Royal Society New South Wales Volume 144 Numbers 441 and 442 December 2011 “<... for the encouragement of studies and investigations in Science Art Literature and Philosophy ...” THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES OFFICE BEARERS FOR 2011-2012 Patrons Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce AC CVO Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia. Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO Governor of New South Wales. President Mr John Hardie BSc Syd), FGS, MACE Vice Presidents Em. Prof. Heinrich Hora DipPhys Dr.rer.nat DSc FAIP FInstP CPhys Prof. David Brynn Hibbert BSc PhD(Lond) CChem FRSC RACI Mr Clive Wilmot Hon. Secretary (Ed.) = Dr Donald Hector BE(Chem) PhD (Syd) FlChemE FIEAust FAICD CPEng Hon. Secretary (Gen.) vacant Hon. Treasurer Mr Anthony Nolan OAM JP MAIPIO FIAPA Hon. Librarian Mr Anthony Nolan OAM JP MAIPIO FIAPA Councillors Ms Julie Haeusler BSc Syd) GradDipEd MRACI CChem Mr Brendon Hyde BE(Syd) MEngSce (NSW) GradDipLLR Gyd) MICE (Lon) FIEPak FIEAust CPEng Dr Fred Osman BSc(Hons) PhD(UWS) Grad Dip Ed FACE MAIP SSAI JP A/Prof. William Sewell MB BS BSc Gyd) PhD (Melb) FRCPA Prof. Bruce A. Warren MB BS (Syd) MA DPhil DSc (Oxon) FRCPath FRSN Southern Highlands Mr Clive Wilmot Branch Representative Central West Branch A/Prof. Maree Simpson BPharm (UQ) BSc(Hons) (Griffith) PhD (UQ) Representative EDITORIAL BOARD Dr David Branagan MSc PhD(Syd) DSc (Hon) (Syd) FGS MAusIMM Dr Donald Hector BE(Chem) PhD Gyd) FlChemE FIEAust FAICD CPEng (Hon. Editor) Prof. David Brynn Hibbert BSc PhD (Lond) CChem FRSC RACI Em. Prof. Heinrich Hora DipPhys Dr.rer.nat DSc FAIP FInstP CPhys Dr Michael Lake BSc (Syd) PhD (Syd) Dr Nick Lomb BSc (Syd) PhD (Syd) Prof. Bruce Warren MB BS (Syd) MA DPhil Oxon FRCPath The Society traces it origin to the Philosophical Society of Australasia founded in Sydney in 1821. It became the Roya/ Society of New South Wales by Royal Assent in 1866 and was incorporated by an Act of the NSW Parliament in 1881. The Society exists for “the encouragement of studies and investigations in Science Art Literature and Philosophy”: publishing results of scientific investigations in its Journal and Proceedings; conducting monthly meetings; awarding prizes and medals; and by liaison with other learned societies within Australia and internationally. Membership is open to any person whose application is acceptable to the Society. Subscriptions for the Journal are also accepted from non-members. The Society welcomes, from members and non-members, manuscripts of research and review articles in all branches of science, art, literature and philosophy for publication in the Journal and Proceedings. Copyright: Enquiries relating to copyright or reproduction of an article should be directed to the author. JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES ISSN 0035-9173/11/02 Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 144, nos. 3&4, p. 49. ISSN 0035-9173/11/020049-1 Editorial In the last edition, I referred to the announcement by the Australian Research Council that it intended to withdraw the Excellence in Research for Australia (RA) Ranked Outlets Indicator and to introduce a new system that does not use prescriptive ranks. It is pleasing that the Joarnal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of NSW 1s included in the new ERA 2012 Journal List. It is expected that this change will make multidisciplinary journals such as the Society’s Journal and Proceedings more attractive to authors whose work extends beyond a specific discipline. To this end, we are most fortunate to publish in this edition a paper by Lord May of Oxford on the role of scientific advice in influencing public policy. This subject is of particular importance given the extraordinarily complex and important challenges that the world faces in the 21st century regarding climate change, providing food for a population of over 7 billion people, and the challenges facing the world’s financial system. Lord May’s paper 1s particularly apposite in light of the Society’s determination to play a larger part in the intellectual life of NSW through attracting papers that recognise the influence of art, literature and philosophy on the practice of science and, particularly, the way in which science influences art, literature and philosophy. Complementing Lord May’s subject is a paper by Professors John Boldeman and_ Richard Banati, two distinguished scientists at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), proposing the construction of a high-performance accelerator for radiation therapy and research and a paper by Justin Giligan and Nick Otway at the NSW Department of Primary Industries in developing a means for identifying sharks species as part of managing the threat due to escalating shark fin demand. A paper by Patrick Michael explains important research done to improve the productivity of sweet potato, a dietary staple throughout much of the Pacific, and other tropical countries. We are also most fortunate to have a biographical paper by Ragbir Bhathal, a former president of the Society, on the extraordinary career of Brian Schmidt, Australia’s most recent Nobel laureate. The Societys Council met recently to plan events for 2012. The programme will be announced early in the new year and will reflect the broader interest but continuing to emphasis the importance of science as central to the discourse. I am reminded of the Rede Lecture, The two cultures, delivered by C.P. Snow in 1959 (Snow (1959)). Snow lamented the gulf that had emerged between the sciences and_ the humanities to the extent that the two actually find difficulty in communicating with each another. Since then, if anything, the situation has got worse: well-reasoned scientific argument is rejected by non-scientists with very little rational justification; and many _ scientists struggle to find the relevance of non-scientific activities to the practice of their discipline. Perhaps, the Royal Society of NSW can provide a forum to bridge that gulf. Snow, Charles P. (1959) The two cultures, Grd edn., 1993), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK Donald Hector Hon. Secretary (Editorial) JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 49 Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wakes, vol. 144, nos. 3&4, pp. 50-57. ISSN 0035-9173/11/020050-8 Science advice and policy making Robert M. May OM AC FRS FRSN Lord May of Oxford Zoology Department, Oxford University, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK Introduction To borrow a phrase, we live in the Best of Times and the Worst of Times. This makes it particularly pleasing to see a resurgent Royal Society of New South Wales (RSN) playing a larger part in the communal life of the state. It is the Best of Times in the sense that, thanks to our increasing understanding of how the natural world works, the average individual — in both developed and developing worlds — lives a longer and healthier life than ever before. Fifty years ago the average life expectancy on Earth was 46 years, whilst today it is 68 years. The counter-intuitive 46 year figure derives largely from the gap in life expectancy between the developed and developing worlds, which has shrunk from 26 years to a still disgraceful 12 Over the past 40 years, global food production has more than doubled, on only 10% more land; the continuing problems of malnourishment derive from inequitable distribution, a problem which has been with us since the dawn of agriculture. years. The flip side of these advances is that population numbers continue to grow. Human numbers have trebled, to just on 7 billion, over the past 70 years. And although global average fertility rates are today roughly at replacement level, with the average woman having just less than one female child, the “momentum of population growth” is still carrying numbers upward toward around 9.8 billion by the middle of the century, as the currently pyramidal age- structure rounds out toward being more rectangular. Moreover, the ecological footprint JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES stamped on the planet by the average individual’s requirement for energy, food, and other materials and resources continues its upward growth. Humanity’s overall ecological footprint today is around 50 times that at the publication of the Origin of Species, 150 years ago. These problems could all, in principle, be solved. But such solutions require coordination and cooperation at the level of neighbourhoods and communities through to nation states. And there is little evidence, as yet, of willingness to acknowledge these needs for such cooperative activity. The physical sciences are often called the “hard sciences”, which is a misnomer: with their conservation laws and invariance principles; the physical sciences are the easy ones. It is not surprising that they developed first. Although the physical sciences ultimately underpin the biological sciences, the complexity of the evolutionary processes, whereby Darwin’s “descent with modification” shaped the living world, makes for more difficult problems. Nevertheless, from molecular genetics to the structure and function of ecosystems, we have made great progress over the past half-century and more. The hardest problems, however, lie in the social sciences, which have all the complexity of the life sciences made yet more difficult by the fact that the subjects under study tend to react to being studied. This is especially unfortunate, because clearly the social sciences hold the key to solving our problems of collective action. an S May — Scrence advice and policy making... In what follows, I first sketch a subset of the challenges facing tomorrow’s — world: anthropogenic climate change; feeding more people; designing a financial system that allocates capital in a responsible and effective way. Against this background, I focus on the role of science advice in policy making, indicating some ideal principles along with the difficulties that commonly arise in practice. Climate Change Over our planet’s half-billion year history, there are times when it may have been a ball of ice and snow (or something close to it: “slush-ball earth”), and other times when tropical animals roamed the poles. During most of humanity’s tenancy of our planet, ice-ages came and went. But ice-core records show that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were steady at around 280 parts per million (ppm), give or take 10 ppm, since the beginning of the first cities. Indeed some people, noting that the past 10 millennia have been unusually steady, have argued that the beginnings of agriculture and the subsequent development of cities and civilizations is a consequence, not a coincidence. The Industrial Revolution its usually taken to have begun in the 1780s, after James Watt developed his steam engine. NS? § <3 Ny : No SO LS Som Ss a 5 ALS oa ‘So UES ES le S-a © ical Se 2 ~ , WY VY SG eS SE |Z _ Ss VA Roe ¢ San’ Cc Sf ey - a5/ + SS to Se 8 Fa —, ) ee Sy ee SS Ss s/ > Ss Sas = Qos z, 2s C ree 2 So 2 7 a oe : S aU = eee — GSS (ae S Ole ee w 2) 74) 2) gh = Y 3 3 3 = Bie S NG Sas gg ae = ce £8 & Sine com trea ih Sees an §5 +. ‘ Ss §3 = fs8 2 a £6 ce © cs cS ~ 8 e = 5 = Oo 9 o © os So 5 “8 3 = 2S oO x & ~~ Ow 2 & a > % © @ 2 oO 3 oO £ 5 DO S Ae fe O <4 O & O & Os O 2 oo es = — Gilligan C Ottvay — Comparison of dorsal and pectoral shark fin denticks... patterns of difference across the fin. No ridges were present on denticles from the anterior margin in C. obscurus, whereas no cusps were present on denticles from the central region in C. brachyurus (Table 2). The pectoral fins also showed distinct patterns of difference among species. For example, there were no cusps on denticles across the fins of C. falaformis, whereas five to sIx cusps were present at all sampling positions in C. Ambatus (Yable 2). 