 Good evening everybody and welcome to this celebration of ANU research. My name is Margaret Harding and I am the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for research here at the Australian National University. I would like to commence by acknowledging and celebrating the first Australians on whose land we meet and pay my respects to the elders of the Ngunnawal people past and present. A very warm welcome to the ANU community, to the Canberra community and especially to our higher degree research students here this evening for one of our showcase events of the year, the three minute thesis competition. Universities are places of higher education and learning and we often tend to focus on the building and the physical present which are important but really what we are about is our students. We love all our students but we have a particular soft spot or I do I should say for our research students who are my responsibility in the university. We are really proud of all of you, you are great ambassadors for the university, we expect great things of you and we know you will deliver. A very warm congratulations to all our finalists this evening. The opportunity to stand in front of an audience of close to a thousand people this evening is part of your PhD journey to be able to communicate, to defend, to enthuse, to excite an audience and explain what you are doing as part of your PhD research. We are enormously proud of all of our students who will be presenting here this evening. With those few words let the show begin. I am pleased to welcome to the stage Will Grant who will be your emcee this evening. Thank you Margaret, good evening everybody, welcome to Three Minute Thesis. Yeah! This is as Margaret said a celebration of the research that we are doing here at ANU, a chance for us to explore, to hear, to wonder what it is that our research students are doing and to revel in it just three minutes each speaker. As Margaret said my name is Will Grant, I am from the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science. To begin I would like to welcome our audience here in the room and our audience going out live on Facebook. Join us, send a tweet, enjoy what is going on tonight. I would like to begin by thanking the team of the research skills and training team, Associate Professor Inga Mubern and Victoria Fir Smith who have done the hard work of putting all of this Three Minute Thesis together this year. Normally Inga would be in this spot tonight but unfortunately she had a bit of a cough and was not able to do this but I get to do this instead and I am very glad to be here tonight. The Three Minute Thesis was developed at the University of Queensland. It's now a vast international, not a conspiracy, vast international competition, 170 universities in 18 countries worldwide. All of our finalists here tonight have been through a grueling process, semifinals in their colleges are now here to be here tonight and one of them, the winner tonight will go on to the Asia Pacific final at UQ at the end of the month. Now, some reminders. First of all, could you put your phone not on off but on silent? We'd love for you to tweet about this awesome research that's coming here tonight. So 10 years, 10 years that we've been running the Three Minute Thesis from the University of Queensland and here. In 2016, we've had big winners. Joshua Choutan from the John Curtin School of Medical Research, won the Three Minute Thesis Asia Pacific final in Brisbane. And in 2014, Rosanna Stevens from the College of Arts and Social Sciences here, won second place in people's choice in the Trans-Tasman final at the University of Western Australia. What is the Three Minute Thesis? So a thesis, three years or more, 80,000 words or more, written in dense, complicated jargon that I hate to say it's students, but maybe a dozen people in the world will fully understand. That's not what we're doing here tonight. The Three Minute Thesis is a compelling oration on their thesis. Oration is their words, not mine. It talks about its significance to a non-specialist audience and it's a test of communication skills. The job of the thesis of the Three Minute Thesis, sure it's to explain that thesis in three minutes, but it's to showcase the amazing research that we're doing here at ANU. Now to win that prize of going off to Brisbane to compete for ANU, there are of course rules that our participants have to follow. You can judge them on the rules too, audience. There is a People's Choice Award and I'll tell you more about that in a second. So what are the rules for our speakers? One slide, one stage, one person, three minutes, that's all they get. They have to tell us what they're researching, how they're doing it, why it matters and they don't sadly get to use songs, raps, gimmicks, props or magic tricks. Was magic tricks really explicitly ruled out? Wow. You will get a chance to vote later. Now, I said there would be a three minute warning, not just a warning but we will cut people off if they go over three minutes, that's a hard rule. You will hear this sound. We very much hope for our speakers' sake that we won't be hearing that sound because they would sadly be disqualified. But you can still hear how awesome their research is. So judging tonight, obviously you will all be giving the People's Choice Awards, but giving us the formal awards are our wonderful panel of judges, lit up in that beautiful lighting in the middle of the auditorium just there. We have, please thank them for their time, Professor Mike Kalford, provost here at ANU. Yes. Elizabeth Lee, MLA, member for Kura Jong here in the ACT. Professor Tom Kalma, co-chair of Reconciliation Australia and Chancellor of the University of Canberra. Lish Fayer, broadcaster at ABC, triple six radio. Dr. Matthew Trinker, director of the National Museum of Australia and Diane Cargas-Bray, philanthropist and 2018 ACT citizen of the year. So judges, unfortunately you don't get to make up your own criteria for which is the best. There is criteria that you need to follow. Did the presentation help you understand the research? What's