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Ways that CSIRO has changed the world

December 13, 2013
GE is celebrating three years of collaboration and partnership with CSIRO. To celebrate the passion, talent and mind-blowing intelligence of the numerous teams at CSIRO, we’ve created a list of 6 ways CSIRO has changed our world. In no particular order...

1. Wi-Fi


Giving us the freedom to connect to the internet from the comfort of our favourite café, the Wireless LAN was developed and patented by CSIRO in the 1990s. The invention of WiFi came from studies in radioastronomy, complex mathematics and a deep understanding of the behaviour of radio waves and today enables billions of people around the world connect to the internet without wires.

/><br /> <h2>2. Aerogard</h2><br /> The nation’s best-known insect repellent was first used overseas. Created by <a href=CSIRO inventor Doug Waterhouse, Aerogard was originally used to protect Aussie diggers from mosquitoes and malaria in the Pacific during the Second World War. It hit the mainstream in 1963, when the Queen used it during a visit to Canberra. Since Aerogard has been a staple for BBQs, adventures in the great outdoors and Aussie summer holidays.

/><br /> Lucky for us the CSIRO invented Aerogard, now don’t have to wear hats like this to have mosquito-free fun!<br /> <h2>3. The Dish</h2><br /> CSIRO helped the world witness man’s first steps on the moon. The <a href=CSIRO Parkes Observatory in NSW received and transmitted the two-and-a-half hour moon landing telecast to six hundred million people across the globe. The telescope is considered an icon of Australian science and inspired Aussie film ‘The Dish’. Today Parkes Observatory operates 24 hours a day and is still one of the world’s leading radio telescopes.

/><br /> <h2>4. Australia’s first computer</h2><br /> <a href=CSIRAC was Australia’s first programmable digital computer and the fourth computer in the world. First used in November 1949, it filled a room the size of a double garage and used the same amount of electricity as a suburban street. CSIRAC revolutionised things we now take for granted, like weather forecasting, working and banking.

/><br /> <h2>5. Plastic banknotes</h2><br /> Plastic banknotes solved two problems when they first hit wallets in 1988: how to go to the beach with cash in your pocket and how to secure currency against forgery. <a href=CSIRO developed currency with optically variable devices (OVDs), which alter depending on temperature and how the note is viewed. OVDs cannot be photographed and make it difficult to forge a note. By 2009, the technology was being exported to 25 countries, with more than three billion plastic notes in circulation.

/><br /> <h2>6. Extended-wear contact lenses</h2><br /> In conjunction with the University of New South Wales, CIBA Vision (USA) and Novartis (Switzerland), CSIRO developed the<a href= first soft contact lenses suitable for long-term continuous wear. Made from a silicone hydrogel called Lotrafilcon A, the lenses were updated soon after to create a lens with oxygen permeability, Lotrafilcon B. This development drew on CSIRO's surface chemistry and characterisation expertise to develop a new silicone hydrogel material from which the lenses are constructed.
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