1. This week 10 years ago, the Department of Defence announced a new service contract to provide a fivefold increase in its internet capacity and greater security.
The $52.9 million contract was to replace Defence’s existing single internet gateway with parallel managed services.
2. Australia’s National Measurement Institute (NMI) this week 10 years ago came to the rescue of a New Zealand laboratory damaged in the recent Christchurch earthquake.
Minister for Innovation, Senator Kim Carr said NMI was helping the company Greentide rebuild important microbial culture collections, as well as an important collection of fungi and other microbes indigenous to New Zealand, that were badly damaged in the earthquake.
3. To New South Wales where the Office of Environment and Heritage confirmed this week 10 years ago that cane toad tadpoles had been found for the first time in Sydney.
The breeding site was found at Taren Point industrial area and the Minister for Environment, Robyn Parker said the Office of Environment and Heritage and Sutherland Shire Council had been working together for the past year to combat the pest.
4. To Victoria for what was believed to be a world first when the Minister for Health, David Davis said the State’s air ambulances would now carry blood products to allow paramedics to administer transfusions at emergency scenes and in the air.
Mr Davis said Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance paramedics had been able to give blood transfusions to seriously injured people for more than five years, but the blood products had to be brought to the scene from local hospitals.
“Air Ambulance Victoria will be the first paramedic-operated helicopter service in the world to have paramedics carrying and administering blood products,” the Minister said.
5. Also this week 10 years ago, a University of Queensland study found that politeness was not dead among Australian drivers.
The study of driving behaviour in Brisbane looked at who was polite and who was selfish at traffic intersections.
UQ PhD student, Redzo Mujcic and Professor of Economics, Paul Frijters analysed intersections where commuters had the option to let someone from a side road enter the main road or to keep going and save themselves a couple of seconds.
The authors said the results suggested evidence of widespread altruism in society, with more than one-third of the random commuters willing to forgo some precious seconds to do someone else a favour.
6. And in Western Australia, a research team led by Department of Agriculture and Food scientist Associate Professor YongLin Ren received national recognition for a breakthrough in post-harvest technology to rid stored grain of insects.
The Cooperative Research Centre for National Plant Biosecurity Science Exchange Award for Impact on Industry was awarded for the team’s development of a cost-effective low-oxygen technology as an alternative to phosphine fumigation of grain and the management of insect resistance.
“What is most exciting is that the process provides the grains industry with a viable chemical-free treatment,” Associate Professor Ren said.
