Latest news with #MinderooFoundation
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Everyday household items elevated as 'threat to humanity'
Plastic is found in human breast milk, brains, lungs, and male genitals, but are everyday household items like containers, toys and clothing actually bad for our health? One of the world's oldest peer-reviewed medical journals is concerned enough to label it a 'threat to humanity'. Overnight, The Lancet launched the Countdown on Health and Plastic scheme to collate independent data to help inform decision-makers on these four topics: Health impacts Exposures Production and emissions Interventions and engagement The announcement was made late on Monday (Australian time), advancing the crisis to the same level as climate change. It came as delegates from around the world gather in Switzerland for the fifth session of negotiations on a Global Plastics Treaty. Related: What happens when you put plastic in your dishwasher? Funding for the program is principally funded by Australia's Minderoo Foundation, a philanthropic organisation set up by mining billionaire Andrew Forrest and his then-wife Nicola. The Foundation's head of plastics and human health, Professor Sarah Dunlop, said there is 'overwhelming' evidence highlighting the dangers associated with plastic use. 'Toxic chemicals in everyday plastic items leach into our bodies, and harm human health at every stage of our lives,' she said. As the treaty negotiations offered an opportunity to increase regulation around its use, she said the launch of the Countdown is something that 'negotiators in Geneva cannot ignore'. Grim studies point to worrying impacts of plastic use Until now, collating disparate research and making sure it reached decision-makers has been a challenge for scientists. Studies on the impact of plastic are frequently published, but they are quickly forgotten and don't often result in a direct impact on its manufacture or use. A French study published in July estimated humans are breathing in 68,000 tiny plastic particles a day. But it's not just in human bodies where plastic is found — the substance litters some of the deepest parts of the ocean and the most remote corners of Antarctica. There is growing evidence that it's causing harm to wildlife, and it's been linked to a respiratory disease in birds. Emerging research from the Plymouth Marine Laboratory has linked its use to antimicrobial resistance. As new types of plastic are created, researchers say their impact on humans is unknown as they're rolled out to market. Most contain a cocktail of chemicals, and a study, published in the prestigious journal Nature in July, argued 4,200 should be banned from use. Love Australia's weird and wonderful environment? 🐊🦘😳 Get our new newsletter showcasing the week's best stories.
West Australian
29-07-2025
- Business
- West Australian
Three-year $3.3m Minderoo and Regional Arts partnership to benefit Mid West and Gascoyne creative groups
A new $3.3 million partnership between the Minderoo Foundation and Regional Arts WA is set to inject vital support into regional arts, with three Mid West and Gascoyne organisations among the first to benefit. Announced on Tuesday, the three-year collaboration will support the delivery of Regional WA's Thrive! Arts, Culture and Creativity Investment Framework 2025-2029, a Statewide strategy to strengthen local arts organisations, boost community engagement and build a more resilient creative sector. 'This strategic partnership represents a pivotal moment for regional arts in Western Australia,' said Pilar Kasat, CEO of Regional Arts WA. 'Minderoo Foundation's investment is a timely and powerful endorsement of sustained, place-based arts development that supports the people, skills, and creative capacity that underpin vibrant regional communities.' The partnership builds on a collaboration that began in 2019 with the establishment of the Regional Arts Network, and will continue to support a Statewide group of 20 not-for-profit arts and cultural organisations — including Yamaji Art and North Midlands Project in the Mid West, and Creality in the Gascoyne. 'We believe in the transformative power of the arts to connect, inspire, and uplift communities, especially in regional Western Australia,' Minderoo Foundation co-chair Nicola Forrest said. 'Through Thrive, Minderoo is proud to support a strategy that will expand access, deepen participation, and ensure that regional voices continue to shape the cultural landscape of our state.' The Regional Arts Network currently reaches 44 local government areas, generating over $19 million in annual turnover, employing more than 200 creative workers and 1200 artists, and engaging more than 2000 volunteers each year. 'Minderoo Foundation is backing the Thrive Framework to help build more vibrant and connected communities across regional Western Australia,' Minderoo Foundation CEO John Hartman said. 'This partnership is about strategically aligning resources and amplifying impact to give the regional arts sector and artists the long-term support they need to thrive.' More than 70 per cent of the funding will go towards industry connection, capacity-building, and a new creative collaboration fund designed to accelerate impact across the regions. Representatives from the network expressed their eagerness for the partnership. 'The Regional Arts Network knows first-hand that the arts contribute to community vibrancy, local job creation, and wellbeing,' they said. 'This funding ensures that we will strengthen our capacity of 20 organisations across the State and build long-term sustainability for creatives who are the cultural backbone of our communities.'
