 | | Cows will no longer suffer from deadly rinderpest, which this year became the first animal disease ever successfully eradicated by humans. Image: WikimediaCommons/John O'Neill
| News: Year of vets By Sarah Kellett This year marks the 250th anniversaries of the first official veterinary profession and the invention of comparative pathobiology; the idea that we can learn about human diseases by studying animal diseases. In May, the World Organisation for Animal Health announced the world was free from rinderpest – a virus which causes one of the deadliest diseases in cattle. It is the first animal disease ever to be eradicated by humans.
As an official contribution to the celebrations the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) has published a brief history of government vets in Australia titled A Veterinary Awakening. This book opens with a treatment for sick cattle taken from a medieval book called Lacnunga (which means ‘Remedies’): Sing about the cattle the Benedicite and some litanies and the Pater Noster. Sprinkle holy water upon them, burn upon them incense and give the tenth penny in the Church for God, after that leave them to amend; do this thrice. Animals on the First Fleet were largely disease-free, but in the 1850s infectious diseases like foot and mouth disease and anthrax were accidentally introduced. A number of livestock diseases can be caught by humans, like bovine tuberculosis which can be passed on through milk. Some of the first public health officials in Australia were government vets, as 1880 food safety legislation prohibited the sale of diseased food. Vaccines have helped control the spread of many diseases, such as anthrax. Vets tackled the tick problem in northern Australia by cross-breeding British cattle with tick-resistant breeds more suited to warm climates. The value of disease freedom is huge and research continues in existing and emerging livestock diseases, like Hendra virus, Menangle virus and Nipah. As Australia’s Nobel Prize winner, Peter Doherty – also once a government vet – likes to say, "don’t underestimate the ‘science’ in ‘veterinary science’". More information Careers | |
 |  |  | | Scoop tomato seeds into a cup | | |  | | Add some water to the tomato seeds and put cling wrap over the cup. | | |  | | Leave the tomato seeds somewhere warm for a few days. | | | | |  | | Collect the good seeds at the bottom of the cup and rinse well. | | | | |  | | Spread seeds out on baking paper and leave to dry. | | Try this: Store tomato seeds Safety: This activity uses a knife. Visit the CSIRO Education safety page for more information. You will need - Tomato
- Water
- Cup
- Knife
- Spoon
- Cling wrap
- Sieve
- Baking paper
- Plate
What to do - Pick a tomato that is firm and ripe, from a flavour and variety you like. A fresh tomato from the garden or farmer’s markets is best.
- Cut the tomato in half, separating the top from the bottom.
- With a spoon, scoop out the seeds and the gel around them into a clean cup.
- Add two tablespoons of water to the cup.
- Cover the cup with cling wrap and poke a small hole in it with the knife so air can get through. This will keep away any hungry insects.
- Put the cup somewhere warm and leave it for four days. Stir it once each day. The top of the liquid will become scummy and the seeds will fall to the bottom. Watch out, it smells.
- With a spoon, dispose of the scummy surface in the sink.
- Put four teaspoons of water in the cup, stir, and allow the mixture to rest for two minutes. Scoop up anything that rises to the top and discard it. The good seeds will fall to the bottom.
- Repeat Step 8 until only clean seeds are left.
- Pour the rest of the water and the seeds through a sieve and rinse well with water.
- Line a plate with baking paper and put the seeds on top, spreading them out so they don’t touch.
- Leave the seeds to dry for a week, stirring now and then help them dry. The seeds are dry when they move easily across the plate.
- Store the dried seeds in a labelled paper envelope or small plastic bag, and keep them in a dry location until you are ready to plant them.