the thesis topic and its significance that communicated in the language appropriate to you? An intelligent but non-specialist audience. Did the presentation get you to want to know more? Also think about their stage presence. Are they connecting with us? Is their vocal range excellent? Is their pacing good? Are they confident? At this point I just wanted to say that the research that we do at ANU often deals with confronting topics. Some of the topics tonight may be confronting and some of the images shown on screen may be confronting as well, just a warning in advance. So what do they win? Everyone gets a prize. Because speaking on this stage is a hard task and they've already competed through the semifinals to get here. Everyone who speaks tonight will win a $250 research support grant thanks to PASA. Yeah, a special prize will be given to the key academic supporter as nominated by the ANU winner, which hopefully is their supervisor. If not, it's kind of, I don't know. The PASA People's Choice Award, that's what you will all be giving, $500 research support grant. The runner up, $1,000 research support grant. And the winner, $4,000 in research support grant and the opportunity to represent ANU in the Asia Pacific final in Brisbane on the 27th of September. So one final thing, we have a hashtag. Hash, ANU 3MT, send the tweets out, make this viral, and let's get the show beginning. To begin, from the School of Archeology and Anthropology in the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, speaking on Seeing the Forests for the Trees, Primate Habitats on the Brink. Please make welcome. Kirily Apthorpe. It's Ba Langer, one of the most critically endangered primates in the world, found only on the island of Cat Ba in Vietnam. Over the last 40 years, thousands of these monkeys have been hunted, caught to be kept as pets, or poached to be used in medicinal teas. Their forests have been logged, demolished for farms, cleared for development, and continuously encroached upon until their habitat, once covering over 280 square kilometers, now covers a few fragments, totaling the size of Lake Billy Griffin. The Cat Ba Langer is on the brink of extinction with only 60 left in the world. And to add to their problems, this tiny population is split into two main groups, which have reproductively isolated from one another and facing serious genetic problems as a result. As a biological anthropologist, I study human and primate evolution and behavior, specifically focusing on the conservation of critically endangered species like this one. Right now, we know very little about the habitat of Vietnam's primates, but we do know that if species like this disappear, their entire ecosystems could collapse. So my project is the first ever study of the Cat Ba Langer's ecology. It is important to know though that there are no simple solutions to saving these monkeys or their habitats. So our team is out there collecting as much information as we can to try to solve this complex problem. And to discover more, I went out into their habitat in Vietnam. I climbed limestone mountains, clung to cliff faces, and got caught in rock slides on summits, all the while counting thousands of plants, measuring their vegetation and modeling their distribution. And it was worth it, because now I have the first ever ecological profile of the Cat Ba Langer, helping us to understand their habitat needs. Now, we might never fully understand why these monkeys sleep on cliff ledges over the ocean, why their babies are bright orange, or why they drink seawater using their tails. But I have discovered that they can adapt to less than pristine forests. And I've confirmed there is a viable vegetation corridor that could be used to unite the two groups. This would dramatically improve our ability to plan for their ongoing conservation and reduce their genetic problems, which is good news for all of us. Because by preserving species like this, we're safeguarding the world's biodiversity for future generations. So, while the plight of this monkey might seem dark at first glance, bit by bit, tree by tree, I'm working to bring the Cat Ba Langer and its forests back from the brink. Thank you. Yeah, we think that was worth it too, Kirillie. All those hard yards, all that hard work doing that research. But research is important. It's important that we're out there doing these things to try and make the world a better place. Kirillie's work really fits into that. But there's a lot of research at ANU that really fits into that paradigm of making the world a better place. Next up, from the ANU College of Law, looking at how to remove offence, equality of outcome and anti-discrimination law, please make welcome, Alice Taylor. Some people, society is filled with fences, which prevent them from living the lives they wish to lead. Those fences may relate to their gender, their age, a disability, or their race. The image behind me represents the classic approach to those fences and equality of treatment, where everyone is treated the same regardless of circumstances or need, where everyone is treated the same, even where this leads to unequal outcomes. But that's not our understanding of equality today. Today, we expect something more. We expect that barriers will be removed, that fences will be lowered, and that ramps exist. But does anti-discrimination law currently achieve this equality of opportunity? That, in essence, is the subject of my thesis. In my thesis, I have analyzed and compared over 600 anti-discrimination law cases from Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. And I did so to determine whether and how courts are interpreting anti-discrimination law to achieve an equality of opportunity. And what I discovered is the answer depends on where you are. So whilst these countries look outwardly similar, their approach to matters of equality and discrimination are different. And it's different not because the rules are different, because the rules are the same, but because of the way in which the courts have applied and interpreted those rules. So what's the difference? In essence, what