Anyone trying to build sandcastles on the beach will need some degree of skill and imagination, but not an instruction manual. The water content is actually relatively unimportant to the mechanical properties of the sand. This observation, which is borne out by precise measurements in the laboratory, puzzles researchers. Even with water content of just 3%, the fluid inside represents a highly-complex structure.

Australia’s new $A200m synchrotron in Melbourne could contribute to the fight to save the Tasmanian devil from the outbreak of facial tumour disease currently decimating devil populations, according to Dr Jeff Church from CSIRO Textile and Fibre Technology in Geelong.