The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared for marketing the Xpert Carba-R Assay, manufactured by California company Cepheid. [ + ]

The NHMRC has announced 21 new grants, handing out almost $19 million of the $850 million the council will deliver to support health and medical research in Australia this year. [ + ]

Cancer researcher Professor Doug Hilton, director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and president of the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes, was the recipient of two significant awards this month. [ + ]

Application deadlines for several grant opportunities with Grand Challenges Canada, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation are closing soon. [ + ]

The University of South Australia, the SA and WA governments and Centrex Metals are funding technology that will significantly reduce the cost of mineral processing using molten salts. [ + ]

Researchers at UQ's School of Biomedical Sciences are testing a new drug that has the potential to reverse or slow the development of asthma, as opposed to current drugs which just ease the symptoms of the disease. [ + ]

The University of Melbourne and the Australian Genome Research Facility have jointly acquired the Chromium System from US biotech company 10x Genomics. [ + ]

Swedish researchers have studied mating preferences in damselflies, with assortative mating found to break down the sexual barrier between species rather than preserve it. This could lead to species becoming extinct. [ + ]

Global Kinetics Corporation and the National Parkinson Foundation have announced a clinical research collaboration to study the impact of continuous objective measurement of movement in Parkinson's disease patients using Global Kinetics' PKG Movement Recording System. [ + ]

Scientists have developed a blood test that can identify women who are at risk of having a premature birth, but are not displaying symptoms, as early as 18 weeks into their pregnancy. [ + ]

Luca Alessandrini has developed a prototype violin made from a composite material that includes, among other things, spider silk. [ + ]

OMass Technologies has used native mass spectrometry to conquer the challenge of deciphering the interactions of membrane proteins. [ + ]

The Science of Life & Death series is designed to educate, entertain and push us to the edge of our comfort levels, starting a national conversation about life, death and beyond. [ + ]

Scientists have discovered that the Bombay night frog mates differently to the almost 7000 species of frogs and toads found worldwide. [ + ]

The Vascular Tissue Challenge offers a $500,000 prize to be divided among the first three teams that successfully create thick, metabolically functional, human-vascularised organ tissue in a controlled laboratory environment. [ + ]