2D Stress: 0.02 Figure 6. MDS ordination plots of denticle lengths and widths front the anterior margin, centre and posterior margin (n = 4 replicates) for (a) the first dorsal fin and (b) the dorsal surface of the pectoral fin from Carcharias taurus (A), Carcharodon —carcharias = (@),._ —- Carcharhinus brachyurus (@), C. falciformis (0), C. leucas (W), C. limbatus (G), C. longimanus (0), avd C. obscurus (*). The size (length & width) of denticles from the first dorsal and pectoral fins also showed distinct patterns of difference across the three sampling positions (Table 3) and suggested that size of denticles could be used to distinguish among species. The size of denticles from the first dorsal fin (Fig. 6a) differed among species (ANOSIM, Global R = 0.944, P < 0.001) and, all except two, pairwise tests were significant (pairwise R = 0.771 — 1.000, P = 0.029). The pairwise tests could not distinguish — the differences in denticle-size between Carchanas taurus and Carcharhinus falciformis (pairwise R = 0.188, P = 0.117), and C. brachyurus and C. obscurus (pairwise R = 0.365, P = 0.057). The size of denticles from the pectoral fin (Fig. 6b) also differed among species (ANOSIM, Global R = 0.970, P < 0.001) and all pairwise tests were sionificant (pairwise R = 0.802 — 1.000, P < 0.029) indicating clear separation of the eight sharks species. Discussion Varying numbers of sharks, comprising the eight species provided representative samples for detailed examination of the denticles from the first dorsal and pectoral fins. The sharks were caught at various locations along the entire NSW coast and this reflected their established geographic ranges (Stevens 1984, Last & Stevens 2009, Otway & Ellis 2011). The incidental capture of Carcharas taurus and Carcharodon carcharias occurred along the entire NSW coast and was consistent with other studies of the SMP (srogh & Reid 1996, Reid et al. 2011), commercial fisheries (Pollard et al. 1996, Macbeth et al. 2009) and the recreational fishing sector (Pepperell 1992, Otway et al. 2004). Comparisons Among Species The overall appearances of the denticles, irrespective of sampling position, were in general agreement with earlier descriptions (Garrick 1982, Bargar & Thorson 1995, Matsunaga et al. 1998, Nakano & Kitamura 1998). While some studies (e.g. Garrick 1960, Applegate 1967) have documented size-related differences in denticle characteristics particularly with small juveniles, there were no marked JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES Gd Gilligan & Otway — Comparison of dorsal and pectoral shark fin denticles. .. differences in denticle size and characteristics between the sexes and among individuals >150 cm TL. This result was in agreement with Salini et al. (2007) who showed that there were limited changes in denticle characteristics after a species-specific TL was attained (e.g. C. dwbatus >150 cm TL). However, the reduced numbers of neonates and juveniles (0-2 years) examined in this study (particularly with whalers) prevented an extensive evaluation of possible size-related differences in denticle characteristics in very small sharks. Quantifying the degree of variation and its implications for species identification in young individuals will require additional sampling in the future. Previous studies (c.g. Bagar & Thorson 1995, Garrick 1982 , Salini et al. 2007) have shown denticle characteristics can vary with location on the fins and/or torso. Variation in denticle characteristics across the fins was also clearly evident in this study. Despite this, it was still possible to distinguish species through either clear differences in denticle characteristics from one or all of the sampling positions. The number of denticle ridges was the most obvious character that distinguished groups of similar species. For example, the carcharhinid whalers had five to seven ridges on denticles from at least one sampling position, whereas Carcharias taurus and Carcharodon carcharias had only three tidges on the denticles from each sampling position. Patterns of change in denticle characteristics across the sampling positions could also be used to discriminate species or groups of similar species. For example, the dispersion of dorsal fin denticles across the three sampling positions separated three distinct groups within the carcharhinid whalers. Three species. (GE. brachyurus, C. kucas and C. hinbatus) displayed no change in the overlapping denticle dispersion across sampling positions. In contrast, the dispersion of denticles changed from abutting at the anterior margin to overlapping at the centre and posterior margin in C. falaformis and C. longimlanus. denticle dispersion which did not change across sampling positions. With this in mind, future studies should quantify denticle characteristics from several sampling positions on a fin as this will enable patterns of change (or no change) in denticle characteristics for augmenting the identification of shark species. The use of denticle size (.e., length and width) as a method tor differentiating species has not been explored in previous studies. Similar to the denticle characteristics, there were distinct patterns of change in denticle size across the three sampling positions. The size of denticles from the first dorsal fin separated all species except Carcharias taurus and Carcharhinus falciformis, Carcharhinus brachyurus and Carcharhinus obscurus, respectively. However, the size of denticles from the pectoral fin unequivocally separated all eight species. Combining denticle size with the other denticle characteristics provides an efficacious approach to species identification, and a method for enhancing taxonomic keys developed previously (e.g. Garrick 1982, Compagno 2002, Last & Stevens 2009). For example, if only denticle size from the dorsal fins was used, the additional denticle characteristics and dispersion provided a method of unequivocally separating species. and Large-Scale Geographic Comparisons The denticle characteristics at the anterior margin and centre of the first dorsal fin of C. leucas from NSW waters were entirely consistent with those described from Costa Rica (Bagar & Thorson 1995). Similarly, the denticle characteristics from the centre of the first dorsal fins of Carcharhinus longimanus, C. falaformis and C. obscurus from NSW waters were consistent with those observed from these species in Japanese waters (Tanaka et al. 2002). While the precise sampling details have been provided in several studies (e.g. Dingerkus & Koestler 1986, Jc YURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 78 Finally, C. obscuras had abutting — Gilligan & Otway ~ Comparison of dorsal and pectoral shark fin denticks. .. Raschi & Tabit 1992, Mojetta 1997), others have not described exactly where, on the fins or torso, the denticles were obtained. For example, the specific sampling location on the first dorsal fin of Carcharhinus longimanus was not provided by Matsunaga et al. (1998) and while the denticle characteristics were similar to those described here, at least two different conclusions could be drawn. If Matsunaga et al. (1998) sampled the denticles from the centre or posterior margin of the fin, the denticles would be similar suggesting no large-scale geographic variation. Alternatively, if Matsunaga et al. (1998) sampled the denticles from the anterior marein of the first dorsal fin, then differences would have been evident and attributed to large- scale geographic variation. More generally, the absence of detailed sampling information has lessened the number of large- scale geographic comparisons and reduced the efficacy of using denticle characteristics in shark taxonomy (e.g. Garrick 1982). To redress this, future studies should describe precisely where the denticles are sampled as this will enable unconfounded comparisons of — denticle characteristics within and among species, and between geographic regions. Management Implications for the Shark-Fin Trade With the ever-increasing demand for shark fins, the denticle characteristics documented in this study provide an alternative to genetic techniques (Shivyi et al. 2002, Abercrombie et al. 2005, Clarke et al. 2007) for quantifying the species composition and quantities of sharks harvested for their fins in NSW waters. Moreover, with the continuing incidental capture of Carcharias taurus and Carcharodon carcbanas by the SMP, commercial and recreational fishers documented in this and other recent studies (Bruce et al. 2006, Macbeth et al. 2009, Otway & Ellis 2011, Reid et al. 2011), it is likely that the fins of these threatened species will find their way, albeit illegally, into the shark-fin trade. The denticle characteristics of Carcharias taurus and Carcharodon carchanas will permit an unequivocal, cost-effective method for detecting the presence of both species within the domestic (Rose & McLoughlin 2001, Lack & Sant 2006) and international (Rose 1996, Clarke 2004, Clarke et al. 2006) shark-fin trade and enable their illegal catch in NSW waters and elsewhere to be quantified. Additionally, the populations of Carcharhinus brachyurus, C. leucas, C. linrbatus, and C. obscurus are recognised as near threatened globally, whereas C. fongmanns is recognised as globally threatened (we, Vulnerable) on the IUCN Red List (Cavanagh et al. 2003, Dulvy et al. 2008). The denticle characteristics of these species will also permit their identification and catches to be quantified, Conclusion Replicated sampling of various denticle characteristics from the three sampling positions on the first dorsal and pectoral fins of sharks of varying TL provided an efficacious means of unequivocally identifying eight shark species including the critically endangered Carchanias tanrms and vulnerable Carcharodon carcharias. When sampling denticles, it is imperative that future studies ensure that the sampling locations (on the fins or torso) are adequately described to permit unconfounded comparisons of denticle characteristics within and among species, and over large geographic scales. Acknowledgements We thank the Game Fishing Association of Australia, J. Pepperell, D. Reid and R. Brislane for help with sampling, and D. Phelan for assistance with scanning electron microscopy. We are grateful to W. Gladstone, C. Boys, M. Lowry and the anonymous referees for constructive comments on various versions of the manuscript. Our colleagues at the Port JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 7 Gilligan & Otway — Comparison of dorsal and pectoral shark fin denticles... Stephens Fisheries Institute, particularly B. Creese, B. Louden and C. Venables, are thanked for their ongoing support. This work was done in accordance with Animal Care and Ethics Committee approvals ACEC 99/14 and ACEC 00/14 under scientific research permit PO1/0059] A]. References Abercrombie, D.L., Clarke, S.C. & Shivji, M.S. 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(Eds.) 2008, Status of fisheries resources in NSW 2006/07. NSW Department of Primary Industries, Cronulla, New South Wales. Shivji, M., Clarke, S., Pank, M., Natanson, L., Kohler, N. & Stanhopes, M. 2002, Genetic identification of pelagic shark body parts for conservation and trade monitoring. Conservation Biolog, 16, No. 4, 1036- 1047. Shivji, M.S., Chapman, D.D., Pikitich, EK. & Raymond, P.W. 2005, Genetic profiling reveals analysis of the signatus, Poey, J.J. Gilligan N. M. Otway illegal international trade in fins of the great white : “ . 1 A {\ shark, Carcharodon carcharias. Conservation Genetics, 6, | 1035-1039. Smith, S.E., Au, D.W. & Show, C. 1998. Intrinsic rebound potentials of 26 species of Pacific sharks. Marine & Freshwater Research, 49, 663-678. Stevens, ].D. 1984, Biological observation on sharks caught by sport fisherman off New South Wales. Alustralan Journal of Marine ¢» Freshwater Research, 35, 573-590. Stevens, J.D., Bonfil, R., Dulvy, N.K. & Walker, P. 2000, The effects of fishing on sharks, rays, and chimaeras (chondrichthyans), and the implications for marine ecosystems. ICES Joumal of Marine Science, 57, 476-494. Tanaka, S., Kitamura, T. & Nakano, Hi. +2002 Identification of shark, species by SEM observation of denticle of shark fins. International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna, 54, 1386-1394. Walker, T.J. 1998, Can shark resources be harvested sustainably? A question revisited with a review of shark fisheries. Marine ¢» Freshwater Research, 49, 553-572. Worm, B., Barbier, E.B., Beaumont, N., Duffy, J.E., Folke, C., Halpern, B.S., Jackson, J.B.C. Lotze H.K., Micheli, F., Palumbi, S.R., Sala, E.; Selkoe K.A., Stachowicz, J.J. & Watson, R. 2006, Impacts of biodiversity loss on ocean ecosystem services. Science, 314, No. 5800, 787-790. (Manuscript received 9 August 2011; accepted 10 October 2011.) Justin Gilligan has a Bachelor of Marine Science (Hons) from the University of Newcastle, NSW. He currently works as a Fisheries Technician with the Department of Primary Industries. Dr Nick Otway currently works as a Senior Research Scientist with the Department of Primary Industries. His reseatch has focussed on the biology, movements, and general ecology of threatened shark species. JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 82 é 3 ‘ I Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Socety of New South Wates, vol. 144, nos. 3&4, pp. 83-90. ISSN 0035-9173/11/020083-8 The accelerating universe A new view of the universe Ragbir Bhathal School of Engineering, University of Western Sydney, Kingswood Campus, Penrith, NSW 1797 Email: r.bhathal@uws.edu.au Abstract Brian Schmidt was the leader of one of the two supernova search teams that discovered the universe is accelerating. His discovery was named Science Magazine’s breakthrough of the year for 1998 and in 2011 he was awatded the Nobel Prize tor Physics, along with Saul Perlmutter (University of California, Berkeley) and Adam Riess (John Hopkins University). He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and of the US National Academy of Sciences. He has made significant contributions in observational cosmology, supernovae, gamma ray bursts and all-sky surveys. This paper is based on an interview with him. It traces the trajectory that led Brian Schmidt to the accelerating universe and other achievements in astronomy. Keywords: accelerating universe, dark energy, dark matter, Hubble constant, supernovae. Introduction From Missoula, Montana to Alaska, to Arizona, to Boston to Australia and the accelerating universe! Incredible as it sounds this is the long, arduous and exciting journey that Schmidt travelled over the first thirty-one years of his life. It was a life full of ups and downs. As a young boy he had already got a taste of moving from one place to another as his parents followed their careers and academic pursuits. So this movement from one place to another was inbuilt into his psyche. In some ways it was a traumatic experience for a growing lad but he seemed to have taken the changes in his stride as he made new friends and lost old ones and acclimatised himself to new places and environments. Born in the small country town of Missoula, Montana in the Rockies in the northern part of the United States, he was very close to his young upwardly-mobile parents. As a young boy he acquired the protestant work ethic from his JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 83 parents. From his father, a fisheries biologist he saw “the whole academic stream and it quite appealed to me’, he said. He also learnt the basic scientific skills of observation and experiment from him. “My mother’, he said, “did a Master’s degree in social sciences and I guess she showed me that there is a bunch of skills that she used in her jobs which are important as a scientist, which I think has made me a better scientist than I] would have been otherwise”. It is perhaps his mother’s influence that has made him an excellent