University of Sydney

Tuberculosis is a difficult disease to treat, and help may now be coming from an unexpected source – a sea sponge.

Nowadays, the Milky Way is a pretty quiet galaxy – but just a few million years ago its central black hole sent off huge flares of radiation.

By studying the way pain works in injured fruit flies, scientists have for the first time uncovered evidence that its effects can be long-lasting, something they say opens up new opportunities for more effective treatments for chronic pain in humans.

​The box jellyfish is the world's most venomous creature, with a sting from its trailing tentacles causing intense pain, necrosis of the skin, and in some cases death by cardiac arrest. Now, however, scientists have found an antidote for such stings – and it's an existing cholesterol-lowering drug.

Normally, animals reproduce by either laying eggs or giving birth to live young, but an Australian species of lizard can apparently do both in the same pregnancy. Scientists witnessed a three-toed skink lay three eggs before giving birth to a live baby, which has never been observed before.

Combustion experts from the University of Sydney are working on a revolutionary new rocket engine that can not only breath air while in the atmosphere, but can burn incoming air at supersonic speeds, promising to make space launches cheaper and more efficient.

Some studies suggest the world is entering a sixth major extinction event. But now, in a rare piece of good news from that field, researchers from Australia, Canada and the US have rediscovered Wallace’s giant bee, an insect that hasn’t been seen in almost 40 years.

The world’s first gene-edited human babies have been born in China. Professor Jiankui He claims that by removing a specific gene from the embryos using CRISPR-Cas9, the twin girls would have a natural immunity to HIV. But scientists question the safety, effectiveness and morality of the procedure.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most energetic events in the universe, second only to the Big Bang itself. We don’t usually get any warning, but now astronomers have spotted the telltale signs of a star system that could blow its lid any moment – and it’s far too close to Earth for comfort.

Most species of termites reproduce the old fashioned way. But nature, always looking for more efficient ways to do things, may be in the process of removing unnecessary steps in the process – males. Researchers have now found colonies with no male termites at all, and they seem to be thriving.

As the fate of the Great Barrier Reef remains uncertain, a new study has examined the health of the reef over the last 30,000 years, and found that it has suffered five “death events” in the past – but its current woes could be the last straw.

Our universe seems to contain a suspiciously perfect amount of "dark energy" to sustain life. But new research suggests that life is still possible even with far more dark energy than we have, and the results have some big implications for the multiverse theory.