The worrying mystery behind the rise in early-onset bowel cancer
Australia has the highest rate of early-onset bowel cancer in the world with the risk of being diagnosed under the age of 40 doubling since the year 2000.
Scientists are now trying to uncover why there's been a dramatic increase in cases. Alysia Thomas-Sam reports with Alison Caldwell.
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ABC News
12 minutes ago
- ABC News
Mother creates a book to help siblings navigate neonatal intensive care
When Deloraine mother Jayne Case went into hospital to have her third child, things didn't go to plan. Her son was born with kidney issues and the new family of five needed to temporarily relocate to Hobart, three hours from their home in Tasmania's north. The family was based at the Royal Hobart Hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for six weeks. "He needed a lot of extra support and help once he was out in the world," she told Tracey Strong on ABC Radio Hobart Evenings. The newborn required surgery at eight days old, and the lives of her eight-year-old and five-year-old sons were turned upside down. "They moved from a quiet country life straight into the heart of Hobart at Ronald McDonald House," she said. "That was a bit of a transition for them both." Ms Case said the NICU was quite confronting at first, and very different to how her sons thought they would meet their new sibling. "It's not what you're ever expecting when you think of a newborn baby, especially when you've waited for your little brother for so long," she said. The NICU is on a separate ward and floor to the maternity ward. "In terms of newborn babies and how we expect them to be in their mother's arms, in their mother's bed in the maternity ward in the hospital, it's not like that at all," she said. "Most of the babies are absolutely tiny and they've got cords and tubes and all sorts of life-saving monitors around them. Ms Case said at one point she couldn't hold her new baby for five days. Ms Case said she and her husband tried to stay together at the hospital so they could help each other digest any news from medical staff. "When the doctor walks in the door you never know what they are going to say," she said. "We needed lots of extra help with the other boys. She felt that she needed something to help explain to the boys what was going on. "None of us had the brain space to do that," she said. "I thought it'd be great to have a book and went online and tried to find something, but I couldn't find anything that was suitable." It inspired her to write something herself. "I held onto the idea and one night when he was four or five months old it just appeared in my brain just like magic," she said. The book, Counting on You, was released at the start of June and is written from the perspective of a boy called Otto who loves numbers. It goes through all the different things Otto did to help himself cope during his baby brother's NICU time. "It's personal for me but I know it'll be really helpful for other siblings of NICU babies to see themselves in this big scary journey," Ms Case said. "Until you've experienced it yourself it's really difficult to get your head around." Her now two-year-old will have life-long kidney issues. "He's an amazing little kid, we all absolutely adore him and will do absolutely anything for him," she said. "I hope [the book] helps siblings and families going through a similar journey to find comfort and hope and recognition of how things are for them. "I'd love to also help other families and children who haven't experienced the NICU world to have a greater understanding and empathy of other people's stories."
ABC News
27 minutes ago
- ABC News
World's only known eyeless wasp discovered mummified in Nullarbor cave
Jess Marsh had spent 45 minutes crawling and twisting through the claustrophobic limestone tunnels of the Nullarbor Plain when she first saw it. Perched on the wall of a cave chamber was the almost perfect mummified remains of small, reddish wasp about 2 centimetres long with translucent wings. Its stand-out feature? It had no eyes. "This wasp is the only wasp in the world that is known to have adapted like that to a cave life," said Dr Marsh, an entomologist and arachnologist — an insect and spider expert — at the University of Adelaide. "The first specimen was actually climbing up the wall of the cave ... like they'd been freeze-dried." The preserved insect, yet to be taxonomically described, was one of the crowning discoveries from a research expedition in April with cavers from the Australian Speleological Federation (ASF). Eleven caves on the Western Australia side of the 200,000 square kilometre Nullarbor region were examined in a biological survey, funded by the Australian Research Council and the Hermon Slade Foundation. The caves were selected based on previous sightings of underground critters by cave-exploring citizen scientists. ASF president Andrew Stempel said the trip, which found specimens at five of the sites, had been an "incredible" collaboration connecting caver knowledge with expert scientists. "It took many years and many cavers and a lot of hard yards," he said. The wasp was found in a cave that contains passages that run for about 10 kilometres, which had previously been mapped out by scientists. It wasn't the only remains the researchers found either. The cave was full of thousands of mummified bodies of spiders, cockroaches, centipedes and other insects, preserved thanks to the salty cave conditions. Dr Marsh said when she first locked eyes on the site she was captured by its otherworldly beauty. "It's not like anything I've ever seen before," she said. "[It had] the most amazing cave decorations I've ever seen, so stalactites, stalagmites and huge long salt straws [thin pillars of salt that sway in the cave breeze]. No living critters remain because of some sort of invertebrate world-ending cataclysm that occurred an unknown number of years ago. What excited Dr Marsh was the potential relationship between the blind arachnids and the wasp, which she thought was from the spider-hunting family called