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Clothes that adjust to your own body heat are set to end the infernal question, “do I need a jumper?” Researchers in the United States have studied the colour-changing properties of squid skin to develop a fabric that adjusts to the wearer’s specific temperature needs. Study author, University of California, Irvine, Associate Professor Alon Gorodetsky said researchers developed a method to manufacture a heat-adjusting material that was breathable and washable and could be integrated into flexible fabric. Associate Professor Gorodetsky said the team looked at squid skin, which reacts to muscle action and changes the way it transmits and reflects visible light. “Squid skin is complex, consisting of multiple layers that work together to manipulate light and change the animal’s overall coloration and patterning.” He said instead of manipulating visible light, the team engineered a composite material that operated in the infrared spectrum. “As people heat up, they emit some of their heat as invisible, infrared radiation. “Clothing that manipulates and adapts to this emission and is fitted with thermoregulatory features can finely adjust to the desired temperature of the wearer.” Associate Professor Gorodetsky said the material consisted of a polymer covered with copper islands and stretching it separated the islands and changed how it transmitted and reflected infrared light. “This innovation creates the possibility of controlling the temperature of a garment. “Our advanced composite material now opens opportunities for most wearable applications, but may be particularly suited for cold weather clothing like ski jackets, thermal socks, insulated gloves, and winter hats,” he said. “The strategies used for endowing our materials with breathability, washability, and fabric compatibility could be translated to several other types of wearable systems, such as washable organic electronics, stretchable e-textiles, and energy-harvesting triboelectric materials.” https://lnkd.in/gJ4DX5NN #innovation #research Sign-up to the free biweekly Newsreel newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gDGxznVv #newsreel

It takes all types ...

Four candidates in this month’s State election went straight from the classroom to the campaign trail and one could become the 100th woman elected into the Queensland Parliament. The quartet are among 14 graduates of QUT (Queensland University of Technology)’s Pathways to Politics for Women program contesting the October 26 poll. Program director Professor Professor Vicky Browning said for Linda Barry (Qld Greens), Claire Carlin (ALP), Kristin Lockhart (Qld Greens) and Lisa Baillie (LNP), moving directly from the course onto the campaign trail would enable the women to put the power of the program into practice. “These women really want to make a difference and want to see politics done differently,” Professor Browning said. “They are already very capable, but this program has upped the game. It transforms women.” She said the strong State Election turnout followed success at the local government level in March, where 26 program graduates campaigned across Queensland, with 13 elected to councils, including two mayors. Professor Browning said former and current Queensland politicians, of all political persuasions, gave their time to the non-partisan program this year. “All conversations and training sessions were conducted under the Chatham House Rule to allow for honest, revealing insights to be shared in a protected environment.” She said Queensland trailblazers, including the first female Lord Mayor of Brisbane Sallyanne Atkinson AO and the first female leader of a political party Joan Sheldon, were among the politicians who shared their lived experience of political life with the latest cohort. Since the first Queensland parliament was convened in 1860, there have been 98 elected women. https://lnkd.in/gRUhGit5 #queenslandelection #politics #education Sign-up to the free biweekly Newsreel newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gDGxznVv #newsreel

A Sunshine Coast teacher has cracked the code to imparting digital knowledge by tapping into students’ creativity. Award-winning Siena Catholic College Sippy Downs educator Paul D. (Dionysius) added to his accolades by winning a Queensland College of Teachers TEACHX Award in the Innovation in Teaching category this week. The Brisbane Catholic Education school’s Curriculum Leader – Technologies believes the secret to getting students interested in Digital Solutions and future information technology careers was “starting with creation, not code”. “We don’t want to teach students to code, we want to teach them to solve problems,” Mr Dionysius said. “Once they’ve come up with an idea they’re proud of, the natural next question becomes, how do I turn this into an app?” Mr Dionysius was also the winner of the NGS Super Award for Excellence in Learning and Teaching in Secondary School at the Brisbane Catholic Education Excellence Awards for 2024 and delivered a keynote speech at the Western Australia Education Summit in Perth in August. His honours highlight a passion in addressing barriers for students by making digital technologies more accessible and engaging, breaking down the complexity of coding into creative and relatable projects that inspire students to explore and solve “real world” problems. At the West Australian keynote he demonstrated to educators how they could reboot how students and teachers approached coding and technology, sparking a fresh, student-centred approach to digital learning. “Feedback from educators usually starts with, where do I begin?” he said. Mr Dionysius said his methods weren’t just about passing exams, they were about building resilience and creating a generation of innovators ready to debug whatever challenges the future threw at them. “The programme is unique in that it makes Digital Solutions appealing to students by starting with the fun stuff and working back to the code. “It’s a refreshing reboot to how technology education is traditionally taught.” Siena Catholic College Principal Sharon Collins said the TEACHX Award was a testament to Mr Dionysius’s innovative approach. “With tech giants and educators alike tuning into his methods, it’s clear that he is helping to write the next big chapter in tech education,” Ms Collins said. https://lnkd.in/gpZxfYxq #digital #careers #education Sign-up to the free biweekly Newsreel newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gDGxznVv #newsreel