happens to the fence in each of these countries? Well, in Canada, the existence of the fence is challenged. The fence builder must justify that fence or it will be removed. In the United Kingdom, we might give someone an additional box to stand on or cut a hole in the fence for them to see through. The fence remains, but the person is individually accommodated. And in Australia, that fence is staying put. There will be no additional boxes. There will be no cutouts. Equality of treatment is all that we are offered here. But through this research, I have developed a framework to determine how and why courts interpret discrimination more to achieve an equality of opportunity or outcome. And through this research, I can develop new avenues of law reform and provide advocates with tools to assist people with disabilities, women, and those of ethnic minorities so that we can ultimately remove the fence. Thank you. Tear down the fences. I'm going home tonight. I'm gonna get rid of my fence. See if my neighbours like that. They won't like that. I won't do that. I won't do that. Okay, don't go too far. Don't go too far. Okay, a very different note now. From the fences between us and our neighbours to the deep, dark reaches of the universe. From the research school of physics and engineering in the ANU College of Science, helping us listen to the music of gravity, David McManus. Black holes are called black for a reason. Because they don't emit any light. Almost everything that we know about the universe around us, we know because of light. But light can't always paint the full picture. You can't see everything. In 2015, for the first time ever, we detected a collision between two black holes. But we didn't see it. Instead, it was the first time that we heard the music of gravity. Small ripples in the fabric of space and time called gravitational waves. Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves 100 years ago. They are created whenever masses accelerate through space. Gravitational wave astronomy has opened up a new window into the universe, allowing us to detect things that we cannot see. And in the future, may help us learn about things in our universe that we don't understand very well yet. Gravitational wave observatories combine state-of-the-art technology, along with the most precise measurement techniques ever developed to measure these tiny ripples in space and time. As an experimental physicist, I always want to measure things more accurately. I have created a sensor which will help improve the performance of these gravitational wave observatories. My sensor uses a set of torsion pendulums which move and respond to changes in gravity. I use lasers to accurately measure this motion down to less than the diameter of an atom. My sensor is used to characterize changes in gravity here on Earth, which show up as unwanted noise in the gravitational wave observatories looking out into space. By removing the effects of these noise, these observatories become more sensitive, allowing them to see new types of events and to see further into our universe. This fundamental science actually has real-world applications as well. I've done modeling to show that my sensor can be used to measure the gravitational signals that are produced during the course of an earthquake before the ground begins to shake. This means that my sensor can be used as an early warning system for oncoming earthquakes, providing up to a couple of minutes extra warning before the arrival of seismic waves. In these extra minutes, you can switch off important and potentially dangerous infrastructure like a nuclear reactor. You can tell people to take cover or stop a high-speed train. In this way, my sensor can be used to help protect important assets and save lives. When there are things that we cannot see, we have to open our ears. We can complete our picture of the universe by listening to the music of gravity. Less than the size of an atom, halfway across the universe, real-world impact, it's got everything. Does my head in all of these scales such a big distance? And, yeah, this next slide does contain images of a deceased child. From the Coral Bell School of Asia-Pacific Affairs in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, talking about speaking up, silencing terrorism, please make welcome Bhavani Khanan. We do not negotiate with terrorists. A favorite phrase of world leaders and Hollywood directors alike. Our leaders repeat this phrase so often and with such conviction that negotiation has become a dirty word. Negotiations have seemed to be a last resort, conducted in secret and publicly denied. The cost of terrorism is unacceptable. But what about the human cost of countering terrorism? Three-year-old Alan Kearney lost his life fleeing from terrorism-related violence. Now, he wasn't just fleeing from Islamic State, but also from the military responses to terrorism that had plagued his short life. Almost two decades on, and not only is there no end in sight to the war on terror, but it has caused the biggest humanitarian crisis of our time. The status quo simply isn't working. There is a secret weapon in the counterterrorism arsenal. Negotiating or communicating with terrorists significantly reduces destruction, displacement, and death. Between 1968 and 2006, negotiations helped almost half of groups engaged in acts of terrorism to stop using violence. In contrast, just over 5% ended due to military action. As a diplomatic studies scholar, my research increases the success rate by optimizing how states approach negotiations as a counterterrorism tool. Now, every conflict situation is different, with no two takes being the same. As such, scholars disagree on the relative importance of factors that affect negotiations with terrorists. For example, one school believes that negotiations with the Irish Republican Army succeeded because they involved all willing actors. Another contends that it was due to addressing core interests and grievances, while others still attribute it to everyone suffering equally. People can't agree on what makes negotiations work. In