The Australian Government's Innovation Report

The researchers anticipate that the projects will lead to the development of a new generation of intelligent
machines, robots and information systems, and keep Australia at the forefront of an internationally competitively
area of increasing importance.
The potential applications of the research are wide-ranging and ultimately likely to have a positive impact on
the health and quality of life of many Australians.
The benefits of the research are expected to include:
• applications for use in treating human disease associated with learning dysfunction;
• new kinds of communication between humans and machines;
• aids and prostheses for the disabled, the hearing-impaired, the elderly and children with learning difficulties;
• new kinds of animation in new media, film and games; and
• novel prosthetic limb design and rehabilitation strategies for stroke patients.
Discovery of the first known double pulsar: Star gazing with huge radio telescopes has been a specialty of
CSIRO for decades so it came as no surprise when the Parkes Radio Telescope in New South Wales played a
pivotal role in a one-of-a-kind discovery.
Astronomers from the UK, Italy and the US joined their Australian counterparts to identify the only double pulsar
system from more than 1400 pulsars found in the last 35 years.
A pulsar is the collapsed core of a massive star that has ended its life in a supernova explosion. Weighing more
than our sun, yet only 20 kilometres across, these incredibly dense objects produce beams of radio waves that
sweep around round the sky like lighthouse beams, often at hundreds of times a second.
Radio telescopes receive a regular train of pulses as the beam repeatedly sweeps across the Earth.
The twin pulsars lie almost 2000 light years away in our galaxy and are 800 000 kilometres apart, or about twice the
distance between the Earth and moon. They orbit each other every 2.4 hours, which makes them some of the
fastest moving stars known.
The discovery was made using the powerful new multibeam receiver at Parkes, New South Wales.
Frontier technologies
Nanotechnology: Over the next decade nanotechnology is expected to be integrated into products worth
US$2.6 trillion worldwide, making nanotechnology as influential in the 21st century as information technology
was in the 20th century.
Following a report to PMSEIC on nanotechnology in March 2005, a small taskforce within the Department of
Industry, Tourism and Resources was established from July 2005 to examine options for a national
nanotechnology strategy across the Federal and State Governments by 30 June 2006.
The taskforce Options Report recommends an integrated package of nine elements: (1) establish a dedicated
federal office responsible for developing and coordinating the implementation of a national nanotechnology
strategy (modelled on Biotechnology Australia); (2) health, safety and environmental (HSE) issues; (3) community
awareness and public engagement; (4) metrology and standards (involving the National Measurement Institute);
(5) coordination of whole of government activities; (6) international cooperation; (7) industry infrastructure; (8)
industry development; and the (9) commercialisation and application of nanotechnology research.
As at December 2006, the Government’s response to the taskforce Options Report was under consideration.
The report can be viewed at: www.industry.gov.au/nano
106 Backing Australia’s Ability