University and vocational learning in the renewable energy space will be better co-ordinated through a ground-breaking Queensland-based partnership. QUT (Queensland University of Technology) and TAFE Queensland have signed a Memorandum of Understanding around batteries and renewable energy safety courses. QUT Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) Professor Robina Xavier said the agreement formalised the promotion of dual pathways of study between TAFE Queensland and QUT. “This agreement supports the development of the future workforce required by emerging industries in Queensland, such as biomanufacturing, batteries, green hydrogen and space technology,” Professor Xavier said. She said more than 31 articulation pathways were available to TAFE Queensland students across courses from each of the five QUT faculties, with further opportunities to be made available with updated TAFE Queensland and QUT courses commencing from 2025. Professor Xavier said another example of the partnership was the new TAFE Centre of Excellence – Clean Energy (Batteries) which would fast-track higher and degree-equivalent apprenticeship pathways. She said QUT attended the centre’s recent launch at TAFE Queensland’s Acacia Ridge campus to provide context and information to the relevant Queensland and Federal government ministers about the partnership and its planned activities related to clean energy and batteries. “We are a collaborative university, working together with partners to lead Australia’s energy transition and accelerate the pathway to careers that will shape our future.” https://lnkd.in/gJXxeWt9 #education #pathways #skills Sign-up to the free biweekly Newsreel newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gDGxznVv #newsreel

Queensland Ballet is renowned for dancers who are in top physical shape, but now its new headquarters is just as fit and healthy as the people who work there. The Thomas Dixon Centre is the first arts, heritage-listed facility in the world to be awarded the highest healthy building rating by the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) Standard. Queensland Ballet WELL project and precincts relations manager Julia Lebiocka, who led the certification process, said they chose to apply for the WELL Platinum level award because it acknowledged the holistic connection between human health and built environments. “Health and wellbeing are key elements at the heart of Queensland Ballet’s culture, and we believe that people are the company’s greatest asset and, as a result, human health and wellness are the top priority,” Ms Lebiocka said. With humans now spending an average of 90 percent of their time indoors, Ms Lebiocka said Queensland Ballet wanted to re-design their new building so that it was not only better for the planet, but for their people and visitors. Queensland Ballet project director and WELL advocate Lucas Gilroy said they were thrilled with the outcome – a far cry from the building’s previous incarnation as a boot factory. “Thomas Dixon was a bootmaker, he stopped making boots in the 1970s. The building is 110 years old. And after Dixon stopped, it was used by different groups. It was an orchestra at one stage, and was used for government stores,” Mr Gilroy said. Architectus Conrad Gargett lead architects David Gole and Tamarind T. (Taylor), who designed the Centre, said the WELL certification was integral to the design which in turn had influenced a better design outcome. XBURO building services engineer Ellis J Wilson said the building was designed to constantly monitor itself, with each section featuring computer panels on the walls that report the current state of things such as temperature and water quality. Rivernet Communications network engineer Gideon Street was responsible for the converged infrastructure, while consultant Damon Fealy was the strategic projects advisor responsible for business and digital transformation. Read a comprehensive Newsreel feature on the building's transformation: https://lnkd.in/gB92WFhJ #ballet #buildings #health Sign-up to the free biweekly Newsreel newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gDGxznVv #newsreel