light of this, I look at negotiating holistically. By comparing factors simultaneously, I am able to identify which factors are necessary or sufficient for negotiating with terrorists, equipping leaders with a screenplay for whether and how to engage in negotiations. Alan Curdie reminded the world of the costs of fighting fire with fire. When negotiations already enjoy a 600% better-trapped record than military action, can we really afford to not negotiate with terrorists? Seems like we're all victims of the ancient Chinese proverb, may you live in interesting times. I think it's our job in the university community to get out there and to stop all those idiots out there whose knees jerk to stupid things. The point of research like that is to say we can do better, we can know more, and we can solve these supposedly intractable problems. Next, from the John Curtin School of Medical Research in the ANU College of Health and Medicine, making more memorable vaccines is Harry Sutton. Probably won't remember getting your first vaccination, but I bet your immune system does. A vaccine works by introducing a mild or dead version of a pathogen into your body so that your immune system learns to recognise and remember it. Without you having to get sick, it's kind of like a training simulation for your body so that when the real thing comes around, you're ready to fight it off. In Australia, most of us are vaccinated for all kinds of things when we're younger, and that means that for the rest of our lives, our immune systems will remember and protect us from a whole bunch of diseases that most of us have probably forgotten to even exist. But what's strange is we don't actually understand how vaccines create these memories, and this is important because for some diseases, this memory isn't perfect. Malaria is a good example of this. Malaria is one of the deadliest diseases in human history, and it's caused by a microscopic parasite transmitted by the mosquito. By the end of this year, 200 million people will become sick because of this parasite, and it will kill a further half a million, mainly young children. For those who survive, it's not going to be something they're going to forget anytime soon, but their immune system will. For reasons we don't quite understand, if you become infected with the malaria parasite but get better, you can become infected again and again and again. This failure to generate memory means that even our best malaria vaccines can't provide long-term immune protection. I want to take a step back and examine how these immune memories are created in the first place. Broadly, the immune cells that I study will be divided into two main groups after a vaccination or infection. The first group is good at fighting off the disease and making you healthy again. While the second group is responsible for your long-term memory, I found that malaria vaccinations are really good at making this fighting group, but they don't make many of these memory cells. To understand why this is the case, I've developed a sequencing technique that allows me to look at individual cells that respond to malaria vaccination and look at the genes that they express. I want to know what genes are important in controlling the decision to become a fighting cell or a memory cell. By understanding how these fundamental decisions of the immune system are made, we can design more memorable vaccines that can train our immune system to remember diseases that we can all someday forget about. Thank you. I can't even remember this morning, let alone my childhood. I'm glad that my vaccines can and I'm glad that Harry is working on making things better. Hey, I've just been told backstage that 3MT is trending. If you want to get amongst it, hash ANU 3MT, make your tweet the one that goes viral. From the Research School of Accounting in the ANU College of Business and Economics, tax avoiders, I've got your numbers. Nolin Yen. I'm sorry to tell you that a lot of our fellow Australians avoid paying a fair share of income tax by hiding expenses, hiding incomes, over-claiming expenses and even falsifying their tax return files. 56 million nearspaid no income tax in 2014 and again in 2015. These are only the cases that we know about. The true extent of tax avoidance could lead to billions of dollars in tax loss revenue every year to collect these loss revenues. Tax office must audit taxpayers like you and me. However, do they target the right people? Visual blowers from the Australian Taxation Office will rule that. They are targeting vulnerable low-income families and small businesses to get more taxes because these people have less power to fight back. We need to target these audits better. Thanks to the Australian Taxation Office, I'm able to study a valuable 2% alarming tax files. I help identify potential tax avoiders using a unique digital analysis called Benford's Law. In 1938, Frank Benford identified a curious pattern, the black line in the graph, that recurrent in natural data set from street addresses to death rate, electricity bills, and even length of rivers, numbers do follow Benford's Law. If the numbers do not follow this pattern, it is likely that fake data has been introduced. Based on a detailed analysis of over 170,000 actual tax files, my results suggest that Benford's Law can indicate potential groups of tax avoiders. For example, the red line shows that the group of taxpayers who paid very little income tax based on their income level has a noticeable high deviation from Benford's Law while others follow it closely. Using my method, we can examine the numbers in all the tax files within only a few hours and identify a whole group of potential tax avoiders. This can help the Australian Taxation Office to fairly and efficiently target its audits. So hopefully one day, not only you and me, but everyone in Australia will pay its fair share of income tax. Thank you. How good's Benford's Law? It's coming for you tax cheaters. None of you, none of you, none of you. You're good ANU corporate citizens. Pay your taxes, that's very good. I love that concept. More maths from the