Sydney Morning Herald
24-07-2025
- Science
- Sydney Morning Herald
How just two litres of water can uncover the mysteries of the sea
How do you detect the presence of a bony-eared assfish, lurking 3000 metres below the surface of the ocean? By testing for evidence of its urine, of course. Scientists have spent the past three years painstakingly mapping the DNA of Australia's oceans, filtering the waters to collect the DNA 'breadcrumbs' animals leave behind. From just two litres of water, they can identify the DNA of every creature that has passed through the environment over the previous hours and days, allowing them to collect evidence of the animals' presence without nets and ropes. A multiyear project run by Minderoo Foundation and Parks Australia, spanning 13 dedicated voyages and several secondary voyages, has identified 257,497 marine vertebrates across Australian marine parks spanning 4000 kilometres north to south, and 6000 kilometres east to west. The environmental DNA (eDNA) project has not only spotlit where rare and threatened marine species are, but has also inadvertently discovered species previously unknown to science. 'Of course, we see more of them in places like deep-sea ecosystems, where people haven't gone before and surveyed the biodiversity down there,' said Professor Michael Bunce, the head of OceanOmics at Minderoo. 'What's going to be crucial is putting protections around some of these special places before they disappear.' Bony-eared assfish – a form of cusk-eel – are delicate creatures resembling a cross between a jellyfish and a tadpole, and are found in tropical and subtropical waters to depths of up to 4000 metres. Identifying them would usually involve extracting them from the depths of the ocean, thereby killing them. Other mid- and deep-sea creatures identified by the research teams include similarly intriguingly named rattails, slimeheads, pearlfish, slickheads and lanternfish. Despite rapid advances in scientific knowledge, oceans remain the great unknown, with estimates there could be up to 500,000 marine species in Australia's oceans, including corals, plankton and shellfish – of which just 33,000 have been identified. Work to sequence the DNA of marine life is slow and painstaking, but Bunce said Minderoo Foundation had set a goal to sequence the genetic 'barcodes' of all 5000 known marine fish, a task that is about halfway complete. A further 500 vertebrates call Australian waters home, including seabirds, whales, sealions and dolphins. The organisation is one of the partners of the national science agency CSIRO, which has set an ambitious target to create a national biodiversity DNA library for Australia, which it says would offer enormous fisheries, biosecurity and environmental benefits. The $11.8 million multiyear eDNA partnership between Minderoo Foundation and Parks Australia took seawater samples from a range of ocean environments, from tropical reefs to 6000 metres below the surface of the water. Bunce said sea creatures shed DNA in various ways, but mostly from the waste they expel. 'They're defecating and urinating in the water columns, so we're literally swimming around in a whole pile of DNA ... and that's kind of cool and gross at the same time,' he said. After animals shed DNA, it can be detectable for between a few hours and a few days before it is broken down by water movements, temperatures, UV radiation and other factors. DNA is broken down more rapidly in shallow and warm waters, while in cold and dark deep-sea settings, it can persist for a week or more. While all animals contain those genetic breadcrumbs, which are scattered through our oceans, different species lose DNA in different ways. Bunce said turtles and sea snakes slough smaller amounts of DNA as they move through water, making them more difficult to detect, while baitfish were easily identified as they were eaten in great numbers and expelled out the back ends of larger species. Not that there is such a thing as a perfect science – Bunce said researchers joked about the cats, dogs and salmon apparently detected in remote oceans, their DNA deposited into pristine waters from boats above. Armed with more than a quarter of a million observations of sea creatures, the project's leaders then turned their sights to offering their science to the Australian public, and the world. Minderoo Foundation's new OceanOmics eDNA Dashboard, launched today, combines artificial intelligence with eDNA to allow users to explore the data by species or marine park, or to 'chat' with AI to interrogate the data. A Minderoo spokesman said the dashboard would be 'a game-changer for marine conservation as everyday Australians can now visualise the ocean in an entirely new way'. Dr Philipp Bayer, principal of computational biology at Minderoo Foundation, said scientists had recovered more than 1.2 billion DNA sequence readings from their surveys, with each two-litre eDNA seawater sample averaging 62 different marine species detections. Scientists made almost 258,000 marine vertebrate eDNA observations, including 2019 bony fish species and 95 cartilaginous fish (sharks, rays and chimaeras) species. 'This is a lot of data,' Bayer said. 'To make sense of it all, and enable people to interact with the data, we co-developed a dashboard that allows users to explore the living fabric of our oceans at scale. 'The dashboard focuses on making complex science accessible. While we can't see DNA, we can read it – and now we can visualise the output too.' Environment and Water Minister Murray Watt welcomed the innovation, describing it as a game-changer for marine conservation. 'We can now 'visualise' the ocean in an entirely new way – from threatened handfish to whale sharks, we're gaining insights that were unimaginable just a few years ago,' he said. 'By co-investing in world-leading science like this, we're better equipped to protect the incredible biodiversity in our marine parks and make evidence-based decisions for the future.'