communicator of scientific ideas and an interesting and lively speaker for astronomy and science. He did not attend posh private schools but spent his entire school life in government schools which in some cases had very good and highly motivated teachers. When he was fourteen his parents moved to Alaska. He attended Bartlett High School which according to Schmidt, “was a superb school. The teachers there were funded by Alaskan oil money and so >? Bhathal — The accelerating universe. .. I had four teachers that had PhDs at high school and, you know, going to university was quite a step down and that’s extremely unusual’. He came under the influence of some very good science teachers who challenged him. But they were a little concerned that he wanted to do physics because many of their best students went out and failed physics. “And their view was that I wasn’t the best they ever seen and I was going to fail. 1 think I probably surprised them how well I did”. From Arizona to Harvard From Alaska he went to the University of Arizona in Tucson to do his undergraduate studies. Why to Arizona, when he could have gone to the University of Washington which was closer to home or the University of California? The University of California, he said, “was too expensive and hard to get into”. He ts not sure why he chose Arizona. “And to this day, I still ask myself, why did I go to the University of Arizonar” Although at the time he applied to study at the University of Arizona, he was not aware of the poor reputation of the Physics Department. However, he was aware that the astronomy department had a good reputation. After all Bart Bok (a former Director of the Mount Stromlo Observatory in Canberra) was an excellent representative of the astronomy department at that University. He spent most of his undergraduate years working long hours on his studies. “Spending almost sixty to seventy hours a week working on his studies”, he said. Apart from the physics classes, he attended “a lot of astronomy classes and I had a good teacher there. Thomas Swihart”. The academic staff were supportive and according to him, “they set me up to do a research project which I got embedded in with a euy by the name of John McGraw and interestingly enough, one of the things I got involved in doing was looking for supernovae”. Some of the astronomers at the time he was there he recalls were Peter Strittmatter, Simon White, Rob Kennicutt, Dave Arnett, Craig | Hogan, Jim Leibert, and Frank Low. Leibert | was working on white dwarfs while Low was carrying out his well known studies in infrared astronomy. On completing his undergraduate degree he had | to decide where to go for his PhD studies. He could have gone to the University of California Santa Cruz where Sandy Faber, Mike Bolte, Stan | Woosley, George Blumenthal, Petey Bodenheimer and David Koo were extremely active in studies that interested him but instead he chose to go Harvard University where Robert (Bob) Kirshner was actively engaged in research on supernovae. His decision to go to Harvard was made when he attended the first Mare Aaronson Memorial Lecture given by Kirshner at the University of Arizona. Marc Aaronson (a close collaborator of Jeremy Mould, a former Director of the Mount Stromlo Observatory and now of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson) was killed in a freak telescope accident. According to Schmidt, he said to Kirshner, “Pll make you a deal. You let me be your student, allow me to work on supernovae and Pll come to Harvard because I have to make a decision. He replied, “Okay it sounds good”. Once there he was not very keen on the supernova topics that Kirshner was suggesting. So he came up with his own idea for his PhD thesis. He informed Kirshner that he would like to measure the Hubble constant using supernovae, not just any supernovae but SN I. Unlike Supernovae Ia which are thermonuclear explosions in white dwarfs, type Il supernovae result from the collapse of a massive star. When the outside of | a SN II is ejected, it is still mostly hydrogen. The properties of the expanding, cooling atmosphere can be computed in detail and this was done by Ron Eastman, a postgraduate student in Kirshner’s group (Eastman & Kirshner 1989). By repeated measurements of the temperature, speed, and brightness of the JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 84 Bhathal — The accelerating universe... supernova atmosphere it is possible to figure out how large the atmosphere is and compute the distance to the explosion. Schmidt teamed up with Eastman who was “writing a very fancy computer code’ which modelled what was happening in the supernova from a physical basis. “I worked with Ron Eastman and Bob very carefully to model these supernovae and that told us how many watts they put out so that we could therefore know how bright they appeared on Earth, compare that to how many watts intrinsically they were, and using the inverse square law, the fact that light gets fainter by distance squared, measure the distance directly to objects outside of the local universe”. Using the expanding photosphere method he measured fourteen supernovae for his PhD thesis. This enabled him, “‘to measure a value of the Hubble constant which was independent of any other means and could be compared directly with cepheids and it turns out the value I got, 73 plus or minus eight kilometres per second per megaparsec” was very close to the now accepted value of about 72 km/s/Mpc (Schmidt B et al. (1994)). It is interesting to note that some of the galaxies with SN I data and expanding photosphere distances were also galaxies in Wendy Freedman’s Key Project sample. The results agreed very well. At the time he was doing his work on supernovae II there were two other groups who were also measuring the Hubble constant (Ho). There was controversy and acrimonious debate as to what was the real value. In the 1970s Gerard de Vaucouleurs then at the University of Texas and a past member of the academic staff of Mount Stromlo Observatory favoured a high value for Ho, of around 80 or 90 while Alan Sandage and Gustay Tammann strongly maintained that 50 was the correct answer. Sandage, a protégé of Hubble (Overbye (1991)) believed that he owned Ho and anyone who did not accept this value was an idiot or a country bumpkin. The debate dragged on into the JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 8 1990s. According to Schmidt, “there was the sandage, et al. group who were convinced it was 50. There was the Mould, et al group who thought it was 80 something but were not quite sure’. Schmidt started out with a value of 60 but “then we re-did the models and made some improvements and it drifted to 73. So at 60 1 was very popular with Alan Sandage. At 73 he called me a traitor. I think he has forgiven me”. Schmidt’s PhD thesis was significant and it provided confirmation of the Key Project team’s measurements of the Hubble constant with the Hubble Space Telescope of 72 kilometres per second per megaparsec. The key project work was mostly carried out by Jeremy Mould and Brad Gibson at Mount Stromlo Observatory. Other key players were Wendy Freedman at Carnegie and Rob Kennicutt at the University of Arizona (Freedman et al. (2001)). According to Schmidt the work he did on the Hubble constant “was a good grounding in what came later, the accelerating universe”. It was unusual to be given an internal job straight after a PhD at Harvard but that was exactly what happened in the case of Schmidt when he finished his PhD in 1993. According to Kirshner, “Although we usually liked to push the fledglings out of the nest, Brian was so extraordinary he won one of the competitive postdoc jobs at the Centre for Astrophysics. This gave him the chance to step out as an independent worker” (Kirshner 2002). To Australia and the accelerating universe On a visit to Harvard, Mario Hamuy from Chile not only showed Schmidt and his colleagues new supernova data but also showed them “very clearly you could use Type la supernovae to measure accurate distances”. According to Schmidt, “In 1991, there was the idea that Type la supernovae were perfect standard candles. | oa Bhathal — The accekerating universe... was vety sceptical about using Type Ia supernova for cosmology because we didn’t know very much about them’. In 1991 two unusual supernovae, SN 1991T and SN 1991be were discovered. They strengthened the case that there were real differences among SN Ia and their discovery cast doubt as to whether SN Ia could be used as standard candles (Leibundeut et al. (1993)). Supernova 1991be was intrinsically faint and appeared to be ten times fainter than an earlier SN Ia in the same galaxy. It rose and fell much more quickly. On the other hand SN 1991T was exactly the opposite, it was much brighter and it rose and fell more slowly. This intrigued Mark Phillips and by plotting the luminosity of several supernovae he found that the rate supernovae rise and fall is a very good indicator of how bright they are intrinsically (Phillips (1993)). According to Schmidt, “that was the relationship with a new, independent dataset that was shown to me in 1994. They found that Phillips’ relationship made the supernova behave very nicely, you can measure distances to about eight per cent in accuracy which may not sound brilliant on Earth, but in astronomical terms when we are used to everything being about thirty per cent, that was good. Eight per cent was outstanding”. Mario Hamuy had taken Phillips idea and turned it into a solution to the puzzling luminosity differences in the supernovae in a paper of which he was the first author (Hamuy et al. (1996))> «Ini face “he showed that Phillips was correct. The slow declining supernovae are the bright ones and the fast decliners are the faint ones. By measuring how tast a Type Ia supernova fades after it reaches maximum brightness, you were not likely to make any mistakes in assigning it the wrong distance. The scene was set for using Type Ia supernovae as distance indicators. In the same month Schmidt had found out that Saul Perlmutter and his group at the University of Calitornia, Berkley had found seven distant objects to enable them to trace back the expansion history of the untverse. They had begun a serious study of supernovae in the late 1980s with a combination of Rich Muller from the Physics Department and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, including Carl Pennypacker (Filippenko et al. (2001)). Alex Filippenko from the Astronomy Department joined them sometime in 1994. Perlmutter, with a forceful personality joined them later and became the leader of the group although he was quite a junior academic. Schmidt’s view was that “if those guys at Berkley can find supernovae, we sure as hell can. We had all the supernovae expertise, let’s get out and do that”. That was the genesis of the High-Z Supernova Team. It was formed at about the time Schmidt arrived in Australia at the Mount Stromlo Observatory. He was twenty-seven years old. It is rather remarkable that he was going to lead an international team to explore the past history and the future of the universe at that young age. He said, “Il knew I wanted to go back and measure the past history of the universe, but this was going to require telescope time which I did not have access to in Australia”. He worked out a strategy to unveil the secrets of the universe. “We needed the world’s largest telescope, the Keck telescopes, we needed access to the Hubble Space Telescope. We needed a big whack of time on the wide field imager on the Cerro Tololo four metre. And so I weng through and I took the people I knew in supernovae which was the Chileans, who helped determine the relationship that allows us to use them. Alex Filippenko from Perlmutter’s group at Berkeley joined us in 1995 when the power of the Keck telescope became apparent. Filippenko had access to Keck. Chris Stubbs, who worked on the MACHO experiments here and was someone who was interested in large data sets was invited. Bob Kirshner, my supervisor for his general expertise and Bruno Leibundgut who had access to European JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 86 Bhathal — The accelerating universe... facilities”. They started with about fourteen people which eventually became twenty. In 1995 they found their first supernova — called Supernova 1995 K which turned out to be an extremely interesting supernova. The supernova was 40% fainter than he had expected it. “This single object seemed to show that the universe is speeding up”, he said. But to provide concrete evidence they needed more objects. 