Mathematical Science Institute in the ANU College of Science. Making blurred images worth a thousand words. Please make welcome. Rommel Real. Millions of people upload images to Instagram and spend lots of time artfully blurring them. The reason Instagram filters work? Maths. We use maths to blur images so we can use more maths to unblurred them if needed. Let's say you blur the picture of your dog or your ex and then delete it original. If I know the maths you used to blur it, then I can recover the original sharp image. Photography is fine art, but medical imaging isn't. Let's say I have a brain scan like this image on your left. There's a tumor on it, but it's blurred. We can't exactly tell how the tumor looks like because this image was never sharp. Now, this is a problem because surgeons working just from this image will have a hard time finding so they can figure out how to remove it. Making a blurred image sharp is an important and difficult problem to solve. I don't know what Instagram filter was used so I need to do advanced mathematics to make it clearer. With images, we see what the naked eye may not. From the human body to heavenly bodies. That's why images are important in science. Unfortunately, it is more common in science for images to get blurred than sharp. Such images are meant to convey rich information, but when blurred, they're useless. This is because images are captured in different ways. So I'm using a limited amount of radio waves like ultrasound. And the human body is so precious that even using just enough radio waves to capture a nice image could be dangerous. Making a blurred image sharp is a challenging maths problem. Think of the final sharp image as the solution to a complex set of equations. A mathematical problem is well-posed if the solution exists, it's unique and stable. If you violate one of these three, then you have what is called an ill-posed problem. Unfortunately, the unblurring problem is ill-posed. That's why it has to be approximated into a sequence of well-posed problems. By solving each of these problems step by step, we can get closer to that final sharp image that the surgeon needs. Through my research, tumors and brain scans will appear clearer, like this image on your right. And this will help surgeons remove tumors easier. But my work doesn't just help medical imaging. It can also help us capture more breathtaking photos from outer space. So next time you use Instagram, spare a thought for the poor mathematician like me. What's done blurtings for a living? Any surgeons out there in the audience don't operate on me based on my Instagram pictures or any other pictures of me online. From the School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics and Eliteration. In the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences. Super-powered security, please make welcome, Katie Cox. Do you feel safe right now? How have you felt since 9-11? Today, Australians are still afraid. Nearly half of us fear that we could be the victim of a terrorist attack. And two-thirds think our government should do more. But there's a paradox in national security. The more evidence we see that we're being protected, the less safe we feel. Imagine you came home one day to find riot police on your street. Would you feel safer? I'd be asking, what's wrong? National security can be used to justify anything, from surveillance to torture to war. If we knew what we really wanted from security, we could stop it from hurting as much as it helps. But even in the academic literature, no one agrees on what security means. Many people talk about security in practice, but few talk about the way it makes us feel. What if we could use stories to answer this question? Popular books and media reflect our hopes and fears. And since 9-11, superheroes have been more popular than ever. I've studied 55 years worth of Iron Man comics. That's about 660 issues and seven films. I've researched their history, I've compared them to political speeches, and I've broken them down to find out what they say about security. Now, these are American stories, but American fear influences Australian politics. Iron Man is part of a global conversation and we need to listen in. Because despite the fantasy, Iron Man is all about national security. When Tony Stark's life is shattered by a terrorist attack, he becomes Iron Man. He cocoons himself in super-powered armor and he goes after the bad guys. But the more armor he has, the more it wears him down. Iron Man can never keep people safe for very long and it comes at a painful cost. Iron Man reflects our fear that if super-powered security fails, we'll be hurt worse than before. So why can't we let it go? In the stories I've studied, security never just means safety. It promises freedom, opportunity, and progress towards a better life. So when our security is threatened, we feel as though all of those things are threatened too. But if we give up our freedoms to feel secure, then we'll lose what we're trying to protect. Super-powered security comes at a cost. My research tells us what it really means to feel secure so that we can decide what cost we're willing to pay. Make mine, Marvel! Sorry, comic book movies, they get... True story, the only time I've cried in front of my class here at ANU was reciting the plot of a comic book movie. From the School of Culture, History and Language, in the College of Asia and the Pacific. Speaking on grains of time, please make welcome. Chuka Kaikounen! How much history is there in a grain of rice or in a bowl full of such grains? These kinds of bowls fill the stomachs of billions of people on a daily basis, making rice one of the most important food crops that we have. But when, where, how and why did rice become one of the cornerstones of so many of our diets and societies? To understand how rice farming has changed the world, I look deep into the past. I investigate the early advent of agriculture on Taiwan over 4,000 years ago. That is the time when rice farming first moved to Taiwan from mainland, presumably leading to population growth and to the further dispersal