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Plastic waste in our oceans is a big problem for marine fauna. Not only can it look like food, it seems some animals have developed a taste for the material. And that’s a problem.

Written by Beth Askham How can we predict extreme weather events like the Sydney storm in Australia last week? The wild storm that hit Sydney was the result of a weather system called an east coast low.

Written by Beth Askham When mysterious lumps of pumice stone washed up on beaches in Tasmania, Australia, Rebecca Carey knew that they must be coming from an underwater volcano. Rebecca is a Tasmanian volcanologist (someone who studies volcanos), and she had been tracking the travelling pumice for more than a year.

Written by Beth Askham Researchers have found that whales hear low frequency sounds by amplifying them in their skull bones. Ocean sounds made by humans may be messing with their heads.

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.

Written by Michele Weber Coral reefs have much in common with rainforests: both are full of life, but are low in nutrients. How is that possible? As far as a coral reef goes, it’s because marine sponges produce waste that contains food that other reef animals can eat.

Robots have been a popular part of science fiction for years. While robots that can think and feel like humans are still just a fantasy, robotic systems are already having an impact on our lives. CSIRO runs one of the largest robotics research centres in the world, the Autonomous Systems Laboratory. Instead of trying to…

Written by Beth Askham The winners of this year’s BHP Billiton Science and Engineering Awards have been announced! The award ceremony wrapped up an exciting four days where the finalists traveled to Melbourne for a science camp they will never forget.

As this year draws to a close, let’s have a look at some of the big stories in science for 2012. In July, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider announced they may have found evidence of the existence of the Higgs boson.

A research team on board Australia’s Marine National Facility research vessel, Southern Surveyor, have made an unusual discovery: an island that isn’t there.