1998 was Schmidt’s year. It began with publishing a number of papers which tackled the problem of the state of the universe, experimental techniques to study the universe and the equation of state of the universe (Garnavich et al. (1998a), Garnavich et al. (1998b), Riess (1998), Schmidt et al. (1998)). “At the end of 1997, Peter Garnavich had put together four new objects (five in total) now, and these showed that the universe was not slowing down quickly. It was a month later when Adam Riess (along with Schmidt and Garnavich — who were the three postdocs in the group) assembled fourteen objects that we saw the signal of acceleration”, Schmidt informed me. So in 1998 they showed that the universe wasn’t slowing down at all. Indeed, it seemed to be speeding up. According to Schmidt, “It was a big thing because here we have observations that the universe is speeding up. What does it mean? It means that the universe has to be full of an energy which pushes on the universe rather then pulling it. We were telling the world that seventy per cent of the universe is made up of a material that you did not know existed. That is, there is something out there ripping the universe apart which is the most fundamental thing in the universe and we never knew it existed. And we did this with the Perlmutter group who turned out had independently made the discovery. Our papers came out ahead of theirs. They hit the press release before we did. Anyway, the important thing is that the two groups were independent”. It was a remarkable discovery. It was all the more remarkable because although there was not much love lost between the two groups when they first began on this quest they ended up by agreeing that the universe is accelerating. The discovery was Science Magazine’s discovery of the year for 1998. Einstein’s blunder was not a blunder after all. One recalls that earlier in the 20th century Einstein had added a cosmological constant to his general theory of relativity to balance the motion of the universe so that it would be stationary. So, I asked Schmidt whether his accelerating universe confirms Einstein’s theory? According to Schmidt, “In some sense it does. [’m not sure whether it confirms it but it certainly is pointing towards the cosmological constant. But it is hard to understand why the cosmological constant 1s so small and not zero”. Supernovae provide the only evidence for acceleration but when combined with the microwave background an interesting picture of the universe emerges. The measurements allowed the astronomers to pin down how much dark energy (2) and how much dark matter (Qm) the universe contains. The supernova data gave a value of ©,, — Q, and the cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements gave a value of Qm + Q). So in their paper on the constraints in cosmological models the High-Z Supernova team crossed the data from supernova with that of the CMB (Garnavich et al. (1998b), Tonry et al. (2003)) and to their amazement found Q, = 0.3 and Q) = 0.7. In effect, the results were telling the astronomers that in the early universe the density of matter in the untverse was greater than now and at some point in time dark energy took over to give us an accelerating universe in which we live today. But the astronomers don’t JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 87 Bhathal — The accekrating universe... have a clue what the dark energy is that is accelerating the universe. Has the problem of the cosmological parameters been completely solved or were there some other problems which needed to be resolved, | asked Schmidt. According to him, “Pm fairly heretical on this. And I believe we’ve done most of it. The theorists are aching to show that it isn’t the cosmological constant. My view is weve shown that it’s close to the cosmological constant. And I think we can probably improve things by a factor of three with $1. billion. bilion dollars gives you a factor of three improvement in Our measurement. And if the billion dollars do not show anything, that’s a very expensive billion dollars for not a lot of gain. So that is where we are heading, measuring the equation of state. But it’s not something that interests me. [’m doing it as a sideline, but Pm trying to shift my focus to other things because I think we have done most of what we can do and it’s time to move on to other problems which are more interesting’. That’s where we are at. A Skymapper He ts the team leader of the SkyMapper project (http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/skymapper) which will be constructing a comprehensive digital map of the southern sky. He said, “‘It will produce a petabyte of data. It will be used to find very rare objects and help us answer a whole range of different science issues”. So what were the issues he was trying to solve. According to him, “There are a few intrinsically bright, but not too bright quasars that were formed at the dawn of the first stars. And there are three known right now from the northern hemisphere search which did not go as far as the SkyMapper will go and has not done as much sky area. And so, we should be able to take those three objects and make twelve or fifteen. And those objects will allow us to probe the universe and see how the universe turned on, and what age it did and the process behind it’. The objects could also be used as places to undertake radio observations with the Murchison Widefield Array to look at the hydrogen before it was ionised — a project being worked on by a range of astronomers across Australia, and the US at MIT and Harvard. He hopes to feed objects for them to look at. Another interesting thing he said, “we can do is to look at the first stars in our galaxy. We can actually pinpoint the stars that have almost nothing other than hydrogen and helium in them by their colours. And right now this university (ie, the Australian National University) is leading this area of research’. The Oort Cloud which was first postulated by the Dutch astronomer Oort will also come under his scrutiny. It is the home of comets. “Paul Francis will be using the SkyMapper to find out what’s going on in the Oort Cloud by seeing what 1s going on in the outer solar system with these comets as they come into our neighbourhood”. He sees the SkyMapper as a ereat resource “not just for me, but for the entire astronomical community”. As we roamed over a number of astronomical topics and drank several cups of coffee, | finally asked Schmidt what he considered was the major achievement in his life to date? “Certainly the accelerating universe is a level above everything else I have done and probably will ever do. It is my hope that SkyMapper will come close to the accelerating universe. It will not reach the novelty of the accelerating universe but my hope is it will be a major iconic piece of work at that level. The work we have done in gamma ray bursts has been good. The work on supernova physics and the Hubble constant was actually quite an influential piece of work”. Perhaps, we will hear of more major discoveries with the SkyMapper in future years. JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 88 Bhathal — The accelerating universe... Conclusion This paper has shown some aspects of the life and scientific achievements of one of Australia’s foremost astronomers. It has revealed the steps that led to the discovery that the untverse is accelerating and the amount of dark matter and dark energy the universe contains. Acknowledgements The author thanks Professor Brian Schmidt, Dr John Davids and an anonymous reviewer for reviewing and providing useful comments on the paper. The author also thanks the National Library of Australia for sponsoring the National Oral History Project on significant Australian Astronomers and Physicists. The interview with Professor Brian Schmidt was conducted in 2006 at the Mount Stromlo Observatory (now known as the Research School for Astronomy and Astrophysics) in Canberra. The full transcript of the interview is held in the Oral History Collections of the National Library of Australia. References Eastman, R. G. and Nirshner, R. P. (1989) Model atmospheres for SN 1987a and the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud; Astrophysical Journat, 347, THE 193. Filippenko, A. V. (2001) Einstein’s biggest blunder? High-redshitt supernovae and the accelerating universe; Pubfcations of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 113, 1441-1448. Freedman, W. L., Madore, B.F., Gibson, B. Ik., Ferrarese, L., Kelson, D. D., Sakai, S., Mould, J. R., Kennicute. R. C. ‘Jr, Ford, H.C. Graham, J. A. Huchra, J. P., Hughes, $8. M. G,, Illingworth, G. D., Macri, L. M. and Stetson, P. B. (2001) Final results from the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project to measure the Hubble Constant, Astrophysical Journal, 553, 47-72. Garnavich, P. M., Jha,S., Challis, P., Clocchiatti, A., Diercks, A., Filippenko, A. V., Gilliland, R. L., Hogan, C.J... Kirshner, R.P., — Leibundgut, B., Phillips, M. M., Riess, D., Riess, A. G., Schmidt, B. P., Schommer, R. A., Smith, R. C., Spyromilio, J., Stubbs, C., Suntzeff, N. B., Tonry, J. and Carroll, S. M. (1998a) Supernova limits on the cosmic equation of state; Astrophysical Journal. 509, 74-79. Garnavich, P. M., Kirshner, R. P., Chailis. 7. Conti.) 5 Gilliland, R. L., Smith, Race Clocchiatti, A., Diercks, A. Filippenko, A. V., Hamuy, M.,Hogan, C. J.,Leibundgut,B., Phillips, M. M., Riess, A. G., Schmidt, B. P., Schommer, R. A., Spyromilio, J., Stubbs, C., Suntzeff, N. B. and Wells, L. 1998b) Constraints on the cosmological models from the Hubble Space Telescope observations of High-Z supernovae; Astrophysical Journal Letters, 493, 153. 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(1993) ‘The absolute magnitudes of Type IA supernovae; Astrophysical Journal, 413, L105-108. Riess A G (1998) supernovae for an accelerating universe and a Observational evidence trom cosmological constant; Astronomical Journal, 116, 1009-1038. Schmidt, B. P., Kirshner, R. P., =. Eastman, R. G., Phillips, M. M., Suntzeff, N. B., Hamuy, M., Maza, J. and Aviles, R. (1994) The distances to five Type I expanding photosphere method, and the value of H,; Astrophysical Journal, 432, 42- 48. schmidt, B. P., Suntzeff, N.B. Phillips, M. M., Schommer, R. A., Clocchiatti, A., Kirshner, R. P., Garnavich, P.; Challis, P., Leibundeut, B., supernovae using the JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 89 Bhathal — The accekrating universe... Spyromilio, J..Riess, A. G., Filippenko, A. V., Hamuy, M., Smith, RoC. Hegan, C.. Stubbs, C., Diercks, A., Reiss, D., Gilliland, R., Tonry, J., Maza, J., Dressler, A., Walsh, J. and Ciardullo, R. (1998) The High-Z Supernova Search: Measuring cosmic deceleration and global curvature of the Holland, S., Jha, S., Kirshner, R. P., Krisciunas, Kk. Leibundgut, B., Li, W., Matheson,T., Phillips, M. M..- Riess, A. G., Schommer> Ro "santhy it. Ge Sollerman, J., Spyromilio, J., Stubbs, C. W. and Suntzeff, N. B. (2003) Cosmological results from High-Z supernovae; Astrophysical Journal, 594, 1-24. universe using Type 1A supernovae; Astrophysical Journal, 507, 46-63. Tontry, J. L., Schmidt, B. P., Barris, B., Candia, P., Challis, P., Clocchiatti, A., Coil, A. ie Filippenko, A. V., Garnavich, P., Hogan, C., Ragbir Bhathal PhD (Manuscript recetved 9 August 2011; accepted 26 October 2011.) Dr Ragbir Bhathal was President of the Royal Society of NSW in 1984 and was awarded the Royal Society of NSW Medal in 1988. He has published several papers in international refereed journals and fifteen books, eight on astronomy. JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 90 Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wates, vol. 144, nos. 3&4, pp. 91-101. ISSN 0035-9173/11/020091-11" Effects of coconut water on callus initiation and plant regeneration potentials of sweetpotato Patrick S. Michael Department of Agriculture, PNG University of Technology, Lae, Papua New Guinea E-mail: patrick.michael@adelaide.edu.au Abstract Embryogenic callus initiation and plant regeneration in sweetpotato 7 r7fro have been accomplished through various amendments with supplements. Such amendments include use of appropriate growth regulator combinations or inclusion of other supplements that have the potentials to enhance callus initiation and shoot proliferation. Coconut water has been reported to enhance callus induction, shoot development and multiplication in tissue culture of plants but has never been tried in sweetpotato, which is still recalcitrant to most in vitro treatments reported. The objective of this study was to evaluate callus initiation; shoot proliferation and plant regeneration potentials of four different quantities of coconut water levels (OmIL?, 25mlL', 50mlL", 75m1L! and 100mIL*) on three sweetpotato cultivars of Papua New Guinea 7 vita, on a modified Murashidge and Skoog (MS) medium. The modified medium was supplemented with 3mgL! 2, 4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 0.5mgL.! 6-benzyl amino purine. The control medium was set without any of the coconut water levels. At coconut water levels lower than 75mlL, callus initiation and plant regeneration potentials of all the sweetpotato cultivars were relatively low. At coconut water levels of 75mlL or higher, more than 85% of SIK010, 75% of WHCHO005 and 50% of PRAP496 initiated callus that were capable of proliferating into shoots. Shoot proliferation was also poor at lower coconut water levels. Shoot isolates that proliferated from calli at higher coconut water levels were able to grow to maturity. Keywords: Coconut water, callus initiation, plant regeneration, sweetpotato Introduction Sweetpotato ([pomoea batatas L.) genetic resources are an important component of the biological diversity in Papua New Guinea (PNG) where cultural and environmental diversity exist. PNG has a trich array of cultivars, semi cultivars or landraces of more than 1500 sweetpotato (SP) that are adapted to different environmental conditions. The richness in diversity and the existence in the light of growing shift from mixed cultivation to monoculture in the farmers’ fields, continuous degradation of soil fertility, rapid population increases, lack of proper farm management practices, introduction of pests and diseases and unpredictable weather patterns coupled with natural disasters have indicated growing need for SP genetic diversity conservation, use and improvement. As a result of these factors, there is an irreplaceable erosion of SP genetic resources once found and tace the serious risks of losses if no proper efforts towards sustainable utilization and management of the richness in diversity are addressed (Michael, 2004), Traditionally, SP 1s conserved by subsistence farmers because of the mixed cropping systems practiced, and it is not surprising to find thirty to fifty different cultivars in the farmers’ fields. The presence of the diversity shows how JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES oi Michael — Effects of coconut water on callus initiation and plant regeneration potentials of sweetpotato. . . important this crop is and the wide spread acceptance