Pompilidae. "It's a really interesting story if they've both evolved to a cave-adapted lifestyle where they've lost their eyes independently but are linked through parasitism," she said. Matt Shaw, a collection manager at the Australian Museum and not part of the recent expedition, said finding a wasp and spiders with regressed features was fantastic for science. "Because as [Charles] Darwin pointed out ... regressed animals including cave animals were an important source of evidence for understanding evolution," he said. The exact age of the invertebrates in the mummy mausoleum was yet to be analysed, but Dr Marsh said they were so well preserved "they could have died yesterday". Elsewhere on the trip, the expedition found some creatures that were still kicking, including two species of eyeless spiders. Both could fill up the palm of your hand but are incredibly different. One, which hangs underneath a web weaved between rocks is believed to be from the genus Tartarus, named after the prison for titans in Greek mythology. The second is large, hairy and probably part of the Troglodiplura genus but distantly related to tarantulas, funnel webs and trapdoor spiders. "We don't know yet if it's a new species or if it's one of the already described ones," Dr Marsh said. There are five spiders in Troglodiplura, including four that were described only a few years ago from tiny fragments found in museum collections. Both Tartarus and Troglodiplura spiders have only been found on the Nullarbor. And there is a belief among arachnologists that some Nullarbor spider species may only be found in single caves rather than multiple sites. Dr Marsh said the latest trip, along with other research, challenged the idea the region was not particularly special for biodiversity. "The number and the diversity of species that may be surviving and living in the caves on the Nullarbor is actually much higher than we we initially thought," she said. With the growing knowledge of underground species comes a greater awareness of potential threats. In caves accessible to mammals, Dr Marsh said invasive foxes proposed a big threat to blind spiders. A site with living arachnids from the most recent trip had fox scat that contained spider fangs. "The risk of extinction for a lot of those [underground] species through development, impact by humans, changes to water movement across the landscape ... is really very high," she said. While the South Australia side of the Nullarbor is in the process of being made a World Heritage site, the WA side is not. All of the recent cave surveys were done within an area ear-marked for the largest proposed green energy project in Australia. The 70 gigawatt Western Green Energy Hub would see about 3,000 turbines and six million solar panels installed across 20,000sqkm of land. The project has come under scrutiny from cavers concerned about potential impacts to the unique cave systems. Project chief executive Raymond Macdonald said less than 5 per cent of the total surface area would be impacted, and that the company was currently mapping a directory of caves, sink holes and karst feature locations. "This new accuracy will ensure that significant features are totally avoided when selecting infrastructure locations," he said. The project's management is currently in discussion with state and federal regulators about what environmental studies will be needed as the project proposal is reviewed. An Indigenous land-use agreement is also being negotiated with the area's Traditional Owners, the Mirning. A WA Mirning People Aboriginal Corporation spokesperson said the whole ecosystem in the Nullarbor was significant. "Our priority is always to protect the environment as a whole, while placing particular emphasis on rare and endangered species," they said.
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Station worker's 'remarkable' recovery from rare Murray Valley encephalitis
A young station worker who contracted a rare mosquito-borne virus while working in outback Queensland is making a remarkable recovery after a four-month battle for survival. Isaac Pearce spent 126 days in intensive care after becoming infected with Murray Valley encephalitis (MVE) while working near Normanton, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, early this year. The 25-year-old walked out of the Townsville University Hospital ICU last week, and will continue his rehabilitation at Rockhampton Hospital. Mr Pearce is one of just three people in Queensland to be infected with the deadly disease in the past five years, Queensland health figures show. Mr Pearce's mother, Mel Jones, said her son had to learn to walk again. "His stomach stopped working, he couldn't swallow, and it's messed with his heart," she said. Mr Pearce was found unconscious after complaining of a headache while working at a cattle station. He was flown to Townsville Hospital on February 14 , with swelling and inflammation of the brain, and placed on life support. Mr Pearce thanked the medical staff who helped him pull through. "It was pretty rough and even though I was a bit mean sometimes, people still cared," he said. Townsville Hospital and Health Service ICU clinical director Siva Senthuran described the recovery as "remarkable". Infectious diseases physician and clinical microbiologist Professor Paul Griffin said MVE was one of a number of mosquito-borne viruses that could, in rare cares, cause inflammation of the brain. Professor Griffin said mortality rates could be up to 20 per cent, and noted experts were concerned about a rise in mosquito-borne diseases, as the climate changed. "There can be lasting consequences, including not returning to the same level of brain function afterwards or even not surviving that infection," he said. "It's a timely reminder to take steps to prevent getting bitten by mosquitoes where we see activity of this virus." Dr Senthuran said while it would take months for Mr Pearce to recover, he was progressing faster than expected. Mr Pearce said his transfer to Rockhampton Hospital would mean he could continue his recovery closer to his home and family in Gladstone.
