If you go to see the latest interpretation of Harold Pinter’s play, The Birthday Party, plan to spend a few hours afterwards mulling over exactly what might have happened.

The intriguing and conversation-inspiring play may be 50 years old but it has been given a fresh new treatment by The University of Western Australia’s Graduate Dramatic Society.

Ancient nickel-iron sulphide deposits, which are some of our most valuable mineral resources, provide important clues to help us understand the operation of the Earth’s systems more than 2.5 billion years ago.

Formed at a time when there was no oxygen and no complex life, these clues can help us find more deposits, according to Professor Mark Barley of the Centre for Exploration Targeting in The University of Western Australia’s School of Earth and Geographical Sciences.

Scientists at The University of Western Australia are racing against the clock to find plants that will provide bio-energy and bio-fuels and be able to perform under the environmental extremes predicted with climate change.

And an inconspicuous, aesthetically-challenged weed, Arabidopsis thaliana (or thale or mouse-eared cress) is offering vital information to researchers at the Centre of Excellence for Plant Metabolomics, to be opened at 4pm today (Monday, October 15, 2007) at UWA, by the Minister for Energy, Resources, Industry and Innovation, Fran Logan.

The University of Western Australia’s Rural Clinical School has won a prestigious 2007 Carrick Award for its Clinical Learning Embedded in Rural Communities Program.

The program was recognised in the Innovation in Curricula, Learning and Teaching category of the Carrick Awards, which acknowledge the vital contribution made by individuals and teams to the quality of student learning in Australia.

Join Carmen Lawrence at The University of Western Australia’s UWA Extension public lecture Exporting Democracy, Monday 7 – 8.30pm, October 29, 2007.

Join Carmen Lawrence at a public lecture where she will raise questions about freedom and the modern democracy divide between areas of the world still governed by dictatorships and monarchs and the Australian political system. Can democracy successfully be exported?

One of Australia’s leading geophysicists will tackle the hot topic of changing sea levels in a free public talk – the Joseph Gentilli Memorial Lecture – at The University of Western Australia next week.

Professor Kurt Lambeck, President of the Australian Academy of Science, will review past changes in sea level and the implications for glaciations and past shoreline reconstructions in his lecture Sea level change through the ages: Learning from the past to understand the future.

A unique event which is set to explore the future 50 years of medical research in Western Australia is planned for the culmination of The University of Western Australia’s Medical School’s golden anniversary.

The research symposium entitled Medical Research: Securing the Future Health of our State, will involve a number of high profile international, national and local speakers and is open to the public.

Eight PhD students from four schools within the Institute of Agriculture at the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences (FNAS) at The University of Western Australia (UWA) recently presented their research to an audience of 60 in a post-graduate showcase, ‘Frontiers in Agriculture and Resource Management’.

Focussing on innovative land management and animal production systems, as well as plant production for the future, the sessions were an opportunity to showcase high quality research and for students to interact with the industry and potential employers.

Nobel Laureate Professor Barry Marshall is seeking volunteers to take part in a potentially ground-breaking study.

The study aims to find out if people develop immunity against a common stomach infection called Helicobacter pylori or H. pylori.

Prof Marshall and colleagues at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital believe H. pylori could be used to create a new super-vaccine if they can prove people never become immune to it.