of people together with their cultures, genes and languages from Taiwan to the Asia Pacific, creating the world that we know today. However, the role of rice farming in this process is still quite poorly understood and part of the reason is that rice, like all plants, dies, decays and usually disappears from the record. So how can we archaeologists attempt to understand ancient agriculture that lies far beyond the reach of our written and spoken records? On the screen here, you can see a rice plant and over there, you can see what is called a phytolith or a plant stone, magnified thousands of times its real size. And it is these microscopic particles that are a key through which I am trying to unlock ancient agriculture. And this is possible because when a plant grows, it draws up silicon from the soil and locks it within itself and tissues. And as the plant decays, these hardened, silica particles are dispersed back into the environment where they can survive for thousands of years. In my lab, I have more than 20 kilos of soil imported from Taiwan. And from that, I'm using chemistry to extract these ancient plant stones in order then to compare them to the plant stones that I know that exist in modern living plants, thereby allowing me to reconstruct what people were eating and cultivating thousands of years ago. This is a long and still ongoing process, so while I might not be able to write the chapter on early rice quite yet, what I want to leave you with tonight is one request. The next time you are enjoying that bowl of rice, I would like to invite you to reflect for a moment on just how much history you in fact are consuming and also what kinds of tiny traces you might be leaving behind for future generations to study in order to better understand how our choices, how our habits created the world that they inherited from us. Thank you. I love, I love what Tuca's research represents. The mash-up of all of those different disciplines. You know, we see history, we see biology, we see chemistry. You know, the research of 10, 15, 20, 50 years ago, we worked so much in silos. But if we're going to have interesting insights on the world and the universe, or if we're going to solve the challenges that are out there, we're going to have to get these kind of mash-ups together. There's interdisciplinary work. Tuca's work is a great example of that. Next up, from the Fenner School of Environment and Society in the A&U College of Science, bringing back the betong is Catherine Ross. You went for an evening walk in the bush around Canberra 100 years ago. What would you have seen? The woodlands would have been teeming with wildlife, small animals such as bandicoots, quolls, and betongs. But since the European settlement, the woodlands have been cleared, overgrazed, overrun by weeds and feral animals, and many of our native species have disappeared. In fact, Australia has the highest mammal extinction rate in the world, and many of these species were lost before we really understood the important roles they play in our ecosystem. So what would happen if we could bring them back? This is the eastern betong, a rapid-sized relative of the kangaroo. It was once so common in eastern Australia that it was considered a pest, but they disappeared from the mainland around 100 years ago. Luckily, the eastern betong still survives in Tasmania, and six years ago, we were able to bring a small population and release them into a fenced reserve called Mulligan's Flat Woodland Sanctuary. This sanctuary acts like a giant outdoor laboratory, allowing us to study the impact of the betong on its environment. Well, since the reintroduction, our betongs have been getting busy, and not just in the way you might think. They've been digging away every night in search of truffles, roots, and bulbs. I've estimated that each individual betong can dig up to 200 pits every night. That adds up to three tons of soil turned over every year. As a plant ecologist, I wanted to know how this digging would affect the soils and the vegetation. By measuring and monitoring soil nutrients, temperature, and moisture in the diggings, and counting and identifying thousands of tiny seedlings, my research has shown that betong diggings act like little flower pots, providing the perfect conditions for seeds to germinate. But it's not quite that simple. Reintroducing a species after 100 years can have some unexpected consequences, and the disturbance created by the betongs could just lead to increased weed invasion. But my research has shown that native plant species actually benefit more from the digging than the weeds. Digging animals like the betong alter the structure of the ecosystem and provide habitat and resources for other species. And for this reason, they are now known as ecosystem engineers. If we can bring back the betong, then we could not only save this one species, but also help to restore an entire ecosystem so that maybe 100 years from now, you can walk through a more diverse and resilient woodland that grew in soils turned over by the betong. Thank you. Just so long as they don't take all of my truffles. Ah, they're cute little engineers. They can have them all. From the Research School of Engineering in the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science, growing organic mobile phones. Anchor Sharma! If I were to ask you, what is that one piece of technology you cannot do without in your daily lives? I bet most of you in this room would say, you're mobile phones. If you grab it the first thing in the morning and we don't leave our homes without it these days. But have you ever thought, what happens to these devices when they're outdated and old? They all end up as electronic waste. Technology is highly integrated into our lives and in this constant need for the most high-tech products, all of us are unknowingly contributing to massive amounts of e-waste. It is the second most dangerous waste in the world after nuclear waste, and we have no idea how to get rid of it. Australia alone produces an amount of e-waste that can fill 90,000 garbage trucks every year and only 4% of