of the crop by the people, especially in the highlands where the population density is often high and SP plays an important role in the lives of the people socio-economically (Michael, 2004). Not only that, it is also reported to be an important food security crop in many other developing countries (Burden, 2005), especially in the tropical, subtropical and warm temperate regions of the world (Sthachakr et al., 1997). Despite the importance of SP, the crop is often subjected to disease causing pathogens, prone to pest and disease infestations (Aritua et al., 1998) and there is a need to improve the crop genetically. The genetic improvement of the SP however, is limited due to male sterility (Sihachakr et al., 1997; Otani and Shimada, 2002; Song et al., 2004), incompatibility and the hexaploid nature of the SP genome (Dhir et al., 1998; Michael, 2005; 2009). These limitations have prompted SP researchers to use alternative techniques genetic manipulation (transformation) and several plant tissue culture techniques (Michael, 2005; 2009; 2010). Plant tissue culture underpins many of the 7 tro techniques 1n genetic manipulation and plays an important role in the manipulation of plants for micopropagation of planting materials, elimination of tissue borne disease causing pathogens virus, isolation and development of genetic variants and conservation of plant genetic resources / vfro (Michael, 2005; 2007). such as such as There are several reports of embryogenesis and organogenesis in SP tissue culture and plants have been reported to be regenerated through somatic embryogenesis through roots (Jarret et al., 1984) and root disc (Carswell and Locy, 1984). Despite the advances made in SP tissue culture, the crop 1s still recalcitrant to different 27 vitro treatments in terms of plant regeneration from callus (Michael 2005; 2009) and many amendments have to be made to the mineral composition or the growth — regulator combinations used. Such amendments include the use of correct combination of growth hormones and inclusion of other 77 vitro callus induction and proliferation factors, such as coconut (Cocos nucifera 1.) extracts (Michael, 2007). The report of Agampodi and Jayawardena (2009) shows that coconut contains plant erowth hormones that are normally used in tissue culture. Similarly, other research reports show that supplementation of coconut water in tissue culture media has enhanced callus initiation (Namdeo et al. 2006), shoot development (Tefera and Wannakrairoj, 2004) and multiplication in combination with synthetic auxins (Loc et al., 2005) in plants. Despite these works, the applications have been limited due to low reproducibility (Saranga and Cameron, 2007; Agampodi and Jayawardena, 2009) and the uses of coconut water in SP tissue culture have never been reported. This study was conducted to test the effects of five different coconut water levels (CWL) on callus initiation, shoot proliferation and plantlet regeneration potentials of three sweetpotato cultivars 7 vitro. Materials and methods Field practices and sources of plant materials The cuttings of three SP cultivars used in the present study were supplied by PNG National Agriculture Research Institute (NARI). The cultivars were high yielding, drought tolerant and widely cultivated SP cultivars (SKO10O, WHCH005 and PRAP496) in the PNG highlands. The respective cuttings of the cultivars were potted out in a compost mixture of farm yard manure and sand in the proportion 3:1 and grown to maturity under glasshouse conditions at the Department of Agriculture, PNG University of ‘Technology, as sources of explants. The plants were watered daily and a slow release, granular fertilizer (NPK, 15-15-15) was applied to support normal plant growth. Cuttings from these plants were used as source of explants throughout the study. JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES OZ Michael — E:ffects of coconut water on callus initiation and plant regeneration potentials of sweetpotato.... Surface sterilization and explant preparation For laboratory use, the top shoot tips on the youngest nodes containing 2-3 leaf primodia of 2 months old plants were sampled, placed in several vials containing 20ml of reverse osmosis water to prevent explants dehydration and taken to the lab for immediate use. For culture initiation, the nodes between the first and the second most youngest leaves of the shoot tips of all cultivars were cut into required sizes (~3mm) and surface sterilized by placing them in pre-labeled 100ml beakers containing 20% sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) for 5 minutes followed by rinsing them in sterile reverse osmosis water under a sterile cabinet for 3 minutes. The sterile stocks were further excised (~2mm in length), cut transversely into sections and again in half along the axis and used as explants. Coconut water and medium preparation The CWL were prepared using young nuts (~9 months old), collected from the Agriculture Department Farm, PNG University of Technology. The nuts were cracked opened and the water was sieved through a double- folded muslin cloth, 2-3 times into several 100ml plastic vials with screw caps and kept frozen in a freezer at -4°C prior to use. The modified MS-based medium consisted 3mgL"! 2, 4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2, 4-D), 0.5gL1 polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as an antioxidant, O.5mlL;! 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP) and 30gL! sucrose as energy source. Agar at 8eL-! was used as the gelling agent (MSO0.8 = medium). The — auxin-cytokinin combinations used was based on previous studies on sugarcane tissue culture research (Michael, 2007) in our lab at the University of Technology Biotechnology Centre (UBC). To identify the optmum CWL, a range of CWL (Oml, 25ml, 50ml, 75ml and 100ml) were supplemented in a litre of MS0.8-based medium. A litre each of CWL was prepared (a total of 8L (41 for callus initiation and 41 for direct plant regeneration respectively). The control medium contained all the supplements except the CWL (MSCo.8 medium). Two litres of MSCo.8 medium was prepared. The callus initiation medium contained all the supplements together with the different CWL (MSCi.8 medium) and the medium for plant regeneration contained the same supplements and CWL except 2, 4-D (MSCr.8 medium). The pH of the media was adjusted to 5.6 with IN sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and heated on a hotplate with continuous stirring until all the supplements have dissolved. A 25ml of the media were dispensed using a manual dispenser into 25ml plastic vials, followed by sterilizing in an autoclave at 15psi (121°C) for 15-21 minutes. A total of 40 vials containing 25ml of the medium per litre each of the CWL and control were prepared. This procedure was followed subsequently to prepare all the media required throughout the study. A total of 28L of both the control and treatment media were prepared. Culture initiation and plant regeneration All the explants were handled aseptically. The meristematic tips for callus initiation were further excised into segments ((0.5-1.0mm), wounded throughout and cultured on MSC1.8 medium. Five explants were cultured in a vial of each CWL and replicated 5 times. A total of 20 vials each were allocated to each SP cultivar 6 vials per CWL), and cultured with 100 explants. There were 60 vials cultured with a total of 300 explants of all the cultivars; and set up using a complete randomized design. The cultures were incubated inside dark cupboards and routinely sub-cultured at 3 weeks intervals for further callus initiation, proliferation and multiplication until adequate amounts of calli were obtained (Table 1). For _ plantlet 28 day old embryogenic calli (AC) were transferred onto fresh MSCr.8 medium and incubated directly regeneration, JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES oe: Michael — Eifects of coconut water on callus inthation and plant regeneration potentials of sweetpotato... under a 16 hour photoperiod of 30umol m?s? photosynthetic photon flux using cool white fluorescent tubes in an incubation room as per Michael (2007) at a room temperature of 24+2°C. The miniature shoots of about 3-5cm long with small roots obtained from callus were singled out and transferred onto fresh MSCr.8 medium for rooting. Plantlets were further rooted on an MSCr.8-based medium supplemented with 0.5mgL! cytokinin (BAP), prepared separately for this purpose and grown to maturity. These cultures were kept under reduced im witro conditions at half the original strength of MSCr.8 medium and conserved. The conserved materials were routinely sub- cultured every 6 months and maintained throughout. This procedure developed was adapted and is routinely used in our laboratory at University of Technology Biotechnology Center (UBC). Data collection and statistical analysis Callus growth was assessed by taking the differences between the final and initial calli weights. The initial calli weights were obtained by weighing all the calli during the first subculture and the final weights by weighing the same cultures during the second subculture WHCH005 the control medium (MSCo.8). Table 1. cultivars. Cult sKooY t 43 3 ak ed a PRAPANG ae ee The percentages were calculated based on the total number of explants that induced callus raised over the total number of explants (125) cultured per CWL on MSCi.8 medium. The data under zero (0) CWL are the performances of explants cultured on respectively; within 28 days at an interval of two weeks, until transferred to the MSCr.8 medium for further calli proliferation, shoot initiation and plant regeneration. The data collected were entered on Microsoft Excel 2007 and stored prior to analysis. The callus growth data collected were analyzed using Statistix 9.1 (Statistical Software). One-way ANOVA was also done to test the significant differences between different treatments (CWL) at p<0.05. The analyzed data presented in Table 2. Results Callus initiation potential The callus initiation potentials of the explants (meristem tips) cultured on the modified MS- based media containing the different CWL gave different results, showing strong — cultivar responses to the 7 mfro treatments provided. Compared to MSCr.8 medium, the explants and callus cultured on MSCo.8 medium were comparatively low in terms of callus and shoot initiation, proliferation, and development. The callus initiation potentials of the cultivars in the order of responsiveness were SKO010, WHCH005 and PRAP496 (Table 1). 2 86 le ae 63 Callus initiation potentials as percentage (5) of meristem taps of the three sweetpotato JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 94 Michael — Effects of coconut water on callus initiation and plant regeneration potentials of sweetpotato... m@SK010 ta@ WHCHOOS td PRAP496 Callus growth (g) DRnantinnei mnt Moran enverd isa ae er Coconut water levels (miL) Figure 1. Callus proliferation of the three sweetpotato cultivars on CWL. The data used (mean weights) are the differences between the callus weights obtained during the first subculture and at the second subculture respectively. Fagure 2A OES Figure 2B | ——— Fagure 2G Figure 2D Figure 2E Figure 2F Figure 2. Callus initiation on MSCi.8 medium. Callus developing on SKO10 (A), WHCHO005 (B) and PRAP496 (C) at 100mIL-1, and PRAP496 (D), SKO10 (E) and WHCHO005 (F) on 75mlL-1 21 days after culture respectively. The arrowheads show white and friable embryogenic (embryo-like) call. JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 95 Michael — Effects of coconut water on callus initiation and plant regeneration potentials of sweetpotato... Embryogenic callus initiation and proliferation There was a huge difference in terms of callus proliferation (growth) of the entire test SP cultivars used. In terms of callus initiation, all the cultivars performed poorly at lower CWL (25-50mIL') on MSCi.8 medium. At CWL of 75mlL! or higher, most of the explants responded well and varying amounts of calli were obtained (Fig. 1). Most of the calli produced at lower CWL were however, hard, friable and non-embryogenic in nature (Fig. 2D (full data not shown)). At 75mlIL-1, all the cultivars were able to induce and produce calli that were somewhat EC in nature but slightly at lower rates. Interestingly, at CWL Figure 3A Figure 3B Figure 3D Figure 3F of 100mIL+, all the explants of all the SP — cultivars responded well and huge amount of — calli were induced (Fig. 2). These calli were embryogenic in nature and had high regenerative potentials (Fig. 3). When the SP cultivars were compared in terms of callus initiation at 100mIL!, more than 85% (106/125) of cultivar SKO10 (Fig. 2A), 75% (4/125) of WHCH005 (Fig. 2B) and 50% (63/125) of PRAP496 (Fig.2C) meristem tips induced callus on MSCi.8 medium (Table 1). One-way analysis of variance showed that all the higher CWL used for inducing callus were significantly different with p-values of the CWL 75mlL! [0.00 (WHCHO005), 0.03 (PRAP496), 0.25 (SKO10)] and 100mIL! [0.01 (WHCHO005), 0.05 (PRAP496), 0.24 (SKO10)) respectively. Figure 3F Figure 3. Plantlet regeneration on MSCr.8 medium. Prohferating EC of SKO10 (A), WHCH005 (B), miniature shoot isolates Jrom calh rooting (C), a single plant isolate grown to maturity (D), menstem tips generating shoots (E), and a shoot isolate grown to maturity (F'). The arrowheads show cali prokferation (greenish) into miniature shoots. JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 96 Michael — Effects of coconut water on callus initiation and plant regeneration potentials of sweetpotato... . Plantlet regeneration. When selected EC were isolated and transferred onto MSCr.8 medium (Fig. 2), more than 90 percent proliferated into miniature shoots within 28 days after transfer (data not shown). Callus proliferation was high on CWL higher than 75mIL". The