Smarter bank notes, health-protecting wearable electronics, and bendy solar cells are just some of the ways that polymer science is making plastic fantastic. Next week, three Australian researchers will tell audiences in Sydney and Melbourne how they are putting polymers to work.

Wearable patches that warn of sunburn and smart contact lenses that act as sunglasses are just the beginning for RMIT’s Associate Professor Madhu Bhaskaran who hopes her research into “stretchy electronics” will lead to wearable devices that can improve our health.

The Academy has awarded the Douglas and Lola Douglas Scholarship to Dr Bianca Middleton for her research on improving the health of Indigenous children.

Dr Middleton was awarded the scholarship for her PhD work on ‘Strategies to reduce the burden of gastroenteritis in Aboriginal children’. She is jointly enrolled at the Menzies School of Health Research and Charles Darwin University.

The Academy welcomes the Government’s National Science Statement released today by the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science Senator the Hon Arthur Sinodinos at the National Press Club.

Importantly, the comprehensive statement recognises:

Australian Academy of Science President, Professor Andrew Holmes, and his colleagues from the S20 Science Forum have presented a position statement on global health to the German Federal Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel ahead of the G20 Summit in July.

“The Ebola and Zika epidemics have shown how disease in one country can have global impact. Infectious diseases are causing at least 15 per cent of cancer cases. And 15 per cent of tuberculosis cases may be linked to type II diabetes,” said Professor Holmes.