Historical holes: Beneath the surface, caves hold the key to Australia’s wildfire history

My colleague @michcampbell recently held a postdoctoral research grant from AINSE. They've just released this 2025 Research Spotlight for early career researcher awardees all about her fire research. I think this is nicely done. If you'd like to know how caves and cave stalagmites can be used to reconstruct records of past fires, here's the article

http://andy-baker.org/2025/04/22/historical-holes-beneath-the-surface-caves-hold-the-key-to-australias-wildfire-history/

https://www.europesays.com/2007126/ STIs are increasing in Australia. Can anything lower these rates? #australia #BulkBilling #BurnetInstitute #Chlamydia #DavidLewis #disease #Gonorrhea #Gonorrhoea #GP #HepatitisC #hiv #JasonOng #KirbyInstitute #MarkStoové #MelbourneSexualHealthCentre #NSW #prep #SexuallyTransmittedInfection #SkyeMcGregor #sti #stigma #SydneyMedicalSchool #Syphilis #UniversityOfSydney #unsw

#pinesofMastodon #botanybay #unsw

6 Australian universities have quietly closed Chinese government-linked Confucius Institutes on their campuses.

The Australian government has ramped up scrutiny on the education centres over concerns that Beijing is using them to spread propaganda and spy on Chinese international students.

I think Ateneo de Manila hosts a Confucius Institute.

#Asian #Propaganda #Spying #Australia #Universities #UNSW #Melbourne

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czx1dyxyg10o

New preprint

Hydrology and cave (and cave hydrology!) enthusiasts may enjoy this preprint just posted today for community review in the #EGU journal #HESS. Led by former #UNSW student, Christina Song, with @Andbaker and myself, we looked at recharge thresholds (amount of precipitation needed for recharge to occur in a cave), and how they changed after a fire.

https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-84/

The preprint is open now for community discussion, and will be accepting comments until 23 April.

Postdoctoral position in  climate science at UNSW Sydney

My colleague Andréa Taschetto and I are recruiting. Please share...

Are you familiar with climate model simulations? Are you interested in extreme rainfall events: those that generate groundwater recharge? Are you interested in ENSO?

We are investigating the links between climate drivers such as ENSO, high magnitude rainfall events and groundwater recharge, to help understand how climate drivers affect our groundwater resources.

For more information:
http://andy-baker.org/2025/01/25/postdoctoral-position-in-climate-science-at-unsw-sydney/

Great #PostDoc opportunity at #UNSW - the successful applicant will use climate model simulations to investigate the climate processes that lead to relationships between climate state, rainfall intensity, and groundwater recharge.

#ECR #ECRChat #AcademicChatter

https://external-careers.jobs.unsw.edu.au/cw/en/job/528547/research-associate

Researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia, have identified a new method that encodes quantum information onto an antimony atom which can help make errors in quantum systems less likely to occur, and, when they do, make them more easily detected and corrected!

#Physics #QuantumComputing #qubit #QuatumErrors #Schrödingerscat #UNSW #QuantumPhysics

View the research paper here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-024-02745-0.epdf?sharing_token=I-d2r5KePAYGVqGHy8wv69RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Py8zm8t9wt03sa-DLDHpOnOR9Wk5Z1yg0k_jA70_E-9DFPb_5aba5PpXGlZ9PBQFZasQppCUl7fQRV-gPSSeVHWlU-8SiLB0LuY0ulGGvvb9OlZrnQGsrEwjv_Nrue9UKInsmQxhRdczXg6a0v1QFGYEWMdFqpWhatiNt178rujYP_a-eIBrtX1uElkEpYBxsGuXctFv3UF_cADQKj02Cw6ImumEnHF_K3kWHbFOVme4R6eGPLNN25U1XCfFdDg3_slB_unVoWXfpRa4-jQHwmp3YIi143mCS_CpbHWFnCYJ36OxRDpFY-iwvmsQelTfC8cu9-oOq1sV0eLKBm7REWgRolp_uDwY5mMsoSuRwv_A%3D%3D&tracking_referrer=www.livescience.com

The best thing about still being on #UNSW BEES email lists is getting to see the cute pet application notifications

This 'How to spot a rip' exercise from Prof Rob Brander at #UNSW is excellent.

Anyone who spends time at the beach should be able to ID a rip and know what to do if you get caught in one! In the immportal words of Douglas Adams - DON'T PANIC.

Quietly proud that I spotted all the rips, but living my whole life up until now on the coast, it would have been slightly embarrassing not to have!

#Rip #Riptide #beach #SurfLifeSaving #Australia

https://how-to-spot-a-rip.netlify.app//

"UNSW Sydney has initiated a major collaboration with OpenAI, becoming the first university in the Asia-Pacific region to work with the US-based research organisation to deploy ChatGPT Edu."

