Historical Records of Australian Science最新文献

Robert (Bob) Crompton was a towering figure in low energy electron and ion physics in Australia and internationally, as witnessed by his seminal publications on swarm physics, atomic and molecular physics and gaseous electronics generally, his widely-read monograph with Sir Leonard Huxley on the subject of charged-particle transport, and the many personal and professional accolades and awards he received for his contributions to science, science policy and the general community. Born and educated in Adelaide, Crompton spent the majority of his long career at the Australian National University in Canberra, with numerous sabbatical periods in overseas laboratories where he fostered many important international research collaborations and lasting friendships.

Warning: This article discusses blood collecting in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It also contains the image of an unnamed Aboriginal man who may be deceased.

It is not without justification that the collecting of blood for genetic analysis is frequently associated with race science, but it is not solely or inevitably so. This history of Robert Kirk, a British–Australian population geneticist, confronts blood collecting in the twentieth century. Other histories have analysed the conflation of race with the science of inheritance in the first half of the twentieth century, and of the re-emergence of race in genomics at century’s end. Kirk’s practice of blood analysis and his support for Indigenous rights intercalates those periods, bridging interwar anti-racist theoretical geneticists, and late twentieth century genomic scientists. Through Kirk’s research activities we learn about the twinning of blood science and progressive politics, and the challenges and intersections that posed. Through Kirk’s legacy collection of blood samples now returned to Indigenous control, we see the potential transmutation of a problematic past into a promising future.

In this paper we examine the changes in the diversity of astronomers working in Australia, particularly the ratio of women compared to men, from 1966, when the Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) was formed, to 2023. This was a pivotal time, as there was a significant change to workplace law that enabled women who worked for Commonwealth departments to retain their permanent position once they married. We consider the impact on gender diversity and other marginalised groups in astronomy due to this and other changes in the law, through the membership records of the ASA. We focus on the experiences of female astronomers who have been at the leading edge of change, and women and men who have instigated strategies to increase the percentage of women employed in astronomy. The successes of two Australian Research Council (ARC) centres of excellence in achieving gender balance are considered as providing best practice models.

Dr Ferdinand von Sommer (~1800–49) was the first government geologist appointed in Western Australia, a state that today owes its prosperity largely to the discovery and development of its rich mineral deposits. During his relatively short life, Ferdinand left a trail of incredible and diverse achievements, exploits and mystery that extended across the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania during the first half of the nineteenth century. Although his credibility has been challenged and his character maligned—both then and now—this paper aims to showcase his wide-ranging scientific endeavours and contributions, and to present a more complete picture of Ferdinand von Sommer and his legacy.

The American, Roger Tory Peterson, has been the single most influential figure in the evolution of birding field guides around the world. He was also a major contributor to the awakening of an environmental consciousness among the wider public in the second half of the twentieth century. In Australia, he provided a powerful impetus to the renovation of the field guide genre from the 1960s onward; and his Australian followers, like Peterson himself, were driven by a conviction that field guides are potent contributors to the conservationist cause. This article explores the myriad ways in which Peterson helped shape Australian birding field guides, including an exposition of his personal friendship with one of Australia’s major field guide authors, Graham Pizzey.

Australian astronomy has undergone huge changes since the middle of the twentieth century, when astronomers generally only had access to the observing facilities of their own institution. In this paper, we look at the changes in the context of the membership of the Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA), since its formation in 1966. Initially, the dominant institutions were the Australian National University, the University of Sydney and the CSIRO, with each of these having more than twice the members of any other Australian institution. Access to world-class national facilities provided by the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT, an optical telescope) from 1975 and the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA, a radio telescope) from 1991, led to increases in astronomer numbers at institutions other than the three dominant ones. More recently, to stay internationally competitive, astronomers need access to even larger observing facilities. One of these facilities is the Square Kilometre Array project (SKA). This radio telescope is to be split between Southern Africa and Australia with SKA-Low, observing in low frequency radio waves, to be sited at a remote location in Western Australia. That plan, and two new SKA precursor instruments, has boosted the number of astronomers in the state, making Western Australia one of the major centres of astrophysical research in Australia.

Acclimatisation has been a profoundly important force in Australia’s history, yet scholars have routinely ignored or denigrated it, leaving it under-studied and misunderstood. Most accounts frame acclimatisation as a fad, briefly flourishing around the 1860s; scholars typically blame the spread of animal pests such as the rabbit for the sudden loss of interest in this branch of science. This article attempts to revise such accounts, demonstrating, on the contrary, that settler Australians continued to exhibit favourable attitudes towards acclimatisation and acclimatised wildlife well into the twentieth century. Focusing on wild birds, the article argues that acclimatisation was not consistently opposed by Australian naturalists until the second half of the 1930s, and indeed, that attempts to acclimatise non-native birds continued into the 1960s. Settler nationalism and xenophobia—rather than improved ecological theories or field data—are identified as the underlying motivation for the opponents of acclimatisation. The implications for present-day research into and management of non-native wildlife species are briefly considered.

As a geographically isolated and island continent, Australia has historically been protected from the impact of many damaging plant pests found overseas. However, the advent of modern transport systems and greater global trade in live plants, seed and plant products is increasing the movement of pests including invertebrates, pathogens, and weeds. Exclusion of these threats through an effective biosecurity system is essential to support and protect Australia’s agricultural producers and unique flora. Biosecurity measures must balance risk-based regulation with successful trade of goods, including live plants, seed and plant products. Although achievement of zero biosecurity risk is not a broadly practical outcome, geographic exclusion of threats is an effective approach to support and protect Australia’s unique environment. This is particularly important in the trade of live plants as nursery stock. Latent infection presents a significant hurdle for detection of plant pathogens in border inspections to exclude their entry with imported plants. Post-entry plant quarantine enables latent infection to be expressed as visible symptoms, while providing sufficient time for targeted testing of asymptomatic plants. Here we provide a synopsis of the pivotal role plant quarantine has and continues to play in Australia’s biosecurity system.

When myxoma virus was first released in Australia it was seen not only as a means of controlling rabbits but also an opportunity to understand the evolution of a disease in a new host. The virus quickly attenuated into less virulent variants while simultaneously rabbits built heritable resistance to the disease. Nonetheless, rather than rabbits quickly outstripping virus virulence, myxoma viruses have adapted and kept pace with increases in rabbit resistance by increasing in virulence and other attributes necessary for remaining highly transmissible. As well as benefitting the biological control of pest rabbits, this previously unrevealed chapter details the evolution of myxomatosis while also documenting the delays in reaching a consensus on the coevolution of myxoma virus virulence and rabbit resistance.

Peter Pringsheim, best known as professor of physics at the University of Berlin, has an unusual connection with Australia. His attendance at the 1914 conference of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which was held in Melbourne, coincided with the outbreak of World War 1, and he was interned as an enemy alien at the Trial Bay Internment Camp in New South Wales from October 1914 until July 1919. However, with the support of key Australian and New Zealand scientists, Pringsheim used his time at Trial Bay to write a scientific paper on fluorescence and phosphorescence which established him as a world authority on this branch of atomic physics. On his return to Berlin, he was promoted to professor and it seemed that nothing could now stand in the way of his career. In a grim twist of fate, however, political developments in Germany in the 1930s then forced him into exile in Belgium and the United States.