Sir Humphrey and the professors: what does Whitehall want from academics?

According to this UK survey, the majority of senior civil servants actively engage positively with academic outputs. However, it is also clear that a significant minority does not engage at all with academics and that many do so in fairly limited ways. Overview What do (civil service) policymakers want from academics? A seemingly simple question, and one to which you would already think we had a pretty good answer. Academia represents a very rich source of ideas, facts and theories about how public policies of all sorts might work (or not). Somewhere around 25,000 to 50,000 UK academics work on specifically policy-relevant areas – this represents a massive pool of knowledge that could help policymakers. Despite this obvious situation, actually very little is known precisely about how academia and policymakers interact. There are some research projects that have explored the issue, but these have mostly been case studies from which it is hard to generalise. We decided to ask the whole of the British Senior Civil Service (SCS) how they relate to academic research and expertise. We invited all 4,000+ members of the SCS to fill in our online survey. About 8% responded, with a representative gender balance and spread across nearly all policy areas, which is a reasonably good sample. Moreover the variations in responses suggest there was no obvious self-selection bias – it certainly wasn’t only those positive about academic outputs that responded. We asked a series of questions about how they access and use academic research and expertise and what impact this has on policymaking. Some of their answers were expected, and some were surprises that challenged standard assumptions. Overall, the impression from our survey is that the majority of senior civil servants actively engage positively with academic outputs. However, it is also clear that a significant minority does not engage at all with academics and that many do so in fairly limited ways. Unsurprisingly perhaps, senior civil servants had a predilection for “pre-digested” results of research and academic expertise. Their preference for “first contact” was briefings or reports (79%), or media reports of academic outputs in newspapers and weeklies (61%) or professional journals (55%)

DNA-based identification of Australian varieties of wheat and barley

Established and supported under the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centre Progra

Towards Computational Screening for New Energetic Molecules: Calculation of Heat of Formation and Determination of Bond Strengths by Local Mode Analysis

The reliable determination of gas-phase and solid-state heats of formation are important considerations in energetic materials research. Herein, the ability of PM7 to calculate the gas-phase heats of formation for CNHO-only and inorganic compounds has been critically evaluated, and for the former, comparisons drawn with isodesmic equations and atom equivalence methods. Routes to obtain solid-state heats of formation for a range of single-component molecular solids, salts, and co-crystals were also evaluated. Finally, local vibrational mode analysis has been used to calculate bond length/force constant curves for seven different chemical bonds occurring in CHNO-containing molecules, which allow for rapid identification of the weakest bond, opening up great potential to rationalise decomposition pathways. Both metrics are important tools in rationalising the design of new energetic materials through computational screening processes

Sexual transmitted death of female Queensland fruit flies from horizontal transfer of Amulet Cue-lure Male Annihilation Technique devices.

Queensland fruit fly, Bactrocera tryoni, is one of Australia’s most damaging fruit fly pests. Male Annihilation Technique (MAT) is a method used to manage fruit fly populations by luring and killing male flies, which limits population growth by preventing female flies from mating. MAT devices consist of an attractant and a toxicant, such as maldison or fipronil. Fipronil has a slow knockdown effect, which has been exploited to induce indirect toxicity of a number of insect pests, including cockroaches and termites. This indirect effect, called horizontal transfer, is facilitated through the sharing of food or contact with exposed individuals. Horizontal transfer has been reported in Queensland fruit fly, where exposed males have transferred lethal doses of fipronil to virgin females during courtship and mating. In the present study, we explored three possible modes of horizontal transfer of fipronil against Queensland fruit fly under laboratory conditions. These included: (1) direct contact of females with exposed males (2) contact of males to the regurgitant of exposed males and (3) contact of males with dead exposed males. Our results demonstrated that lethal doses of fipronil were not transferred from males to females during courtship and mating. Male flies that were exposed to fipronil one and six hours prior to dusk were all knocked down, moribund or dead at dusk and therefore did not participate in courtship displays or mating. However, we found that horizontal transfer and subsequent death occurred in males that fed on the regurgitant of exposed males, and in males that were in contact with dead exposed males. Therefore, MAT devices that contain fipronil should not be used as a standalone treatment but rather be used in combination with other control methods, such as protein bait sprays to ensure the control of female flies