I am beyond frustrated with the intrusion of LLMs into higher education and even more disappointed that #UNSW has decided to play ball with these companies.

OpenAI is one of the worst polluters of our information ecosystem. We should not be doing business with them.

https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2024/12/UNSW-Sydney-signs-landmark-agreement-with-OpenAI

TUTORIAL DETAILS - #LLMs, #LORA and #PEFT

Join us at #ALTA2024 for a tutorial led by Dr Nicholas I-Hsien Kuo from the UNSW Centre for Big Data Research in Health, #UNSW Sydney.

What You’ll Gain

Implement and evaluate PEFT and quantisation techniques.

Fine-tune and deploy LLMs on hardware with limited resources.

Optimise workflows for real-world applications without sacrificing performance.

Register now!
https://alta2024.alta.asn.au

If you've ever offset the emissions of a flight at the checkout, you might enjoy this quick presentation from Megan Evans on the greenwashing that happens in carbon markets. Part of #UNSW Festival of Dangerous Ideas.

#carbonCredits #CarbonMarket #emissions

https://unswcentreforideas.com/article/megan-evans-dont-question-fake-carbon-forests

Celebrating Australian Laureate Fellowship Recipients

Last week I had the honour of attending the ARC’s annual Laureate Pin Ceremony, celebrating Australian Laureate Fellowship recipients and Industry Laureate Fellowship recipients. It was wonderful to celebrate with family and meet old and new colleagues. I received my pin in Australia's Parliament House in Canberra from the Federal Member for Canberra, Ms Alicia Payne MP. Over the next five years, I will be building a network of collaborators and training early career researchers to tackle the question of groundwater recharge - that is, the replenishment of groundwater.

http://andy-baker.org/2024/11/16/celebrating-australian-laureate-fellowship-recipients/

The Living Water exhibit at #UNSW closed today. There was just time to show our #groundwater recharge exhibit to my University of Birmingham exchange team. And download the drip logger that counted visitor numbers.

https://www.library.unsw.edu.au/about-unsw-library/exhibitions-program/living-water

New server, new #introduction. Also, hashtags.

I research #transport #access using a lot of GIS, #python, #rstats, #OSM. Formerly #Sydney, Australia, now #Toronto, Canada.

I probably followed you because I liked your thoughts about Australian, French or Canadian #urbanism, #bikepacking, #ebikes, #choralmusic or #rockclimbing, or you work at #UNSW and seem cool.

Je suis aussi capable de toot un peu de l'#urbanisme, #vélo et j'aime suivre ça.

Two post-doctoral research positions at UNSW Sydney

Would you like to work at UNSW Sydney with myself (Earth and Sustainability Science Research Centre) and colleagues Andrea Taschetto (UNSW Climate Change Research Centre) and Pauline Treble (ANSTO)? We have two positions being advertised now, both related to the Australian Research Council Fellowship project 'Caves and their stalagmites: linking climate to groundwater recharge'.

http://andy-baker.org/2024/10/31/two-post-doctoral-research-positions-at-unsw-sydney/

https://www.europesays.com/1548553/ Do carbon credits work to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere? | Alan Kohler | ABC News #Abc #AbcNews #AlanKohler #anu #atmosphere #australia #AustralianCarbonCreditUnits #AustralianNationalUniversity #CarbonDioxide #Climate #ClimateChange #co2 #emissions #Environment #fake #fraud #GlobalWarming #heating #HumanInducedRegeneration #LandManagement #NativeForest #News #offsets #réduction #regrowth #sink #UniversityOfNewSouthWales #unsw

Researchers find way of generating electricity at night when sun isn't shining.

A team of researchers from UNSW have developed a new device that has demonstrated the ability to produce electricity from infrared heat sources.
It allows scientists to capture the heat difference in the atmosphere before it would have otherwise been lost into outer space.

#energy #unsw #solar

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-28/infrared-light-power-generation-unsw/104344544?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=thesun

Job opportunity – Lecturer in Environmental Science

Come and join me and my colleagues at UNSW Sydney.

Our continuing position suitable for an early career academic has just opened and is within the field of environmental science, ideally with strong links to state, national or international policy and current environmental management. The focus on one or more of the following:

Current environmental threats and solutions for improved environmental management

Interactions between climate, vegetation, fauna and landscape processes

Ecosystem sciences across terrestrial, freshwater or marine ecosystems

Quantitative sciences needed for environmental decision making and management

Large scale habitat restoration and sustainability

Translating environmental science to state, national and international policy

Public communication of scientific research to increase potential impact
 
Full details can be found at: https://external-careers.jobs.unsw.edu.au/cw/en/job/527769/lecturer-in-environmental-science