According to The Australian Financial Review, after years of development and hype over the benefits of feeding seaweed to livestock, Australia is set to have more eco-friendly, faster-growing cattle by next Christmas.
Led by Sea Forest in Tasmania, seaweed farmers hope to produce the world’s first commercial-size crops of asparagopsis – the seaweed found by CSIRO researchers to slash methane emissions from cattle in the form of burps and farts when added to their feed.
Research shows that adding a small amount of seaweed concentrate to cattle feed cuts methane emissions by more than 80 per cent, and suggests the animals also grow faster because of more efficient digestion.
FutureFeed chief executive Andrew Gatenby said Sea Forest was the most advanced of the emerging players and expected to have commercial volumes available in the Australian market towards the end of 2021.

https://www.afr.com/companies/agriculture/seaweed-farmers-crack-the-code-for-greener-cows-20201221-p56p5o

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www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/5455315.html?lang=ja
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According to The Australian Financial Review, early-stage biotech BCAL Diagnostics has closed a $4 million pre-IPO capital raise led by Citadel Group's Mark McConnell, which will fund clinical trials for a breakthrough low-cost breast cancer detection blood test.
Founded by healthcare industry veteran and former Vision Group executive Jayne Shaw with former NSW health minister Ron Phillips, the funding round comes after more than a decade of blood, sweat and tears, as well as personal investment, which has led to the commencement of a phase-one clinical trial.
In conjunction with scientists in the US, BCAL has identified a panel of 18 biomarkers, which in theory indicates whether a person has breast cancer based on changes to their lipids.

https://www.afr.com/companies/healthcare-and-fitness/breast-cancer-blood-test-biotech-scores-fresh-funds-20210114-p56u4d

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www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/8615837.html?lang=ja
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According to The Fresh Plaza, an Australian robotics company, LYRO Robotics, has successfully deployed its technology in commercial trials at Sunnyspot Packhouse avocado facility in Queensland.
LYRO Robotics, based in Brisbane, say their world-leading picking and packing technology combines computer vision with machine learning. The robotic grasping mechanism can see an avocado coming down the line, make a decision on how to grasp the fruit correctly, pick it up and place it perfectly into the cardboard box.
While the main focus is packing of the fruit, in this case, avocados, Dr Leitner says the robots can also perform other useful tasks for fresh produce companies, in terms of measuring volumes, weights and sizes. In addition, multiple packs can be sorted at the same time, depending on the end customer; whether it is food service, supermarkets, processing or home consumers.
LYRO Robotics adds that a major advantage, having built the system themselves, is that the robots can be customised to the individual client company's needs.

https://www.freshplaza.com/article/9260685/commercial-trials-underway-for-new-packing-and-sorting-technology-at-australian-avocado-packhouse/

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https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/qld9895958.html
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According to The Australian Financial Review, Brisbane-based vaccine technology company Vaxxas has scored $30.6 million ($US22 million) in funding from a US government biomedical research body to advance its needle-free vaccine technology in preparation for future pandemics.
The fresh funding injection from the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) will support its preclinical studies and a large phase one human clinical trial of its micro-patch technology using an influenza vaccine.
The company, which was spun out of the University of Queensland in 2011, has created technology that allows vaccines to be administered via a one-square-centimetre patch with 5000 tiny projections invisible to the naked eye.
These projections are coated in a dry version of the vaccine, rather than a liquid, and prick the skin when applied. Early Vaxxas research suggests this method causes a far greater immunological response to the vaccine, thanks to the high proportion of immune cells found in the skin. This means a substantially smaller dose would be required for immunity.
Its early studies have shown comparable immune responses with a sixth of the vaccine dose.

https://www.afr.com/companies/healthcare-and-fitness/fresh-funds-for-qld-needle-free-vaccine-tech-start-up-vaxxas-20201004-p561wg

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https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/qld7564477.html
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According to The Australian Financial Review, a novel nasal treatment developed to boost the human immune system to fight common colds and flu has proved successful in reducing COVID-19 viral growth in a recent animal study.
This is a significant development as the world races to find a solution to halt COVID-19 transmission and infection.
The spray product, dubbed INNA-051, is being developed by Australian biotech Ena Respiratory.
In a gold-standard study on ferrets, it reduced virus levels by up to 96 per cent in the animals' noses and throats. The study was led by British government agency Public Health England.
By boosting the immune response before infection, the spray dramatically reduced the virus' ability to infect the animals and replicate, the PHE study showed.

https://www.afr.com/companies/healthcare-and-fitness/nasal-spray-cuts-covid-19-growth-study-shows-20200925-p55z8y

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https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/4231859.html?lang=ja

