species, and may
have important
applications to the fields of assisted reproductive The study has shown not only that
technologies and fertility research. sexual selection can continue after
mating, but that the females can
control this process.
Professor Paul McGreevy
and his Labrador retriever, Bundy.
Aquarium fish guppies, male. UNDERSTANDING OUR WORLD 7
Credit: Cath Muscat. Credit: iStock.com/Georgy_Golovin.