Welcome to Small Change

Heron Island is home to an extensive and long-running climate change research project, the Coral Reef Ecosystems Lab. The project involves a team of researchers monitoring 12 coral reef mesocosms –natural environments kept under controlled conditions.

Huge land turtles, 8-foot tall kangaroos, massive cold-blooded killer goannas. These are but a few of the giant animals that once roamed Australia. But what happened to these megafauna? When did they go extinct and why?

April 23 will mark 19 years since the death of Professor Dorothy Hill - UQ graduate and teacher, and a pioneer for women in science. Dr Gilbert Price from the UQ School of Earth Sciences reflects on her legacy and the importance of her humble rock hammer.

In The Compassion Initiative podcast this week, clinical Psychologists Dr Stan Steindl and Dr James Kirby discuss self compassion.

I’m Caitlin Syme, a palaeontology PhD student in the School of Biological Sciences. I spend my days looking at dinosaur, crocodile and fish fossils, and studying their taphonomy: how those particular animals died, decayed, and were eventually buried and turned into fossils.

It might sound like science fiction, but deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an increasingly common procedure for neurological disorders like Parkinson's disease. Kirsten MacGregor caught up with the Queensland Brain Institute's Professor Peter Silbrun, a leading DBS researcher and practitioner, to find out more about the treatment.

On this episode of The Compassion Initiative podcast Dr Stan Steindl and Dr James Kirby discuss the definition of compassion.

This week the grey matter in question is not the brain, but the bleached corals on the Great Barrier Reef. Professor Justin Marshal, who leads the sensory neurobiology laboratory at QBI, talks about working with Sir David Attenborough, the citizen science project Coral Watch and the unprecedented coral bleaching that is unfolding on the Great Barrier Reef.

An evening walk around Heron Island during November through to March turns up more than seaweed and sand.

UQ digital content producer Matthew Taylor joined a team of researchers on a trip to north-west Queensland – to learn all about grass.