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It’s really annoying to get bitten by a mosquito. Your skin often swells, and the bite can itch for days. But in many places in the world, that small bite isn’t just annoying. It can cause a life-threatening disease: malaria.

Written by Rachael Vorwerk Inside a small sample of powder, there hides a gigantic secret. In just a teaspoon of the stuff you’ll find the entire surface area of a football field. It sounds like something from Back to the Future, but for CSIRO scientists it’s the norm.

Voyager, Pathfinder, Cassini. Humanity has sent out dozens of plucky little space probes to explore our solar system. But when these robots need to call home, who’s listening in?

Australian money is designed to be hard to copy. See if you can find all these features!

Not all scientists are smashing particles, discovering new chemicals or exploring exotic environments. Some scientists strive to keep things working in your home. It takes a lot of science to test everyday objects, such as toilets, to make sure they work the way they should.

It’s been really busy at Double Helix headquarters in the last few weeks. We’ve moved office, to the CSIRO Discovery Centre in Canberra. There are lots of cool things at our new workplace, including a whole museum of CSIRO science!

The Australian National Maritime Museum is home to our very own HMB Endeavour. This recreation of Captain Cook’s ship hosts thousands of visitors every year. But there are many more people who aren’t able to pay a visit. So a team from the CSIRO stepped in to help.

Written by Beth Askham Drones, lasers, planes and liquid nitrogen were all called in to measure the growth of a Tasmanian forest. Sometimes measurement can be a little more exciting than you might think.

Earlier this year, South Australia’s wheat growers in the Yorke Peninsula had one of the worst mouse plagues on record. Thousands of mice ate seeds that had been sown by farmers. The areas to the south and east of Australia are the worst places in the world for mouse plagues.

Australia’s new Marine National Facility research vessel, Investigator, arrived on Tuesday to its home port of Hobart. The ship will soon take scientists and high-tech equipment to the watery parts of the world; to measure the weather, take samples from the sea floor and study marine life.