At 15, Paige Bebee is helping to set the record straight about a widely held myth: that the human appendix is useless.
Paige, who is in year 9 at Ivanhoe Girls' Grammar in Victoria, has shown that far from being an evolutionary hangover, the appendix plays a vital part in our digestive system. During periods of infection and diarrhoea, gut flora can be flushed out of the large intestine. In such cases, the appendix acts as a reservoir of the beneficial bacteria, helping the intestine to recover more rapidly after such illnesses.
In her award-winning video, she explains research that shows people without an appendix are four times more likely to have gut problems after diarrhoea.
The video, which stars her younger sister, Milla, also features a cheeky cameo by her grandfather, Nobel prize winner Professor Barry Marshall, who famously proved that peptic ulcers were not caused by stress or spicy foods but by bacterium. He did this by swallowing a culture from a petri dish containing the bacterium Helicobacter pylori.
Not quite yet a Nobel laureate herself, Paige's video has nonetheless won the 2015 University of Sydney Sleek Geeks Eureka science prize for high school students. Paige is somewhat of an early career high achiever. Last year, she won first prize at Trop Jr for her film, Chance.
The Sleek Geek Eureka science prize is named in honour of Karl Kruszelnicki and Adam Spencer. The prize recognises excellence in science communication, helping "people to learn something without even noticing".
The Australian Museum's Eureka Prizes were announced on Wednesday night at the Sydney Town Hall.
Dubbed "the Oscars for Australian science", the 16 winners covered fields as varied as oyster farming, quantum computing and solar power innovation.
Professor Michelle Simmons, who is director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation at the University of NSW, won the CSIRO Eureka prize for scientific leadership. Her team of 180 researchers across Australia is a global leader in quantum computing. It has developed the world's smallest transistor built from a single atom and made silicon wire a thousand times narrower than human hair.
Professor Michelle Simmons won the Eureka prize for science leadership.
Frank Bruno, Martin Belusko and Steven Tay's development of a low-cost energy system has earned the trio the ANSTO Eureka prize for innovative use of technology.
As well as reducing the cost of commercial refrigeration, the system developed by Associate Professor Bruno's team at the University of South Australia allows for energy storage at a 10th the cost of batteries. This will help resolve the mismatch between generation hours of solar and wind power and its use during night-time peak periods, allowing renewables to form an even larger slice of the national power grid.
Australian Museum chief executive Kim McKay said: "The potential this technology offers for renewable energy to form a much larger slice of Australia's electricity generation through low-cost energy storage is very exciting."
The Australian Museum presents the Eureka Prizes for science, now in their 26th year.
By working out why some oysters are resistant to disease, Professor David Raftos at Macquarie University has developed a breeding program that has led to stronger, more disease-resistant harvests.
Professor David Raftos won a Eureka prize for his work on disease-resistant oysters. Photo: Peter Rae
For his work, Professor Raftos was awarded the Rural Research and Development Corporation's Eureka prize for rural innovation. The aim is for the research to be developed to produce a vaccine for oysters, which promises to safeguard a $200 million a year industry.
Professor Raftos also has discovered that oysters selected for their disease resistance are better able to cope with environmental stress caused by climate change.
The winner of the New Scientist Eureka prize for photography was Queensland Museum photographer Gary Cranitch for his image Soft Coral.
Soft coral. Photo: Gary Cranitch, Queensland Museum
The full list of winners can be seen on the Australian Museum Eureka Prizes website.
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