that is recycled. The main problem lies with the materials, plastics and silicon, which are used to make billions of these devices every year. In a few years, you might have a flexible phone like this, but again, made from the same materials, and the cycle of dumping old phones will continue, piling up the waste. To solve this challenge, I'm redesigning the future of electronic devices. And for inspiration, I turn to a piece of paper. It comes from natural resources, environment-friendly and 100% biodegradable. I am making the next-generation semiconductor nanomaterials, which are entirely organic in nature, made from naturally occurring carbon and hydrogen. These materials can be recycled several times and can replace all your current electronic devices. The thickness of these materials is 100 times thinner than a strand of human hair, 10 times stronger than steel, and can hold 3 billion circuits in the size of a fingernail. We grow them by a process called vapor deposition, physically stacking atom over atom, molecule over molecule to make these devices, just like 3D printing, but with atoms. This gives them the flexibility to be bent into any shape like a piece of paper. Now imagine having a mobile phone like this on your wrist in a few years, but made from my organic nanomaterials. Conventional electronic devices today run on electricity to process information and carry data. My organic nanomaterials, on the other hand, use light, and light travels much faster than electricity, making the performance of these devices a thousand times faster than the best computers today. You can literally be carrying a supercomputer folded like a pocket square with you at all times. Mobile phones and electronic devices made from my organic nanomaterials will always keep you up to date with the latest technology without the guilt of e-waste. Thank you. Seriously, Ankur, take my money. I'm good for it right now. Wow. Mind-blowing, isn't it? What will they think of next? Last but not least, our final contender for tonight. From the School of Philosophy in the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, if I could talk to animals. Heather Browning! If I could talk to the animals, just imagine it. Chatting to a chimp in chimpanzee. Now, this line might be familiar to some of you. It comes from the movie Dr. Doolittle, which is a story about a man who actually could talk to animals. And this idea always fascinated me. I thought, wouldn't it be great if I could talk to the animals? Like I'm sure most of you who've got animals in your lives, I wondered, what are they thinking? What do they want? And how can I give them a good life? In the absence of having them tell us, we have to try and read their minds to give it our best guesses. And unfortunately, those guesses are often wrong. For example, have a look at these two monkey enclosures in the pictures behind me. I'm sure you're forming an opinion about which you think is better for the welfare of the animals. And I'm guessing that most of you prefer this lovely green naturalistic island. Unfortunately, the monkeys don't feel the same way. They actually prefer the cages. Because for them, they don't see prison-like bars. Instead, they see a whole lot of extra climbing surfaces that they can play on and enjoy. Whereas this flat island here, it doesn't actually have that much for them to do. Now, it's because of counter-intuitive results like these that we need animal welfare science. And this is a science that tries to talk to the animals in the best ways that we know how by using behavioral and physiological indicators like vocalizations or changes in heart rate to try and learn something about what animals like and don't like or what's good and bad for them from their own point of view. Now, most of the people who work in this area are scientists. I'm not a scientist. I'm a philosopher. And so I'm approaching these issues from a new perspective. I'm creating a philosophical framework to help scientists choose the right indicators for measuring welfare. My work gives a process for testing the indicators that we want to use so we can be more confident that we're measuring the right things and that we're getting accurate information out from the measures that we are taking. For instance, levels of blood cortisol are often thought to indicate distress in animals. But actually, cortisol levels can rise in positive situations, too, such as excitement over food or sex. And these are quite different welfare states. So, see, it's really important that we make sure we have the right indicators to use for different situations. Otherwise, re-run the risk of failing to see the signs when our animals are suffering or neglecting to find out what really matters for their welfare. My research is helping to refine the methods of animal welfare science, which will help us gain more insight into the thoughts and feelings of our animals and get a better chance at giving them the best welfare. It is my hope that with continuing research like this, maybe one day we really will be able to talk to the animals. Thank you. What a smorgasbord of research! I'm very glad now that I don't have a job, but you all have jobs. You all have jobs. You have to decide who amongst those amazing finalists was the best. Who are you sending to that wonderful penal colony of Brisbane? I'm from there, I'm allowed to say that. The Passer People's Choice Chalk Pole is now open. You have three minutes to choose. Yeah, it's a theme. You can go to that web address or text that number at three minutes. We'll tell you when your time is up. As the judges and you deliberate, please enjoy the soulful tunes of our musical guests, annual alumni, Kathy Diver, along with her four-piece band. Kathy's songs are well-steeped in the traditions of British and American folk music, seasoned with a pinch of alt-country and best washed down with a sun-kissed cup of Australia for good measure. Please welcome them to the stage. Voting. Voting is now closed. Oh, that's the saddest I've ever heard. Not my fault. Good evening, A&U and Llewellyn Hall. Thanks so much for having