FED:WA: SKA Pathfinder telescope launched

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1 AAP Newswire -, Australia 05 Oct 2012, by AAP AAP, All Rights Reserved words ID BRIEF ACPET INDEX 1.1 PAGE 1 of 1 FED:WA: SKA Pathfinder telescope launched A major part of a colossal radio telescope that astronomers expect will provide the farthest peek into the universe has been officially opened in the remote, red-dirt desert of Western Australia. Construction of CSIRO's ground-breaking, 36-dish Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder telescope at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory about 315 kilometres northeast of Geraldton, is now complete. Science and research minister CHRIS EVANS, who attended the launch today, says the ASKAP is a very important science project in its own right but will also provide the basis for Australia's contribution to the broader two and a half billion dollar SKA project, which will be jointly hosted with South Africa and New Zealand. During the first phase of the bigger SKA project, 60 dishes will be added to the ASKAP along with thousands of dipole antennas, with construction slated to start in AAP RTV rlm/crh Content Supplied by Australian Associated Press AAP, All Rights Reserved. See disclaimer at

2 AAP Newswire -, Australia 05 Oct 2012, by AAP AAP, All Rights Reserved words ID BRIEF ACPET INDEX 1.2 PAGE 1 of 1 FED:SKA Pathfinder telescope launched in WA EDS: Not for use before 1400 AEST Friday, October By Rebecca Le May PERTH, Oct 5 AAP - A major part of a colossal radio telescope that astronomers expect will provide the farthest peek into the universe has been officially opened in the remote, red-dirt desert of Western Australia. Construction of the CSIRO's ground-breaking, 36-dish Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, about 315km northeast of Geraldton, is now complete. Science and Research Minister Chris Evans, who attended the launch on Friday, said the ASKAP was an important science project in its own right, but would also provide the basis for Australia's contribution to the broader $2.5 billion SKA project, jointly hosted with South Africa and New Zealand. CSIRO SKA director Brian Boyle said studying the radio waves would tell us unique things about the cosmos, "... about the gas from which stars were formed and about exotic objects - pulsars and quasars - that really push the boundaries of our knowledge of the physical laws in the universe". "Radio-astronomy also gives us an insight into the very beginnings of the universe," Dr Boyle told a briefing. During the first phase of the bigger SKA project, 60 dishes will be added to the ASKAP along with thousands of dipole antennas, with construction slated to start in In the meantime, most of the ASKAP's capacity has been booked and will involve more than 350 researchers from over 130 institutions undertaking 10 survey science projects. "There's one project to carry out a census of all the local galaxies within a few billion light years of us and that will give us the most accurate map of the mass around us... and how the Milky Way was formed," Dr Boyle said. "There's another project to study all the magnetic fields in the universe to look at whether or not cosmic magnetism played a vital role in the formation of stars and galaxies." Dr Boyle said another project would look for all the black holes in the universe - the dense, compact objects that seed the formation of galaxies. The search for extraterrestrial life was an interesting secondary objective, he added. "It's almost a parallel activity to all the survey work that's being done," Dr Boyle said. "As you're surveying the sky, particularly over wide areas of sky looking for other objects, you're also increasing the search volume for signals from extraterrestrial intelligence. "The more panoramic your field of view, the more chance you have of picking anything up." The universe was teeming with planets - almost 1000 were known of beyond our own solar system - but none of them were particularly earth-like and therefore considered habitable, he said. "It's very unlikely that we'll detect anything, but of course the impact if we do so is pretty high." AAP rlm/evt/was Content Supplied by Australian Associated Press AAP, All Rights Reserved. See disclaimer at

3 Crikey.com.au, Australia 05 Oct 2012, by Benjamin Veness Private Media, All Rights Reserved Current Affairs words ID BRIEF ACPET INDEX 2.1 PAGE 1 of 3 No jobs so medical graduates face a life serving doughnuts Author : Benjamin Veness Last night Blaise Wardle, 30, was celebrating the end of four years at Sydney Medical School. Wardle sat five final exams in MacLaurin Hall last week and now has only an eight-week pre-internship term to go. But, ironically, he has no internship to go to. Like many of Australia s international medical students, Wardle is Canadian. He completed a four-year degree in human resource management and worked in Toronto before moving to Australia. Since here, Wardle has paid fees to the University of Sydney of $240,000 and, with living expenses, has amounted a debt of $330,000. Tall, broad, and with a strong jawline, Wardle makes for an impressive figure at the bedside, and knows his medicine, having studied hard not just for his exams in Sydney, but also for two demanding United States medical licencing examinations. My job prospects aren t great, he said, having applied for an internship in every state except Tasmania, and received nothing so far. If the funding impasse between the Commonwealth and the states continues, and Wardle isn t offered an internship in Australia, he will apply for a job in Canada where he will be considered an international medical graduate and thus his prospects are poor there, too. Worst case scenario, he ll look to the United States for a job while pulling beers in a bar, or serving doughnuts at Krispy Kreme. The situation is sad not just for Wardle and his colleagues, but for all Australians. Health Workforce Australia (HWA) released a report earlier this year titled Health Workforce 2025, which predicts how many doctors and nurses Australia will need by 2025 to meet our society s healthcare needs. In essence, HWA said that if your mum suffers an infarct in 13 years and you want her to have prompt access to an Australian-trained cardiologist for cardiac stenting, Wardle must stay. (Incidentally, the predicted nursing shortage is terrifying.) This hints at a really important point, and one that s largely been missed in recent media commentary, which has been focused on internships. While 2012 Private Media, All Rights Reserved.