culttvar SKOLO had a higher Coconut water levels regeneration potential (Fig. 3A) followed by WHCH005 (Fig. 3B). The cultivar PRAP496 was recalcitrant to any of the /# 1/ro treatments used in this study in terms of plant regeneration. | Comparatively, calli proliferation and shoot initiation of PRAP496 was also low, when transferred onto MSCi.8 medium (Table 1). Sweetpotato cultivars (CWL) OmIL? Mean Standard deviation Variance Standard error means Coefficient of variation 25miL-! Mean Standard deviation Variance Standard error means Coefficient of variation 50miL1 Mean Standard deviation Variance Standard error means Coefficient of variation 75m1L7! Mean Standard deviation Variance Standard error means Coefficient of variation 100mlL! Mean Standard deviation Variance Standard error means Coefficient of variation The mean weights (g) were calculated by dividing the total callus weights of each CWL by the SKOLO WHCH005 PRAP496 20 5.80 owl) Zale 0.84 0.84 4.70) 0.70 0.70 Oo? 0.37 od BCE 14.43 20.15 13.50 9.80 5.20 1.48 2.56 0.84 ae 8.20 0.70 0.66 1.28 0.37 10.75 2D. 16.09 27.60 16.20 8.20 7.00 one 0.84 61.3 9.70 0.70 9) E39 0.37 Zoo 1923 10.20 27.60 33.60 13.60 1.89 9.48 Shue 61.30 89.80 9.30 3:50 4.24 1.36 28.37 20.20 22.42 99.60 7220 1720 24.40) i 4.44 445.30 125.20 19.70 9.44 5.00 19s Pes OS, 15.50 25.81 total number of culture vials. Standard deviation, coefficient of variation and standard error means of each CWL are also shown. Tabke 2. Assessment of callus prohjeration (gronth) by coconut water levels, JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES OF Michael — E:ffects of coconut water on callus initiation and plant regeneration potentials of sweetpotato. .. Root initiation in all the plantlets began immediately after the first pair of leaves have emerged and got fully established during the 24 pair of leaf development (Fig. 3C). When the meristem tips of such plants were 1solated, excised into single nodal segments and transferred to MSCr.8 medium (Fig. 3E) for shoot multiplication, the mini explants responded to the medium well at CWL higher than 50mIL! and somewhat got hardened, followed by mini root development. When the roots were fully established in the medium, small shoots started protruding from the dormant buds on the nodes (Fig. 3E). Most of the plants dertved from both callus and nodal segments rooted well and such plants were successfully isolated and grown to maturity under conditions (Fig. 39). Comparatively, callus initiation, proliferation and regeneration of plants on the MSCo.8 medium were poor. Callus initiation rate was slow and explants got dehydrated and wilted within 4 weeks of culture with little or no response, which were later discarded. glasshouse Discussion The report of Mamaril et al. (1986) shows that erowth factors have been successfully isolated from coconut water, however; their (growth factors) uses in SP tissue culture have not been tested. The observations made in this study showed that more than 50 percent of the explants cultured on the different CWL were potentially capable of inducing callus with strong cultivar differences at higher CWL (Table 1). Comparatively, more callus was produced by SKO10 than WHCH005 and least by PRAP490. When performances of callus were compared among the different CWL, callus initiation and proliferation rates were concentration dependent. At lower CWL, callus proliferation was low whereas it was high at higher CWL (Table 1). Similarly, plant regeneration was low comparatively although the cultivars SKO10 and WHCH005 showed some favorable responses. The latter two varieties also produced huge amount of calli at higher CWL (00mIL*), When selected EC was transferred onto the MSCr.8 medium containing higher CWL (00mIL"), more than 80 percent of the calli produced miniature shoots (Fig. 3C) within 28 days, which later developed into whole plants (Fig. 3D). It was seen that the surface of the white EC, such as those shown 1n Figure 2A, B, C, turned slightly brown within 14 days after transfer (Fig. 3A, B), followed by greenish appearances on proliferating calli surfaces (Fig, 3A, B). Such surfaces, produced multiples of shoots which were later isolated and transferred onto fresh MSCr.8 medium for further growth and development (Fig. 3D). As shown in Figure 2, the calli induced on cultivars SKO10 and WHCH005 were white in nature whereas Triqui et al. (2008) however, reported producing reddish calli which underwent various stages of callus growth. These workers observed that the calli were milky and mucilaginous. Likewise, the call induced in this study were also milky and mucilaginous in appearance with high regenerative potentials (Fig. 2A, B). Sthachakr et al. (1997) have shown that somatic embryos at cotyledonous stage turned green and gave rise to 3-5 plantlets per cluster of embryos cultured. In this study, embryo-like clusters of a small amount of greenish callus isolated and transferred onto fresh MSCr.8 medium also produced similar number of plantlets (Fig. 3C). It was also seen that plantlets rooted well when transferred onto the MSCr.8 medium containing cytokinin (BAP) at 0.5mgL! alone, whereas results of similar experiments elsewhere needed an auxin-cytokinin combinations at lower concentrations (Triqui et al., 2008; Sihachakr et al, 1997. In earlier researches in sugarcane tissue culture in our lab at UBC, it was observed that 2mgL of BAP together with 100mlL" of coconut water without an auxin source resulted JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 98 Michael — Effects of coconut water on callus initiation and plant regeneration potentials of sweetpotato.... in well rooted sugarcane plantlets (Michael, 2007). The differences in cultivar observed in this study are consistent with the results of other workers in SP tissue culture (Sihachakr et al., 1997; Otani et al., 1998; Song et al., 2004; Michael, 2005; Oggema et al., 2007; Triqui et al., 2008; Michael, 2009; 2010). The latter studies conclude that SP is still recalcitrant to in vitro treatments and every genotype needs specific amendments for successful plant regeneration. The observations made, to a large extent show that inclusion of CWL in the culture medium can be useful in SP tissue culture research although the role performed by the unknown constituents of the extracts at this stage is not yet clear and warrants further research. performances Studies using coconut water elsewhere show that coconut water is rich in lysine, cystine, histidine, methionine and other essential amino acids (Thio, 1982), has a high concentration of vitamins and minerals together with potassium, calcium and magnesium (Gopikrishna et al., 2008) and contains a lot of sugars (Jackson et al., 2004). Because the performances of explants or the callus cultured on MSCo.8 medium or at lower CWL were poor in terms of callus initiation, proliferation and plantlet regeneration, it 1s safe for this study to conclude that the higher callus initiation and__ proliferation, including regeneration potentials observed at higher CWL may be due to presence of growth promoting factors in the higher CWL as reported by other researchers (Thio, 1982; Gopikrishna et al., 2008; Jackson et al., 2004). The findings reported here have been tested, applied and used in tissue culture researches within our lab using other plants such as taro (Colocasia esculenta), yam (Daiscorea esculenta), licorice (Licorice sp.), noni (Morinda catnfola) and Irish potato (Solanum tuberosum) and worked quite well. The MS-based medium (MSCxr.8) JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY has been adapted in our lab for conservation of in vitro mictopropagated crop plants at reduced strengths also. Acknowledgements The study would not have been possible without the SP materials being supplied by NARI. The preliminary study was undertaken initially as part of an industrial training program under the supervision of Mr. Humphrey Saese. Special thanks to Mrs. ‘Totave Kamen and the 2003 project students at the UBC, Department of Agriculture, PNG University of Technology, PNG, for technical assistances and research material preparations provided during the study. References Agampodi, V. A. and Jayawardena, B. (2009) Effects of coconut (Cocos nucifera J..) water extracts on adventitious root development in vegetative propagation of Dracaena purplecompacta V3 Acta Plant Phystology; 31, 279-284. Aritua, V., Adipala, E., Carey, E. E. and Gibson, R. W. (1998) Incidence of sweetpotato virus disease: Virus resistance of sweetpotato grown in Uganda; Annual of Applied Biology; 132, 399-411. Carswell, G. K. and Locy, R. D. 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Proceedings of the TWAS Regional Young Scientist Conference on Food, Health and Fuel: Plants for the Future. 2nd — 5% November 2009, Armada Hotel, Selango, Malaysia (published in CD ROM). Michael, P. S. (2009) Sweetpotato transformation. Proceedings of — the genetic TWAS Regional Young Scientist Conference on Food, Health and Fuel: Plants for the Future. 24 — 5% November 2009, Armada Hotel, Selango, Malaysia (published in CD ROM). Michael, P. S. (2010) Sweetpotato genetic transformation for crop genetic improvement. Proceedings of the 3% Annual Science and Technology Conference. 10% — 20 August 2010, Divine Word University, Madang, Papua New Guinea (published by the Office of Higher Education and Divine Word University). Murashige, T. and Skoog, F. (1962) A revised medium for rapid growth and bio-assays with tobacco tissue cultures; Physcology of Plants; 15, 473- 497, Namdeo, A. G., Mahadik, R. R. and Kadam, S. S. (2006) Cost effective method for callus initiation from Catharanthus roseus leaves; Pharmacology Magazine; 2, 227-231. Oggema, J. N., Kinyua, M. G. and Ouma, P. (2007) Optimum 2,4-D suitable for embryogenic callus induction in local Kenyan concentration sweetpotato cultivars; Asian Journal of Plant Sciences; 6, 484-489. Otani, M. and Shimada, T. (2002) “Transgenic sweet potato with agronomically important genes”; in Khachatourian, G. G., McHughen, A., Scorza, R., Wai-K. Nip & Hu, Y. H. (Eds.); Transgenic Plants and Crops, 6099-716. Otani, M., Shimada, T. and Saito, A. (1998) Transgenic plant production from embryogenic callus of sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam.) using Agrobacterium tumefaciens; Plant Biotechnology; 15, 11-16. Saranga, J. and Cameron, R. (2007); Adventitious root formation in Anacardium occidentale L. in response to phytohormones and removal of roots; Horticultural Science; 111, 164-172. Sihachakr, D., Haicour, R., Cavalcante, J. M., Umboh, L., Nzoghe, D., Servaes, A. and Ducreux, A. (1997) Plant regeneration in sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas \.., Convolvulaceae); Euphytica, 96, 143-152. Song, Guo-Q., Honda, H. and Yamaguchi, Ken-I. (2004) Efficient Agrobacterium tumefacienssmediated transformation of sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas (L..) from stem explants using a two-step kanamycin- hygromycin selection method; I” Vitro Cellular and Developmental Biology; 40, 359-365. Tefera, W. and Wannakrairoj, S. (2004) Micropropagation of Karwan; Science Asia; 30, 9- 15. Thio, G. L. (1982). Small-scale and home processing of fresh coconut (Oil Manufacture) and utilization of by-products. Department of Agriculture, Royal Research Institute Bulletin No. 209. Triqui, Z. El A., Guedira, A., Chlyah, A., Chlyah, H., Souvannavong, V., Haicour, R. and Sihachakr, D. (2008) Effect of genotype, gelling agent, and auxin on the induction of somatic embryogenesis in sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas Lam.); Plant Biology and Pathology; 331, 198-205. JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 100 Michael ~ Effects of coconut water on callus initiation and plant regeneration potentials of sweetpotato... Patrick S. Michael (Manuscript received 22 August 2011; accepted 17 November 2011.) Patrick S. Michael has an MSc in plant genetic manipulation from the University of Nottingham, UK and Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from PNG University of Technology, Papua New Guinea. Currently, he is a member of the academic staff and teaches a range of subjects at the Department of Agriculture, PNG University of Technology, Papua New Guinea in plant biotechnology, genetics and breeding, biochemistry. His on-going research interest is in plant genetic manipulation, underpinned by plant tissue culture. His previous research includes investigations into oil palm and sugarcane agronomy, sugarcane breeding and crop variety improvement. JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 101 Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Socety of New South Wakes, vol. 144, nos. 3&4, pp. 102-104. ISSN 0035-9173/11 /020102-3 Thesis abstract Polymer brush carbon nanotubes as nanofillers in macro and nano-size composites Tony John Aitchison Abstract of a thesis for a Doctorate of Philosophy submitted to Flinders University, South Australia The work outlined in this thesis covers the many aspects of carbon nanotubes and polymers by combining the two — into nanocomposite materials of macro and nano size. ‘The issues of producing and combining the two are explored and results are provided. There are four major aspects to this work; 1. Pohmer Brushed Carbon Nanotubes: mvualt-walled (MWCNT) are surface functionalized with polymer brushes produced by activators regenerated by electron transfer (ARGET) atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). A “grafting from” approach was used as a higher grafting density would result and therefore it was necessary to functionalize the carbon nanotubes surface with hydroxyethyl-2- bromoisobutyrate (HEBD). This acted as the haloalkane (1.e., tertiary bromide) initiator sites in ARGET ATRP of styrene and methyl methacrylate. The successful growth of the polymer brushes were characterized for their chemical, kinetic and physical properties. In addition, polymer brushes of 2-hydroxyethy] methacrylate (HEMA) were grown by non- living means by attaching the HEMA monomer via the hydroxyl group to a carboxylic acid surtace functionalized MWCNT and subsequently polymerized. carbon nanotubes 2. Macro-sized Composites. a composite of carbon nanotubes with homopolymers as the matrix, requires surface modification of the MWCNT to prevent nanotube aggregation. A homogeneous dispersion is necessary in order to. produce improved properties for the composite. The ‘macro’ composite research involved the incorporation of polymer brush carbon nanotubes in concentrations of Olw/w% to lw/w% (eg, poly(methyl methacrylate) polymer brush carbon nanotubes in a poly(methyl methacrylate) matrix). The most improved composites obtained used polystyrene brushes in a polystyrene matrix, which was due to m-7 stacking interactions. The composite material possessed improved mechanical strength, increased glass transition temperature and increased processability. Furthermore, the dispersion was maintained after processing with shear forces. 