Royal Society Rooms, 630pm, Morgan Thomas Lane (via Kintore Ave) - ALL WELCOME!
Steve has been researching the evolutionary history of mans' greatest pest, the black rat for the past decade. Black rats and humans have shared their recent history as human populations have expanded since the onset of agriculture with dire consequences for regional faunas and human populations. Steve will explore the new and surprising perspectives that his grouped has gained on the genetic diversity of black rats around the globe. In particular this research points to the potential role that black rats play in increasing the threat from emerging diseases.

Natural mineral pigments are significant in Aboriginal Australian culture, and applied to a variety of natural matrices such as wood and bark to create objects such as boomerangs and shields and bark paintings.  Ochre (Fe-oxide pigment), is used for a variety of red, brown, orange and yellow colours and other natural mineral pigments such as kaolinite are used for white colours. Mixtures and applications of pigments present a challenging analytical problem, especially towards the non-destructive elemental analysis of mixed pigments on objects with a variety of shapes and sizes.

This presentation will describe our recent research into methods to characterize the complexity of Indigenous Australian ochre pigments.  We have studied ochre from several known ochre sources around Australia by several techniques, including neutron activation analysis (NAA), X-ray fluorescence microscopy and near-IR spectroscopy.  The combination of these techniques offers insight into the complex mineralogy and elemental composition of these natural materials.

Our results demonstrate the advantages of non-destructive analysis and sensitive methods towards the analysis of Aboriginal Australian objects.  This presentation will cover some of our recent work including the first non-destructive study of natural pigments on Aboriginal Australian objects directly at a synchrotron, micro-characterisation of mineral pigments and provenance studies with Australian ochre.

Rachel is an Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE) Senior Research Fellow in the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences at Flinders University.

The fascinating ecological and environmental insights being revealed by marine organisms’ hard body parts.

Although marine waters present a challenging research environment, the remarkable data obtained there by the University of Adelaide’s Professor Bronwyn Gillanders and her team has proven well worth the effort. Studying the hard structures of marine organisms, such as teeth and bones, the team has successfully used the information gained to cast light on important ecological and environmental questions.

Professor Bronwyn Gillanders is Deputy Director of the Environment Institute at the University of Adelaide. She completed her PhD in Biological Sciences at the University of Sydney, and has worked on projects in freshwater, estuarine and marine waters. She moved to the University of Adelaide in 2001.

BOOKINGS: Register online www.adelaide.edu.au/researchtuesdays or call 8313 0884