4 Crikey.com.au, Australia 05 Oct 2012, by Benjamin Veness Private Media, All Rights Reserved Current Affairs words ID BRIEF ACPET INDEX 2.1 PAGE 2 of 3 it s true the Medical Board of Australia only grants full registration after medical graduates complete an accredited one-year internship, our ageing mothers ultimately need not just interns to insert their cannulas under supervision, but consultants who have completed all of their postgraduate training and can practise independently to insert those stents. Band-Aid solutions won t cut it; this problem won t be solved by giving Wardle a job just for Governments urgently need to start clearing entire training pathways from internship through to fellowship of a medical college. Otherwise, this year s internship crisis will just become next year s registrar crisis. Presently, Australia plugs its medical workforce shortage by employing international medical graduates, often from developing countries. Burma, for example. Wardle noted that: The Melbourne Manifesto [a code of practice for the international recruitment of healthcare professionals] suggests that a developed country shouldn t steal healthcare resources from countries that need them more than we do, yet that is exactly the opposite of what Australia does. And at the same time, we have 180 Australian-trained medical graduates that face unemployment? This is crazy, it s embarrassing and it s shameful. There are 180 of us who want to help Australia with their workforce shortage but the states aren t playing ball. So, where to from here? First, the Commonwealth and the states need to apply a few more Band-Aids. Funding for internships must be found for all graduating medical students. These students all spent four to six years being trained in Australia, in Australian hospitals. They are competent, committed and they want to stay. Second, the medical schools, Commonwealth and states need to take HWA s advice and, starting next year, enrol only the requisite number of medical students. To date, medical schools have been forced by chronic federal government underfunding of tertiary education to enrol more and more international students to balance their books. Further increases would unfairly treat students as cash cows and unduly stretch training capacity in our hospitals, distracting doctors from patient care. Thirdly, the Commonwealth and states need to look beyond internship and clear that training pathway so our mothers can have cannulas, and stents, when they need them Private Media, All Rights Reserved.

5 Crikey.com.au, Australia 05 Oct 2012, by Benjamin Veness Private Media, All Rights Reserved Current Affairs words ID BRIEF ACPET INDEX 2.1 PAGE 3 of 3 Wardle, by the way, notes that he s an Aries; loves cooking, long walks on the beach; and is single. He really does want to stay, and serve, in Australia Private Media, All Rights Reserved.

Weekend Australian, Australia 06 Oct 2012, by CHERYL JONES Copyright Agency Ltd (CAL) licenced copy General News, page 4-399.16 cm² - circulation 285,644 (S) ID 165286126 BRIEF ACPET INDEX 3.

Federal Science Minister Chris Evans switched on the $160 million Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder telescope at a ceremony at the CSIRO facility at the Murchison Radio-astronomy

CS IRO scientist Brian Boyle told The Weekend Australian the ASKAP was the fastest telescope in the world. "We're using revolutionary technology that has been designed by the CSIRO.

6 Weekend Australian, Australia 06 Oct 2012, by CHERYL JONES Copyright Agency Ltd (CAL) licenced copy General News, page cm² - circulation 285,644 (S) ID BRIEF ACPET INDEX 3.1 PAGE 1 of 1 World's fastest telescope tunes in CHERYL JONES AUSTRALIA'S new radio telescope the most powerful in the world tuned in to the cosmos yesterday. Federal Science Minister Chris Evans switched on the $160 million Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder telescope at a ceremony at the CSIRO facility at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, 315km northeast of Geraldton, in Western Australia. Completion of the telescope is a key point in science and builds on Australia's formidable strength in radio-astronomy. CS IRO scientist Brian Boyle told The Weekend Australian the ASKAP was the fastest telescope in the world. "We're using revolutionary technology that has been designed by the CSIRO. It's technology that's essentially a radio camera that allows us to survey the sky 100 times faster than any telescope before," he said. "This will allow us to do massive surveys of the universe looking at all the galaxies and all the black holes." In front of leading scientists and politicians, representatives of the Wajarri community, the traditional owners of the site, performed an antenna-naming ceremony and dances. After a countdown, Senator Evans flicked the switch and the white antennae moved against the backdrop of red earth and blue outback sky to receive signals from space. Radio telescopes pick up the radio waves emitted naturally by astronomical objects including stars and galaxies. ASKAP is an array of 36, 12m-diameter antennae. The antennae resemble roof-top pay- TV dishes but are bigger and much more sophisticated. Signals from each dish of the ASKAP are combined to form a "virtual" dish with a diameter of 6km. The antennae are linked by high-speed optical-fibre cable to a support facility in Geraldton and a supercomputer facility in Perth. The telescope will be deployed on big international projects, including research into the role of super-massive black holes in the formation of galaxies. Yesterday's opening was the culmination of years of work by CSIRO scientists and engineers. ASKAP was the "precursor'. telescope at the centre of Australia's joint bid with New Zealand to host an even bigger and more sensitive radio telescopethe international Square Kilometre Array which is scheduled to start operations in Wajarri children Brian Odene. 5, Zac George, 10. and Josephine Demi. 9, at the Murchison Observatory yesterday COLIN MURTY

Square Kilometer Array:

Square Kilometer Array: The worlds most powerful radio telescope! Paul Bourke ivec@uwa With support from ICRAR (International Centre for Radio Astronomy) Outline History SKA (Square Kilometer Array) ASKAP