3. Pyrene as a Model Systenr. 1-pyrenecarboxylic acid has a very similar architecture to MWCNT and for this reason was used to model the chemical synthesis of aspects ‘1’ and ‘2’ with polystyrene. The work showed — similar enhancements in terms of mechanical strength, increased glass transition temperature and increased — processability. Compared to polystyrene polymer brush carbon nanotubes the improvement was not as great, however the pyrene material did not exhibit limits of dispersion like the carbon nanotube filler. 4. Nano-sized Composites. This research utilized a hexagonal-packed cylindrical phase of a di-block copolymer melt, in an attempt to align the carbon nanotubes to the cylindrical phase. To JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 102 Aitchison — Polymer brash carbon nanotubes as nanofillers in macro and nano-size composites... ensure their affinity for the cylinder phase, polymer brushes of polystyrene were used for a 30/70 poly(styrene-b-methyl methacrylate) melt. However, the nanotubes were found to disrupt the segregation process, and the phases did not form appropriately. This ultimately did not provide strong enough forces to align the carbon nanotubes, but indicates that because of their relative massive size, greater forces are required. Dr Tony Aitchison, Materials and BioEnergy Group, School of Chemistry and Physical Sciences, Flinders University, G.P.O. Box 2100, Adelaide SA 5001 AUSTRALIA Email: tony.aitchison@flinders.edu.au Future work has been recommended with alternative polymer brush carbon nanotubes as fillers and using electric fields, as they have shown to better orientate a hexagonal-packed cylindrical phase from a parallel orientation to a perpendicular orientation. ‘This is a suggested technique that could help align the carbon nanotubes. JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 103 Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Sovety of New South Wakes, vol. 144, nos. 3&4, pp. 104-105. ISSN 0035-9173/11/020104-2 Thesis abstract Development of in situ cosmogenic “Ne exposure dating, and dating of Australian arid landforms by combined stable and radioactive in situ cosmogenic nuclides Toshiyuki Fujioka Abstract of a thesis for a Doctorate of Philosophy submitted to the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Australian arid landforms stony deserts and dunetfields investigated regarding their chronologies and formation processes using 7” si’ cosmogenic nuclides. In situ cosmogenic nuclides, produced at the Earth’s surface by interaction of secondary cosmic-rays with mineral elements, offer the method to estimate surface exposure ages, erosion rates and burial ages. including were Among cosmogenic nuclides, *'Ne is stable, and thus has advantage on measuring long-exposure ages >4 Ma where radionuclides (e.g., "Be, 7°Al) cannot reach due to their decay. Major effort was devoted to develop a method for accurately determining 7 sifu cosmogenic *!Ne in quartz samples. In conclusion, evaluation of non- cosmogenic components, crustal *!'Ne using crushing analysis and 7 s/f nucleogenic 7!Ne from U-Th analysis and rock ages, were regarded as to be the most reliable at this stage. Cosmogenic #!Ne and 'Be in silcrete gibbers from central Australia were measured to evaluate the formation history of Australian stony deserts. Results show discordant exposure ages with excessive 7!Ne, implying pre- exposure at a shallow depth prior to exhumation of parent silcrete. A model correcting for pre-history nuclide accumulation suggests that the stony deserts formed as early as 4 Ma, dissection of silcrete-capped tableland occurred 2-3 Ma, and stripping of soils and silcrete exhumation occurred 1 Ma onward. This is the first to determine chronologies of stony desert formation in Australia. With the aim of determining the initiation of dune-building in Australia, >60 dune samples were collected from nine drill-holes of five longitudinal dunes near Finke, west Simpson Desert, for cosmogenic-burial dating and OSL. The drill sampling identified palaeosol horizons, suggesting episodic nature of dune building at the sites. Cosmogenic *°Al-!Be burial ages indicate the basal dune ages of 1.2-1.3 Ma, sionificantly older than previously thought. In summary, this PhD project demonstrates that: 1) evaluation of non-cosmogenic *!Ne, such as crustal and 7 situ nucleogenic 7'Ne, is essential to determine low amounts of 7 sila cosmogenic ?!Ne, and both crushing and fusion gas-extraction experiments are the essential approach to achieve this; 2) combined 2'Ne and “Be measurements first reveals chronologies of Australian stony deserts, showing that the stony deserts developed during global cooling that initiated the Quaternary glacial cycles; and 3) Australian longitudinal dunes — formed episodically, and the earliest episode can date back to 1.2-1.3 Ma, much older than previously JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 104 eer fa MG ‘ > Dine : Pujtoka ~ Development of in situ cosmogenic ~' Ne exposure dating... thought and similar to playa formation in central Australia. Finally, this study showed usefulness of 77 sifu cosmogenic nuclides, not only commonly-used radionuclides (e.g, Be, 7°Al) but also stable nuclide @'Ne), to investigate chronologies of atid landforms with the age over million years. Despite the relatively long exposure history, the measurement of 7” situ cosmogenic “'Ne in Dr Toshtyuki Fujioka, Institute for Environmental Research, Building 53, Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Locked Bag 2001, Kirrawee DC NSW 2232, AUSTRALIA E-mail: toshiyuki.fujioka@ansto.gov.au central Australia remain difficult, due to its low production rate at mid latitude and low altitude, and also to old rock ages resulting high 7a situ nucleogenic *#!Ne. Nevertheless, usefulness of “INe in desert landscape study is no doubt, and it will be valuable to apply 2'Ne to sites at higher latitude and altitude, where production rates are high, such as Gobi and Atacama Deserts. JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 105 Jourmal and Proceedings of the Royal Socety of New Sonth Wakes, vol. 144, nos. 3&4, p. 106. ISSN 0035-9173/11/020106-1 Thesis abstract Exploring the missing links: a critical inquiry into the role of social capital in Australian regional development Keri Chiveralls Abstract of a thesis for a Doctorate of Philosophy submitted to the University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia This thesis examines the role of social capital in Australian regional development. though a case study of one of the most socio- economically disadvantaged regions in Australia, the City of Playford, (perhaps best known as the former City of Elizabeth and home of South Australian Manufacturing). The approach taken involves an examination of the historical roots, more recent academic and political debates, along with the structural political and economic conditions which have inspired the rise of social capital. This is accompanied by an exploration of the application and implications of the social capital approach to development in the City of Playford. Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in social capital theory. Of particular interest to policy makers has been the suggestion that there is a link between social capital and economic development. This areument has lent support to the idea that inequality in regional economic development can be tackled by building social capital in disadvantaged regions. In this thesis I take a critical approach to both the concept ‘social capital’ and the link between social capital and economic development. It does so I suggest that the popularity of social capital may be due more to the political and academic environment in which the concept was spawned, than its ability to address issues of inequality in regional development. The results of the case study in the City of Playford highlight the continuing importance of issues of class and_ structural inequality in Australian regional development. [argue ~ that contemporary applications of social capital in reaional development are not only unable to adequately address such issues, but may also be contributing to their exacerbation. Having drawn attention to the inherently problematic nature of the concept, | then discuss the implications of the research findings for the future of social capital in both policy and social theory. Dr IKeri Chiveralls, School of Natural and Built Environments, University of South Australia, BJ2-58 City East Campus, Adelaide SA 5000 AUSTRALIA E-mail: keri.chiveralls@unisa.edu.au JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 106 Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wakes, vol. 144, nos. 3&4, p. 107. ISSN 0035-9173/11/020107-1 Thesis abstract England elsewhere: Edward Gibbon Wakefield and an imperial Utopian dream Michael Radzevicius Abstract of a thesis for a Doctorate of Philosophy submitted to the University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia British colonial reformer Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1796-1862) is most widely known in scholarly literature for the role that he played in the planning, promotion, and establishment of the British colonies of South Australia and New Zealand. Always a_ controversial historical figure, Wakefield’s career as an advocate of British imperial expansion is a subject that continues to challenge modern scholars. Some view him as a contemptible, deluded capitalist visionary who had little practical impact upon the political landscape of his day. Others argue that his advocacy of a regulated, ‘systematic’ form of colonization provided the impetus for the rapid increase in British emigration to Australia and New Zealand in the 1830s and 1840s. What is common to almost all of the scholarship on Wakefield’s life and works, however, is the view that his plans to colonize South Australia and New Zealand were attempts to create an ideal, utopian colonial society. The utopian qualities of Wakefield’s works have been especially recognized in the historical literature of New Zealand. In general, however, his works have been assessed in the context of colonial and imperial history, rather than as an important contribution to Western utopian literature. With its modern genesis in Thomas More’s Utopia of 1516, the canon of Western utopian literature is large and has received extensive scholarly interest and investigation. Although utopian thinking is a multifarious literary and theoretical tradition open to diverse interpretations, there is nonetheless a readily identifiable canon of texts and authors that scholars have categorised as being ‘utopian.’ Wakefield’s works are generally excluded from this canon and it is this gap in the intellectual history of the Western utopian tradition that this thesis addresses. Dr Michael Radzevicius, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide SA 5005 AUSTRALIA E-mail: michael.radzevicius@adelaide.edu.au JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 107 Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wakes, vol. 144, nos. 3&4, pp. 108-109. ISSN 0035-9173/11/020108-2 Thesis abstract Earth jurisprudence: private property and earth community Peter Burdon Abstract of a thesis for a Doctorate of Philosophy submitted to the University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia The central argument of this thesis is that the institution of private property reflects an anthropocentric worldview and is contributing to the current environmental crisis. Drawing on the description of law as a mirror of society, it considers idea of law and _ the institution of private property can adapt to reflect the recent scientific description of human beings as interconnected and mutually dependant on nature. It advocates a paradigm shift in law from anthropocentrism to the concept of Earth community. how our The thesis first provides an example laws anthropocentrism by exploring the legal- philosophical concept of private property. Private property is advanced over other legal concepts, because it plays a key role in interactions with the environment and because it contains some of law’s main messages about nature and our place within it. The thesis analyses three main influences on the development of private property from the humanism of antiquity, the scientific revolution and the influence of liberal political philosophy. It concludes that the dominant rights-based theory of private property is anthropocentric and facilitates environmental harm. governing human The second component of the thesis explores contemporary scientific evidence supporting the ecocentric concept of Earth community. This concept argues that human beings are deeply connected and dependent on