us at this lovely event. I'm Kathy Diver. This is up their song, it's called Watertight. Through the back of the high country in bed Well, twilight caught you Looking out over my greasy Weathers and a swat Oh, what I shouldn't find But I spent my... Thanks for being so lovely and attentive. This next one's called Forgiveness on a sunny mower. I might take my time or I've grown to like The pretty lights and bright girls of the city But I'm a daughter of the boiling sea And the rocky shore And you could no more make me need your shallow water Then I'd be crawling back for more Tests of summer days, flies again To the milky dawn Weep, why don't you draw You're a child of the shining city On a sunny mower And I can no more make you need my salty water Then have you crawling back for more My children, it was years ago that I made up my mind Sunny morning, you know You forgive me. It's especially lovely to be up here As this is our second gig as this band Which is very exciting, this beautiful hall That we're so lucky to have here at ANU I just want to say while I'm doing some tuning How very exciting Congratulations to all the ANU three-minute thesis finalists It's a really tough, tough thing to have to... Thing to do and to want to do Not that I haven't experienced, I did not have a PhD Don't get me misconstrued here I did date one for a while, I don't think that really counts More on that later Yeah, anyway, I'm Cathy Diver Or that's my new alter ego, if you missed it This next song's called Little Unsung I don't like to say too much about it But I guess it's about losing something And trying to find a way to talk about it Thank you so much for coming out tonight To all the beautiful people who organise the ANU Three-minute thesis every year I actually think they deserve quite the round of applause Can we give them that please? It's a really awesome event that they put on every year And yeah, I'm super stoked to be a part of it And it's really nice to be here All of us are ANU alumni or whatever of some sort Aren't we guys? Yes, just checking Before I make false misleading statements Yeah, so it's really nice to be back here for some of us Or just still kind of hanging about We've got one more song for you What can I say about this song? Well, it's about the PhD student, how about that? He's graduated, by the way Congratulations to him Finished, nuclear physics I'm very proud But no, PhDs are really long and really hard And I just think that it's really awesome that these people Take the time out of their actual writing papers And research and stuff to do Take part of something cool like this And explain their awesome stuff to people like us as well That's very cool Alright, this is our last song, I'm Kathy Diver We just started this new project So if you like our stuff, you can find us on Facebook And Instagram and all the rest of it Thanks for listening The theatre empties quickly I'm not the last one in my seat For this tight-ass Tuesday reverie I use the tickets Your brother bought us bowls on me Resigned to lonesome pining Like I worry, you honey For some time, yeah East Dalit Shraig beats down a red soil This is Joel and the cello This is Tim playing guitar This is Hailey on the bass and John up the back on the kit Thanks so much How good were they? Give them another clap everybody Thanks Kathy, Diver and Van Wow, three minutes It's a short time, isn't it? If you didn't get a chance to vote Go and find your favourite speaker and buy them a coffee tomorrow Celebrate with them Congratulate their research They'd love it Do we want to know winners? Alright We first Let's congratulate everyone first Let's bring everyone back on stage Keirley Upthorpe Alice Taylor David McManus Bhavani Kannan Harry Sutton Nolin Yin Rommel Reel Katie Cox Tuka Kokonin Catherine Ross Anka Sharma and Heather Browning Take a bow What an amazing job they've all done There's obviously winners, but you know what? Standing in front of a huge auditorium and talking about that complex thing that is your thesis is an amazing thing to do It really is I think back about my thesis I couldn't have done that They're awesome They're awesome Okay First I'd like to invite Pastor President Alissa Shaw to the stage to give out the $500 People's Choice Award with the first of our lovely giant oversized novelty checks The People's Choice Award 2018 Katie Cox Thank you so much for Pastor for supporting that award I'd now like to invite the judges to the stage to give the big awards The other big awards I know, that was really mean That was, yeah Take it back Wineback Time Here's my list of judges' names Here we are all again I read them out before but you couldn't see them because they're all sitting in their wonderful, wonderful stage There we have Professor Mike Calford Elizabeth Lee, MLA Professor Tom Calmer Lishfea Dr. Matthew Trinker Diane Cargas-Bray They have had the terrible job The runner up Receiving a $1,000 research prize and a giant oversized novelty check Rommel Reel Okay, one more thing One more thing One more thing Winning a $4,000 research grant and the chance to represent A&U and the Asia Pacific 3MT final up in Brisbane Anka Sharma Congratulations And I believe Anka, no pressure but you are awarding the Supervisor Prize to Associate Professor Yuri Liu Yes Well Thank you to you Thank you to our presenters Thank you to you in the audience Thank you so much to our judges for tonight for all the work that they have done This is a celebration of research We're all in this together You've done wonderfully Thank you all so much Theses The A&U 3 minute thesis They're both a lot of hard work They're a lot of hard work These students have put in years and years of hard work Their families have supported them Their partners, their friends Everyone out there has done an amazing job The A&U research skills and training team have done an amazing job putting on the A&U 3 minute thesis So get out there Go and tell the stories of the research you've heard tonight Tell them about the wonderful work that is happening and how all of our PhD students are making the world a better place Thank you