Aussie Nobel

Elizabeth Blackburn has won the 2009 Nobel Prize for medicine. Blackburn was born in Tasmania and is a graduate of the University of Melbourne, but currently works at the University of California - San Francisco. She shares the prize with Carol Greider at Johns Hopkins and Jack Szostak of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Eureka!

Tuesday afternoon I flew to Sydney to attend the 20th annual Australian Museum Eureka Prizes for science. Our project with the Sydney Coastal Councils Group on climate change adaptation was a finalist in the category of Innovative Solutions to Climate Change. While victory wasn't anticipated, it was a good opportunity to clip on the old bow tie, and sample some (or quite a lot actually) Australian wines. As it happened, the fates smiled upon us, and we walked away with the prize, which included $10,000 which we now have to figure out how to reinvest. We had the honour of shaking hands with the premier of NSW, but in all honesty, I would have preferred to have met Cate Blanchett, who presented the People's Choice Award. Oh well, there's always next year. . .

Additional photos here

Ave, Preston!

I was fortunate enough to pick up one of CSIRO's Julius Career Awards just before the Christmas break, which opens up a slush fund for me over the next three years to do (more or less) as I will, including a bit of globe-trotting.