Professor Alan Cowman of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute will deliver the Rubbo Oration at this year’s Australian Society of Microbiology (ASM) annual meeting, being held in Melbourne next week.

Put together a mixture of biologists, biochemists and physicists and you might get a lot of blank faces, particularly when hard-core physics is being discussed. However physics and biology have come together to solve one of science’s big issues – the structure of membrane proteins – through the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coherent X-ray Science.

From testing fat in sausages to dissecting the proteome of the lung-infecting fungus Cryptococcus gattii – it’s been quite a journey for Associate Professor Ben Herbert, one of the speakers at this week’s AOHUPO/PRICPS conference in Cairns.

Australian and New Zealand researchers are part of an international project of mutual interest (and age-old bad jokes) – the sequencing of the sheep genome. The difference for the International Sheep Genomics Consortium is the availability of short-read sequencing technology.

Deciphering vertebrate development, sorting out the roosters from the hens and taking on bird flu – dare we say, all in one fowl swoop – that is the job of CSIRO’s Dr Mark Tizard, who has created a new microRNA catalogue for the humble chook.

The ongoing drama that is debate over the hobbit fossils of Flores has been reignited by a recent paper suggesting H. floresiensis is actually H. sapiens suffering from cretinism. An interesting theory or a ‘travesty’?

Strange beasts evolve on islands: flightless bats and birds, amphibious or monstrous lizards, huge tortoises, giant rodents, dwarf elephants and even humans, such as the famous ‘hobbit’, H. floresiensis.

WA company Epichem and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative are collaborating to develop new drugs to treat African sleeping sickness and similar, forgotten diseases.

The Sydney Project aims to have human embryonic stem cells in clinical trials to treat type 1 diabetes in four years.

Hagfish may be ferociously ugly little creatures, but they can teach us much about the evolution of the vertebrate eye.

Federal science minister Kim Carr outlines his thinking and his philosophy to Australian Life Scientist.

Genome-wide association studies show the way forward for global genomic research.

How did a chemistry PhD become one of the 50 most powerful women in business by hooking up the world's largest computer company with the life sciences?