Spare a thought for the blokes working on the ANU’s “Exchange” site this morning.
Not fun weather for pouring concrete.
Got an image of Canberra you want to share with the world? Email it to images@the-riotact.com .

Some people may know that there is a dirt car park at the base of black mountain on the corner of clunies ross street and black mountain road, for years I have been parking there and walking in to the ANU to avoid the hassle of parking on campus, never have I seen any no [...]

The Australian National University has announced the dawn of a new era as Professor Ian Young moves from Swinburne University to take up the big job here:
Professor Young starts as ANU Vice-Chancellor today. Formerly the Vice-Chancellor of Swinburne University of Technology, he is also a world-ranking coastal and ocean engineer.
He replaces Professor Ian Chubb, [...]

ANU has posted posted the speech given by their Chancellor Gareth Evans to the farewell dinner of long serving Vice-Chancellor Ian Chubb.
Here were the highlights of achievement:
Let me count the ways in which Ian Chubb’s leadership has been so special. He has consolidated our position as Australia’s No 1 university, and unequivocally our top research [...]

Notdingers has sent in this pic of the ANU’s terrifying solar array cooking something that’s smoking vile green this morning.
Let’s hope for the sake of those on Parkes Way that it’s nothing too toxic.
UPDATE: Apologies, the green is the tint from Notdingers’ car window.

For the past three months, the new Woroni team, for the first time independent of ANUSA has promised it was working hard to finally deliver a proper newspaper. No doubt The Canberra Times management was losing sleep over christmas awaiting the launch of their new, free competitor. Now that it’s out, I think they’ll sleep [...]

The Canberra Times reports that ANU’s 2010 revenues were around $1.02 billion, moving it into the rare air of Melbourne University, Sydney University, the University of Queensland, Monash University and the University of NSW.
The Australian National University’s outgoing vice-chancellor Professor Ian Chubb told a gathering of Canberra’s business leaders this week that the institution’s [...]

ANU has a fascinating piece up on work they’re doing combining the unlikely fields of oncology and astrobiology to understand cancer in humans.
Dr Charles Lineweaver from the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics and the Research School of Earth Sciences at ANU said the new model, developed with Professor Paul Davies at Arizona State [...]

The Canberra Times has a story on the transformation of the old Lyneham Motor Inn into “Lyneham Hall” as ANU again struggles to warehouse the influx of first years.
‘Lyneham Hall” will house a mix of 118 undergraduate and postgraduate domestic and international students and will no longer take private bookings from members of the public.
While [...]

The ABC has the happy news that the University of Canberra, ANU and ACT Health are running a joint program to clean up the poxy student bodies:
A new Chlamydia Screening program at selected Canberra pharmacies, will offer people aged between 16 and 30 years, a ten dollar incentive to take a urine test for [...]

ANU has announced their Centre for Mental Health Research has successfully quantified what makes a job bad:
What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? Was it one where you felt you had little job security, and that the rug could be pulled out from beneath you at any point? Perhaps it was about the sheer [...]

As part of his ongoing victory lap the ANU’s outgoing Vice-Chancellor Ian Chubb has typed out his last forward to the ANU Reporter which has just gone online.
In it he makes this claim which bears thinking about:
Our alumni are well represented amongst the leadership and emerging leadership of almost all fields of human endeavour.
Thoughts Rioters?

ACT Policing is investigating the theft of a large amount of copper from a building site at the Australian National University (ANU) in Acton over the last month.
Around 1.30pm yesterday (Wednesday, January 19), police attended the building site at the Coombes building at ANU where approximately 108 metres of copper pipe had been removed and [...]

The ANU has the slightly bizarre news that non-resident students will now be even more firmly branded as losers with the creation of “Griffin Hall”.
Griffin Hall will offer academic support and social engagement for all non-residential students at ANU. It will also provide access to a range of social, cultural and sporting events that [...]

Chief Minister Stanhope is thrilled to bits by ANU’s big announcement today about teaming up with the Smithsonian to run a space museum at Mount Stromlo.
“I warmly welcome the news that the ANU and the Smithsonian will join forces to build a national space science museum at Canberra’s Mount Stromlo Observatory,” Mr Stanhope said.
“It is [...]

Anyone who’s done the tourist trail in Washington DC knows the National Air and Space Museum (part of The Smithsonian) is one of the coolest places on earth.
So it’s very exciting to see ANU announce they’ve signed up with that august body:
The signing of an agreement overnight in Washington DC between the Smithsonian’s National [...]