First it was the Walkman, then the iPod. Now car CD players are going the way of the dinosaur. Not long after General Motors joined the growing list of car manufacturers removing CD players, United Kingdom car manufacturers have announced a similar move. And the music industry is not happy. Britain’s Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA) CEO Kim Bayley described the move as short-sighted. She said research showed 15 percent of the UK adult listened to CDs in their cars. “While these numbers are down on five years ago they amount to around seven million individuals,” she said. “That equates to around 20 percent of the 34.5 million people with active driving licenses.” Ms Bayley said, while CD sales had slid over the past 20 years, they had joined vinyl in recent years as part of a surge in packaged music. “Carmakers seem to be looking through the rear-view mirror when it comes to CDs,” she said. “The lesson of vinyl is you should never write off a music format. Even today 50 percent more people say they listen to music on CD as on vinyl.” Taylor Swift alone had sold 172,000 copies of The Tortured Poets Department CD in the UK. Two years ago, General Motors announced that CD players would only be included in a small number of cars in its range. Forbes reported that only 46 percent of cars still had a CD player by 2021. Earlier this year Goldman Sachs reported that physical music sales were up 13 percent in 2023. This included a 15 percent jump in CD sales and 14 percent in vinyl albums. https://lnkd.in/gUQhTh5b #music #technology Sign-up to the free biweekly Newsreel newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gDGxznVv #newsreel

Sunshine Coast schools will be able to embed sports tech teaching into their curriculum through a partnership between industry and Council. Sunshine Coast Council has joined forces with learning experts Sports Tech College to provide students a stepping stone into the emerging multibillion-dollar industry. Mayor Rosanna Natoli said the collaboration would make a sports technology, sports digital and sports innovation curriculum available to the region’s primary and secondary schools, with council funding the program over the next three years. Mayor Natoli said the Australian sport tech sector currently employed more than 13,000 people and was set to boom in the lead-up to the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. She said the new program would provide a pathway for young people considering further study and careers in a range of areas such as sports performance analytics, wearable technology and digital health. “The program forms part of Council’s legacy ambitions towards the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games and includes creating sports tech expertise and future sports entrepreneurs within Australia. “Technology, data, IoT and AI are some of the fastest growing tech industry sectors within sports, health, gaming and entertainment,” Mayor Natoli said. “We are committed to building future-ready, world-class students who understand the real-world today and the opportunities of tomorrow.” Mayor Natoli said the micro-credential program aligned with Council’s commitment to fostering innovation and supporting the local economy with tech education highly relevant for the emerging knowledge and digital economies. She said the full-year elective curriculum program Sports Technology Towards 2032 would be made available to all schools and teachers within Years 5-10 in the Sunshine Coast region. “Through this partnership, Sunshine Coast schools will have the opportunity to collaborate with the Sports Tech College to deliver specialised courses.” Sports Tech College founder Matt Dobell said the Sunshine Coast offered two outstanding opportunities to leverage towards the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Sunshine Coast International Broadband Network which provided the fastest connection from the east coast of Australia to Asia and access to a high speed/low latency WiFi 6 Network for testing new technology in a real-world environment. https://lnkd.in/gAvMCVN3 #sportstech #futurejobs Sign-up to the free biweekly Newsreel newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gDGxznVv #newsreel

Companies are changing the way they hire staff for technology jobs to overcome a chronic global shortage of qualified people. The OECD - OCDE’s Bridging Talent Shortages in Tech report, released this week, has urged companies to hire based on specific skills needed rather than “rigid qualifications or experience”. “Tackling talent shortages in the tech sector effectively requires innovative approaches and collaborative efforts by all stakeholders,” the report said. “In particular, a skills-first approach to hiring and training can be extremely valuable to address persistent talent shortages. “This approach allows companies to adapt more dynamically to changing demands by focusing on the specific skills needed for vacant roles rather than rigid qualifications or experience criteria.” The report says this approach broadens the talent pool by considering candidates with diverse backgrounds and reducing dependency on traditional recruitment pipelines. Currently the demand for highly specialised skills in the tech sector often outstripped the available supply of qualified professionals. The report says career guidance institutions and education and training providers also need to put more emphasis on different recruitment approaches. This meant giving guidance that identified paths for individuals rather than generic advice based on predefined career tracks. The report also highlights micro-credentials (small, targeted learning activities that offer a way for learners to retrain and upskill quickly and efficiently) as a way to provide flexible and rapid skill development. Read more and access the report 👇 https://lnkd.in/gQ-QDw_w #futurework #skills #qualifications Sign-up to the free biweekly Newsreel newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gDGxznVv #newsreel