If you have ever wondered whether there is a way to slow down the aging process, then Elizabeth Blackburn has some answers for you. Blackburn is (so far) Australia’s only female Nobel prize winner. She was awarded the prize in 2009 for her work on telomeres. Telomeres are the sections of DNA that occur on the ends of chromosomes. (All of the DNA in each of your cells is organised into parcels called chromosomes. Each cell in the body has 46 chromosomes). Telomeres stop chromosomes from ‘unravelling’ in the same way that the plastic caps on the ends of shoelaces [...]

If you have ever taken a course of antibiotics to cure an infection, then you have Nobel prize winner Howard Florey to thank for your recovery. In the early 1940s, just as World War II was beginning to cause death and terrible injuries across the globe, Florey led a team of scientists that were the first to treat infected wounds with pencillin – a newly discovered substance that kills bacteria. The success of the treatments was seen as nothing short of miraculous, and paved the way for the commercial manufacture, not just of penicillin, but of a whole range of [...]