According to The Australian Financial Review, South Korea's Hana Financial Investment has acquired a 162-megawatt solar farm to be built in the booming solar power state of Queensland and which is underpinned by a huge power sales contract with state-owned CS Energy.
Queensland energy minister Anthony Lynham said the project, which would create 400 jobs, took the number of committed or operational large-scale renewable energy projects in the state to 41 since 2015. He said the solar farm would help drive Queensland towards its target of 50 per cent renewable energy use by 2030.
CS Energy will buy all of the output and sell it on to large commercial customers including Griffith University, Central Queensland University and Queensland University of Technology.
The solar farm will use special panels that absorb light from the front and the back, and a tracker system that allows them to follow the sun across the sky.
Luminous, for whom the project is its largest worldwide and its first in Australia, said the technologies could significantly increase energy generation compared with traditional designs.

https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/major-solar-deal-to-create-400-qld-jobs-20200828-p55q4x

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https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/6620238.html 
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According to The Australian Financial Review, Australian scientists, many of them PhD students, have created a blood test that delivers positive COVID-19 results in 20 minutes.
They used existing technology to create the test, which they expect will cost less than one dollar.
The test is run on diagnostic machines that are routinely used to determine blood type. These machines are available around the world and, they say, the high-end versions can assess 700 samples an hour.

https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/health-and-wellness/australians-develop-a-20-minute-test-for-covid-19-20200717-p55d3k

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/covid-1920.html
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According to The Australian Financial Review, as Australian infection rates of COVID-19 plummet and business pushes for a return to normal, a Perth-based business created to try to save jobs may enable people to get back to work more quickly and safely.
GERMii was created in February, when founder Shan Patterson realised he needed to reinvent his data and computer disposal business if he wanted to keep staff in work during the pandemic.
He quickly set to work creating a product that could help his corporate clients sterilise their workplaces by using concentrated UV-C light to kill COVID-19 pathogens.
One of his business partners said, “I have an idea based on my experience using UV-C germicidal irradiation technology to sterilise water in villages in PNG", and they adapted that technology to work on hard surfaces rather than water.
The technology is already utilised in hospitals abroad and has proven to be more effective and faster than chemical products in killing the COVID-19 virus, as it kills the entire pathogen immediately.
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https://www.afr.com/companies/healthcare-and-fitness/australian-made-uv-light-devices-could-help-businesses-reopen-faster-20200426-p54na0

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https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/uv-c.html
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According to The Australian Financial Review, an emerging group of deep tech start-ups are pivoting their technologies and redeploying their staff to help tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, as the sector begins to treat the outbreak with a wartime mentality.
Entrepreneurs previously tackling problems as varied as occupant sensing, renewable energy and sexually transmitted infection detection have all adapted their businesses over the past few weeks to refocus their efforts on helping solve major problems in containing the coronavirus spread.
Because of the virus, it paused that rollout and the company has thrown its efforts into creating a small artificial intelligence-equipped, shoebox-sized device that sits on a tripod and measures a person's temperature in less than a second. The possibilities for screening the public for virus symptoms were obvious.
The company has already scored a contract with a major south-east Asian government's national border force and a large international airport outside of Asia, and its first Rapid Thermal Pre-Screeners are being shipped.
"The systems in airports require huge camera set-ups and cost around $15,000. Ours is far less expensive, more accurate and can be deployed quicker," Calumino co-founder Marek Steffanson said.
"As well as at airports, they can be used at hotel check-ins, offices, or in aged care centres. A person just looks at the screen and within one second it displays a green or red screen for if their temperature is above or below 37.5 degrees.
"We hope that in April we'll be able to deploy between 20 and 50 units – 50 being the best case if there's no more supply chain disruptions."
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https://www.afr.com/technology/start-ups-pivot-to-save-the-world-by-tackling-covid-19-20200327-p54egu

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https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/covid-19.html
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According to The Australian Financial Review, Australian researchers, who became the fastest vaccine developers in the world in 2009 by putting the first swine flu vaccine into humans in three months, are now working on one for COVID-19.
They have animal trials under way and expect the results in July. If successful, they will begin testing their candidate vaccine in humans.
If it proves safe and generates the right type of immune response, they say many people, particularly frontline medical staff, could conceivably be given the vaccine under trial conditions.
The team believes it has an advantage because it has an established platform that has proved safe and effective with other vaccines it has produced for outbreaks such as H5 and H7 bird flu.
“We started working on this pandemic platform in 2002," says Professor Nikolai Petrovsky, who has been researching vaccines for 20 years and leads the COVID-19 team from the Flinders University precinct.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/australian-team-s-advantage-in-the-covid-19-vaccine-race-20200403-p54gv2

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https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/5548352.html
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