What's happening? Each tomato seed comes inside a gel sack, which contains chemicals to stop the seed germinating into a plant. When a tomato is ripe and falls of the vine, it slowly rots and the gel sack is destroyed. It’s called fermentation. We mimic the natural process by putting seeds into water and leaving them somewhere warm for a few days. As well as stopping seeds from growing, the gel sack can contain diseases, so it’s important to remove it before sharing or trading seeds. Drying seeds before storage prevents bacteria and mould from growing. Pick the very best tomatoes to harvest your seeds from, as the seeds contain the DNA of that tomato – all the information you need to grow a new plant. Applications People have been storing seed for farming for hundreds of years. Seeds are also stored in seed banks to conserve species and keep records of the plants that grew hundreds of years ago. Before storing seeds, the plant must be correctly identified so the samples can be labelled. Airtight storage is sometimes used when seeds will be kept for more than five years. Many seed banks replace the air inside containers with carbon dioxide to make the seeds last longer. Not all seeds can be dried and stored in the same way. Where tomato seeds need to be fermented before drying, pepper seeds can be dried straight from the plant. Eucalypt seeds can be dried almost completely and still grow, but mangrove seeds are damaged by drying and need to be stored somewhere moist.  | CREST question: Is there a particular set of conditions for storing your dried tomato seeds that will let you grow the most tomatoes? Design and carry out an investigation to test this.
| More information By Sarah Kellett View the online version | Quiz questions 1. There’s a myth that hippos sweat blood. What really happens?
2. What do diamonds and graphite (the ‘lead’ in pencils) have in common?
3. A rain shadow is a) the darkness when storm-clouds pass across the Sun, b) an area of dry land downwind of a mountain, c) a secondary rain shower triggered by an earlier heavy storm.
4. What does piezoelectric mean?
5. Do eucalypts only occur naturally in Australia? | Australian Tree Seed Centre Australian trees are being planted around Australia and in many other areas of the world. Planting trees on a large scale can improve energy security, climate change and food security. The Australian Tree Seed Centre (ATSC) at CSIRO stores and conserves a wide range of important tree seeds. These are used to provide materials for buildings and industry, and to help protect the environment. | Did you know? Graphene, a combination of graphite and water, could become an energy storage system as effective as lithium batteries, according to research at Monash University. | | | Events National Tree Day 31 July National Tree Day and School Tree Day on 29 July combine to create Australia's biggest community tree-planting event. Since it was founded in 1996, more than two million volunteers have planted over 15 million native trees and shrubs. When: Sunday 31 July 2011
Where: Sites around Australia. Find one near you.
How much: Free Get involved in what's happening in your area. For more information, see the National Tree Day website. | Rockets, Saturday 30 July at 9.00 am on Network Ten SCOPE is taking off for another episode full of rockets, rockets and more rockets! From rockets made from balloons to space shuttles designed by NASA, and everything in between, this episode of SCOPE is a blast! So don’t forget to report in to mission control and join Dr Rob as he once again proves that the ordinary really does become extraordinary, under the SCOPE!
Next episodes: Thursday 4 August: Music
Saturday 6 August: Apex Predators Want to have your own episodes of SCOPE to watch whenever you feel like it? Click here to download them directly into your iTunes folder, or go here to download iTunes. Charges apply. | | | CSIRO Education incursions and excursions Each year, over 260 000 students, teachers and other visitors come to CSIRO Education’s regional centres or are visited at schools by our staff. Click here for more details on your nearest centre. Maths by Email Love Science by Email? Check out Maths by Email, CSIRO’s new free maths e-newsletter. Each issue is packed with stories, hands on activities, puzzles, links and more! Sign up here. BHP Billiton Science Awards The BHP Billiton Science Awards reward students for creative research, experiment or investigation projects and teachers for their support of open-ended student investigations. For more details, click here. | | Quiz answers 1. Instead of sweat glands, hippos have unique glands that produces a thick red fluid, particularly when excited. This gave rise to the myth that hippos sweat blood.
2. Both diamonds and graphite are made entirely of carbon. The way the carbon is arranged gives the materials different appearances and properties.
3. b) A rain shadow is an area of dry land downwind of a mountain. For example, the Gobi Desert is in the rain shadow of the Himalayas.
4. Piezoelectric materials convert mechanical movement into electricity.
5. No, there are also species of eucalypts naturally occurring in Timor, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and the Philippines. The Australian Tree Seed Centre at CSIRO currently stores seed of 350 eucalypt species. | | | | Editor: Mike McRae | Manage your subscription | FAQ | |
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