The Age
24-07-2025
- Science
- The Age
How just two litres of water can uncover the mysteries of the sea
How do you detect the presence of a bony-eared assfish, lurking 3000 metres below the surface of the ocean? By testing for evidence of its urine, of course. Scientists have spent the past three years painstakingly mapping the DNA of Australia's oceans, filtering the waters to collect the DNA 'breadcrumbs' animals leave behind. From just two litres of water, they can identify the DNA of every creature that has passed through the environment over the previous hours and days, allowing them to collect evidence of the animals' presence without nets and ropes. A multiyear project run by Minderoo Foundation and Parks Australia, spanning 13 dedicated voyages and several secondary voyages, has identified 257,497 marine vertebrates across Australian marine parks spanning 4000 kilometres north to south, and 6000 kilometres east to west. The environmental DNA (eDNA) project has not only spotlit where rare and threatened marine species are, but has also inadvertently discovered species previously unknown to science. 'Of course, we see more of them in places like deep-sea ecosystems, where people haven't gone before and surveyed the biodiversity down there,' said Professor Michael Bunce, the head of OceanOmics at Minderoo. 'What's going to be crucial is putting protections around some of these special places before they disappear.' Bony-eared assfish – a form of cusk-eel – are delicate creatures resembling a cross between a jellyfish and a tadpole, and are found in tropical and subtropical waters to depths of up to 4000 metres. Identifying them would usually involve extracting them from the depths of the ocean, thereby killing them. Other mid- and deep-sea creatures identified by the research teams include similarly intriguingly named rattails, slimeheads, pearlfish, slickheads and lanternfish. Despite rapid advances in scientific knowledge, oceans remain the great unknown, with estimates there could be up to 500,000 marine species in Australia's oceans, including corals, plankton and shellfish – of which just 33,000 have been identified. Work to sequence the DNA of marine life is slow and painstaking, but Bunce said Minderoo Foundation had set a goal to sequence the genetic 'barcodes' of all 5000 known marine fish, a task that is about halfway complete. A further 500 vertebrates call Australian waters home, including seabirds, whales, sealions and dolphins. The organisation is one of the partners of the national science agency CSIRO, which has set an ambitious target to create a national biodiversity DNA library for Australia, which it says would offer enormous fisheries, biosecurity and environmental benefits. The $11.8 million multiyear eDNA partnership between Minderoo Foundation and Parks Australia took seawater samples from a range of ocean environments, from tropical reefs to 6000 metres below the surface of the water. Bunce said sea creatures shed DNA in various ways, but mostly from the waste they expel. 'They're defecating and urinating in the water columns, so we're literally swimming around in a whole pile of DNA ... and that's kind of cool and gross at the same time,' he said. After animals shed DNA, it can be detectable for between a few hours and a few days before it is broken down by water movements, temperatures, UV radiation and other factors. DNA is broken down more rapidly in shallow and warm waters, while in cold and dark deep-sea settings, it can persist for a week or more. While all animals contain those genetic breadcrumbs, which are scattered through our oceans, different species lose DNA in different ways. Bunce said turtles and sea snakes slough smaller amounts of DNA as they move through water, making them more difficult to detect, while baitfish were easily identified as they were eaten in great numbers and expelled out the back ends of larger species. Not that there is such a thing as a perfect science – Bunce said researchers joked about the cats, dogs and salmon apparently detected in remote oceans, their DNA deposited into pristine waters from boats above. Armed with more than a quarter of a million observations of sea creatures, the project's leaders then turned their sights to offering their science to the Australian public, and the world. Minderoo Foundation's new OceanOmics eDNA Dashboard, launched today, combines artificial intelligence with eDNA to allow users to explore the data by species or marine park, or to 'chat' with AI to interrogate the data. A Minderoo spokesman said the dashboard would be 'a game-changer for marine conservation as everyday Australians can now visualise the ocean in an entirely new way'. Dr Philipp Bayer, principal of computational biology at Minderoo Foundation, said scientists had recovered more than 1.2 billion DNA sequence readings from their surveys, with each two-litre eDNA seawater sample averaging 62 different marine species detections. Scientists made almost 258,000 marine vertebrate eDNA observations, including 2019 bony fish species and 95 cartilaginous fish (sharks, rays and chimaeras) species. 