The ANU, in a busy news day, has announced that arts/law honours student has won a prized Rhodes Scholarship and is therefore off to Oxford.
For me, the Rhodes Scholarship means the opportunity to study at Oxford, and becoming a member of an international community of public spirited scholars,” he said.
“Beyond the exciting opportunity of studying [...]

ANU have announced they’ve opened their 2030 Masterplan up for consultation.
Feedback is due by 14 January 2011 and can be made to masterplan@anu.edu.au
One wonders what nasties are in their for them to bury the consultation in the silly season.

ANU has proudly announced that they’ve graduated their 80,000th student.
ANU marked an important milestone earlier this month with the conferring of awards at the December graduation ceremonies bringing the total number of University graduates to over 80,000.
Around 1800 students received their awards during six ceremonies held at Llewellyn Hall last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. [...]

It’s perhaps not surprising that often the ANU News highlights research which points to increasing ANU funding down the line.
Yesterday Dr Hilary Charlesworth was teaming up with the Legislative Assembly to massively expand what is considered a human right.
“The report discusses the overseas experience with protection of economic, social and cultural rights and concludes that [...]

The ANU has posted details for the State Memorial Service for Professor Frank Fenner AC CMG MBE FAA, the man who eradicated smallpox.
Venue: Llewellyn Hall, ANU School of Music, Childers Street, The Australian National University
Time: 3.30pm for a 4pm start
Reception: Following the Memorial Service all guests are invited to attend a reception at University House [...]

The Australian National University has unveiled ground breaking research into public opinion showing that the public prefers science to sport and would like more money to be given to, wait for it, scientists of which ANU has many.
Australians are more interested in science than sport and feel that politicians are failing to listen to [...]

Last week we noted the passing of the astonishing Professor Frank Fenner.
Today Prime Minister Gillard has announced a “State Memorial Service for Emeritus Professor Frank Fenner AC CMG MBE”:
The service will commemorate Professor Fenner’s life and his remarkable contribution to global public health and environmental science.
Professor Fenner’s long and distinguished career involved groundbreaking [...]

The ANU is announcing the launch of the Australian Solar Institute (ASI) Laboratory.
ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Chubb said that the new facilities will complement, and substantially extend, the current sophisticated solar research facilities at ANU.
“ANU has a proud record of innovation in sustainable energy systems and the new ASI Laboratory will add to that,” said [...]

The ANU has announced that most of what people thought about why plastic decays in the sun is crap:
Historically scientists have thought that clothes pegs and other plastics left out in the sun become brittle and fail due to a process called autoxidation. Exposure to light or heat generates free radicals, which are reactive [...]

Childers Street, City West, has recently been modified. The road’s pinch points have been removed, the speed limit has been dropped from 30km/h to a 10km/h shared zone… (makes sense to speed a road up then tell pedestrians they may legally meander across whenever they like…)
There are still centre lines painted on the road, [...]

[First filed: Oct 23, 2010 @ 8:54]

Geoff from Lushpup has sent in this cracking photo with the following note:
This is the view looking down toward Union Court at the ANU. The fluff is from the plethora of cottonwood trees all bursting forth. I think they must be responding to the decent rain of late because [...]

The old cliché that Canberra hasn’t got any soul has a new response – it has plenty of jazz instead.   A new exhibition of images by Brian Stewart documents the thriving local jazz scene at one of its more popular venues – The Gods Café and Bar at the ANU. 
The exhibition is timed to [...]

[ 23 October, 2010 to 24 October, 2010. ]

The Australian National University informs us they’re hosting the Imagine Cup Game Camp this weekend:

The Imagine Cup Game Camp, hosted by the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science, is a free two-day games development workshop. The event is part of Microsoft’s Imagine Cup and will include a speaker from Microsoft to lead participants through [...]

ANU has the intriguing news that shining near infra-red light into damaged eyes encourages healing:
Australian researchers at The Vision Centre are working on a non-invasive method that involves shining near-infrared light (NIR) into damaged eyes to invoke a natural process which encourages the eye to heal itself.
“The use of NIR in healing eyes stressed by [...]

The Sydney Morning Herald is having a look at the mouse sperm collections of the Australian National University:
Mice are ideally suited as animal models to study human illnesses, says Dr Stuart Read, the curator of the Australian Phenome Bank, which is based at the Australian National University. They reproduce quickly and have genes similar to [...]

The ANU brings word that Swinburne University of Technology’s Vice Chancellor is taking the reins at ANU when they drop the pilot next year and Ian Chubb heads off into a well earned retirement.
Professor Young is one of the most cited civil engineers in Australia, and the only serving Australian Vice-Chancellor to hold current Australian [...]