nature. It also describes the Earth as a community of subjects and not a collection of objects. Assuming that the social sphere is an important source for law, this thesis considers how a paradigm shift from anthropocentrism to ecocentrism can influence the development of legal concepts. To catalyse this shift, it considers the ‘new story’ proposed by cultural historian and theologian Thomas Berry. This story describes contemporary scientific insights such as interconnectedness in a narrative form Third, the thesis uses the alternative paradigm of Earth community to articulate an emerging legal philosophy called Earth Jurisprudence. It describes Earth Jurisprudence as a theory of natural law and advocates for the recognition of two kinds of law, organised in a hierarchical relationship. At the apex is the Great Law, which represents the principle of Earth community. Beneath the Great Law is Human Law, which represents rules articulated by human authorities, which are consistent with the Great Law and enacted for the common good of the comprehensive Earth Community. In regard to the interrelationship between these two legal categories, two points are crucial. Human Law derives its legal quality from the Great Law and any law in contravention of this standard is considered a corruption of law and not morally binding on a population. JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 108 Burdon — Ecarth jurisprudence: private property and earth community... Finally, the thesis constructs an alternative concept of private property based on the philosophy of Earth Jurisprudence. It describes private property as a relationship between members of the Earth community, through tangible or intangible items. To be consistent with the philosophy of Earth Jurisprudence, the concept of private property must recognise Dr Peter Burdon, Adelaide Law School, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide SA 5005 AUSTRALIA E-mail: peter.d.burdon@adelaide.edu.au human social relationships, include nonreciprocal duties and obligations; and respond to the ‘thing’ which is the subject matter of a property relationship. A theory of private property that overlooks any of these considerations 1s defective and deserves to be labelled such. JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 109 Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Socety of New South Wakes, vol. 144, nos. 3&4, p. 110. ISSN 0035-9173/11/020110-1 Thesis abstract Diverging identities: a ‘contextualised’ exploration of the interplay of competing discourses in two Saudi univetsity classrooms Tariq Elyas Abstract of a thesis for a Doctorate of Philosophy submitted to the University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia There has been considerable debate in recent years and criticism levelled both from inside and outside sources at the English curriculum in Saudi Arabia. As the future Enelish school teachers, Saudi University students studying Enelish in Saudi higher institutions and the pedagogies employed by their lecturers are of particular interest in this regard. Some work has been done on Arabic students studying English in other Gulf countries on the social-cultural aspects of attitudes towards learning English as on Saudi Arabian students and _ teachers. However, a detailed unpacking of the different cultural influences (both Islamic and Western), and how evidenced in policy documents, curriculum, textbooks and pedagogy, remains relatively unexplored. In addition, the effect of the various influences on the teachers’ professional identities, and the students’ learning identities has not been dealt with prior to this thesis. they are The methodology for this thesis into the relationships between identity and Discourse drew from a number of intersecting theoretical perspectives, including Identity Theory, Narrative Theory, Motivation Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis. The resulting case study described, analysed and interpreted the multi-layered complexities at play in the teaching and learning of English in two undergraduate English Major classrooms in one Kingdom of Saudi Arabia University. The data set comprised interviews with both of the teachers, focus groups with students, policy documents, curriculum documents and textbooks, surveys of student perceptions of English language and western culture, classroom observations and student written artefacts. This thesis shows that, although the characterization of English teaching as operating with a “clash of civilizations” is perhaps too simplistic, a clear distinction can be made between opposing cultural forces which cause conflict in the Saudi Arabian University teaching and learning environment. This thesis provides a unique insight into the interplay of competing “Discourses” within this context. Dr Tariq Elyas, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide SA 5005 AUSTRALIA E-mail: tarigis@hotmail.com JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 110 Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Socety of New South Wakes, vol. 144, nos. 3&4, pp. 111-112. ISSN 0035-9173/11/020111-2 Thesis abstract Social spaces, rural places: ageing-in-place in rural South Australia Helen R. Feist Abstract of a thesis for a Doctorate of Philosophy submitted to the University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia Australia has an ageing population and a clear policy focus on ageing-in-place supported by family and community care, and service provision in the home. This thesis argues that place, space and availability of social support are important variables for how older people successfully age-in-place. The dual positioning of people in both physical and social space has important implications for understanding social behaviour and social support, particularly in rural areas where changing rural communities has been the focus of much attention. This thesis explored place attachment, community connectedness and the — social networks of 223 people aged 70 years and over living independently in small rural communities in the Murray Mallee region of South Australia. This was achieved by incorporating social, physical and temporal attributes of older individuals’ lives in the data collection and analysis processes. A mixed method approach was adopted, using data from the 2006 Australian Census and face-to-face interviews with older people; with GIS technology enabling social networks to be examined spatially. The findings demonstrate that social networks and therefore potential informal support are impacted upon by the dispersed geography of family ties. However, local community ties and a strong sense of place attachment provide some compensation for this, with the clear majority of other nominated network ties (groups, activities, friends, neighbours and __ services) being proximal. This creates a duality in the social networks of older people in rural areas — on the one hand they place emphasis on, and maintain strong links to, family despite increasingly dispersed family networks. On the other, a sense of place attachment and local community provides strong bonds for many older people, but may require higher levels of localised support to enable older rural people to successfully age-in-place. Changes in network size, composition and modes of contact were found to be related to the physical changes associated with ageing and the nature of the rural environment in which the person lives. Changes in social networks occur over time; but as the consistent loneliness scores for all age groups suggest, not all change 1s necessarily negative. Many of the adjustments older people made to their social networks and patterns of daily life reflected adaptations that allowed them to remain living in the location of their choice and retain their independence. It is how those adaptations and choices are enabled by policy, service delivery and community support that may enhance the quality of ageing- in-place for older Australians living in rural settings. JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES iil Feist — Socal spaces, rural places: ageing-in-place in rural South Austraha... By focusing on social environments through a small rural communities for older people, — spatial lens this study contributes to a better service providers and intergenerational family understanding of the issues of ageing-in-place in groups and also for local rural communities. Dr Helen R. Feist, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide SA 5005 AUSTRALIA E-mail: name(@domain-name JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES 112 Archibald Liversidge Imperial Science under the Southern Cross Roy MacLeod Royal Society of New South Wales, in association with Sydney University Press ISBN 9781-9208-9880-9 When Archibald Liversidge first arrived at the University of Sydney in 1872 as Reader in Geology and Assistant in the Laboratory, he had Archibald about ten students and two tooms in the main Liversidge building. In 1874, he became Professor of 7 Geology And Mineralogy and by 1879 he had persuaded the University Senate to open a . Z Faculty of Science. He became its first Dean in : ow under the 1882. Imnertal CS 02 a sa ~SCIEeNCe | Southern In 1880, he visited Europe as a trustee of the (“ross Australian Museum and his report helped to establish the Industrial, Technological and Sanitary Museum which formed the basis of the present Powerhouse Museum’s _ collection. Liversidge also played a major role in establishing the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Saence which held its first congress in 1888. This book is essential reading for those interested in the development of science in colonial Australia, particularly the fields of crystallography, mineral chemistry, chemical geology and strategic minerals policy. To order your copy, please complete the form Liversidge Book Order Form available at: http://royalsoc.org.au/books and return it together with your payment to: The Royal Society of NSW, (Liversidge Book), Building H47, University of Sydney NSW 2006, AUSTRALIA or contact the Society: Phone: +61 2 9036 5282 Fax: +61 2 9036 5309 Email: info@royalsoc.org.au JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES Thinking outside the square i Annovation for a r nwWarnmant s0vermnment is | rou d to support The Four Societies Lecture _ www.ansto.gov.au Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Information for authors Details of submission guidelines can be found in the on-line Style Guide for Authors at: http://royalsoc.org.au Manuscripts are only accepted in digital format (Microsoft® Word 2003 or later — templates are available at http://royalsoc.org.au). Manuscripts should be e-mailed to: editor@royalsoc.org.au If the file are too large to e-mail, they should be placed on a CD-ROM or other digital media and posted to: The Honorary Secretary (Editorial), The Royal Society of New South Wales, Building H47, 121 Darlington Road, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY NSW 2006. Manuscripts are reviewed by the Hon. Editor, in consultation with the Editorial Board, to determine whether the they are suitable for publication in the Journal and Proceedings. Manuscripts are subject to peer-review by independent referees. Papers will be considered for publication either if the content is substantially new and has not been published previously, or if it presents a substantial review of a research programme that may have been published previously but provides a comprehensive perspective that would be expected to make a substantial contribution to knowledge. Letters to the Editor and short notes are also encouraged and are not peer-reviewed. Copyright: The Royal Society of New South Wales does not require authors to transfer the copyright of their manuscript to the Society but they are required to grant the Society an unrestricted licence to reproduce in printed or electronic form manuscripts accepted for publication in the Journal and Proceedings. Enquiries relating to copyright or reproduction of an article should be directed to the author. JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES ITHSONIAN INST a wi | 9088 0165 Journal and Procee of the Royal Society of New South Wales Volume 144 Hector, D.C.A. May, R.M. Boldeman, J.W. Banat, R. Gilligan, J. J. Otway, N.M. Bhathal, R. Michael, P. THESIS ABSTRACTS Aitchison, T.J. Fujioka, T. Chiveralls, Ik. Radzevicius, M. Burdon, P.S. Elyas, T. Feist, H.R. 9 " 770035 | 917000 | Numbers 441 and 442 CONTENTS Editorial Science advice and policy making Options for a light ion facility for hadron therapy and research Comparison of dorsal and pectoral fin denticles for grey nurse, great white, and six whaler sharks from east Australian waters The accelerating universe: a new view of the universe Effects of coconut water on callus initiation and plant regeneration potentials of sweetpotato Polymer brush carbon nanotubes as nanofillers in macro and nano-size composites Development of in situ cosmogenic *!Ne exposure dating, and dating of Australian arid landforms by combined stable and radioactive in situ cosmogenic nuclides Exploring the missing links: a critical inquiry into the role of social capital in Australian regional development England elsewhere: Edward Gibbon Wakefield and an imperial Utopian dream Farth jurisprudence: private property and earth community Diverging identities: a ‘contextualised’ exploration of the interplay of competing discourses in two Saudi university classrooms Social spaces, rural places: ageing-in-place in rural South Australia The Royal Society of New South Wales, Building H47, 121 Darlington Road, University of Sydney NSW 2006, Australia Web: www.toyalsoc.org.au Published: December 2011 ITUTION LIBRARIES IM 73438 49 50 58 66 83 91 102 104 106 107 108 110 111 E-mail: info@royalsoc.org.au (general) editor@royalsoc.org.au (editorial)