'This is a lot of data,' Bayer said. 'To make sense of it all, and enable people to interact with the data, we co-developed a dashboard that allows users to explore the living fabric of our oceans at scale. 'The dashboard focuses on making complex science accessible. While we can't see DNA, we can read it – and now we can visualise the output too.' Environment and Water Minister Murray Watt welcomed the innovation, describing it as a game-changer for marine conservation. 'We can now 'visualise' the ocean in an entirely new way – from threatened handfish to whale sharks, we're gaining insights that were unimaginable just a few years ago,' he said. 'By co-investing in world-leading science like this, we're better equipped to protect the incredible biodiversity in our marine parks and make evidence-based decisions for the future.'
Sky News AU
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Sky News AU
Former South Australian premier Jay Weatherill picked to co-lead Victoria childcare review following shock alleged child sex crimes revelations
Former South Australian premier Jay Weatherill and a Victorian public service veteran have been chosen to lead an urgent review into childcare safety in Victoria following shocking revelations of alleged offences against children by a childcare worker. Victoria Police launched a major investigation after Melbourne man Joshua Dale Brown, 26, was arrested and charged with over 70 child sex offences against eight alleged victims who had been in his care. Mr Brown had worked at 20 childcare centres across the state since 2017, and hundreds of families have been urged to have their potentially affected children tested for 'infectious diseases". A second man, Michael Simon Wilson, 36, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with child sex offences as part of the ongoing police probe. Victoria Premier Jacinta Allan said Victorians were 'horrified' by the allegations and on Wednesday announced that an 'urgent review' into childcare safety in the state had been commissioned. 'I know that right across our state, (Victorians) turned to one another and asked how this sort of alleged offending could ever be possible within a childcare centre,' the premier said in a statement. The premier said she wanted the review to look at potentially having CCTV installed in childcare centres, and she also announced a 'Victorian register' will be created. Ms Allan on Thursday then revealed the review will be co-led by Mr Weatherill, who served as South Australia Premier between 2011 and 2018, and Victorian public service veteran Pamela White, who has held senior roles within the sector for over three decades. '(Mr Weatherill) is recognised for his leadership in early childhood and tertiary education and was appointed in 2020 to lead the Minderoo Foundation's Thrive by Five early learning reform campaign,' Ms Allan stated. The 'short and sharp' review will hone in on steps the state government can take immediately, the premier said. A deadline of August 15 has been set for the review to report back to the government – which Ms Allan said will adopt all recommendations the review puts forward. Ms Allan has also outlined that the use of personal devices will be banned in the state's childcare centres by September 26, with the possibility of fines of up to $50,000 being imposed on centres if the new rule is breached after that date. 'My Government will take every action possible – as soon as possible – to strengthen safety standards in early childhood education and care, to keep Victorian children safe,' she said. The Victorian Department of Health activated a public health response this week following the arrest of Mr Brown - whose charges include sexual penetration of a child under 12, producing and transmitting child abuse material, and recklessly contaminating goods to cause alarm or anxiety. The department urged parents of children who have potentially been exposed to Mr Brown to be screened for infectious diseases. Victorian Police Acting Commander Janet Stevenson on Tuesday said the investigation is 'incredibly distressing and confronting' for all those involved. 'The most important thing for our investigators was that we needed to identify the [alleged] victims involved,' Acting Commander Stevenson said in a statement. 'These are some of the most vulnerable members of our community and the conversations police have had to have with their families were no doubt life changing in the worst possible way.'
