NEWS in Brief ... The ACT heroin trial will go ahead next year. Trial architect Dr Gabriele Bammer, from the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, will study the effects of prescribing heroin to 40 dependent users in Canberra. The aims include eliminating health risks to users and reducing heroin-associated crime. The trial is one of several clinical trials around Australia examining new options for treating problems associated with heroin abuse. * * * * * Two Melbourne high school students, George Doukas and Ben Toner, won gold medals in the International Physics Olympiads in Canada last month. The five-member Australian team competed against 58 countries, with only Russia and China claiming more gold medals. Team leader Dr Rod Jory, a visiting fellow at ANU, said the result places Australia in the "big league" for education in physics. The team is organised by the Australian Science Olympiads of which Dr Jory is a director. Most tutors are undergraduates from the Physics Department at ANU. * * * * * Our genes are out of step with modern life and the strain is making us sick. Professor Chris Goodnow from the John Curtin School of Medical Research told the Horizons of Science forum in Sydney last month that the high incidence of common modern diseases such as asthma, juvenile onset diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and some cancers is caused by ancient genes not coping with our modern living conditions. * * * * * The ACT Government has said university buildings near the ill-fated old Canberra Hospital site will be safe to reopen after 21 August. Since the implosion on July 13 about 130 children enrolled in the University Preschool and Childcare Centre and the Heritage Early Childhood Centre have been relocated. Fourteen students from the Institute of the Arts have also been provided with temporary accommodation and 17 students from Lennox House moved to John XXIII College. * * * * * An international astronomy team led by Professor Mike Dopita at Mt Stromlo Observatory has used the Hubble Space Telescope to discover how a massive black hole feeds itself. Prof Dopita's team showed that the black hole at the centre of the giant galaxy M87, nearly 3 billion times the mass of the sun, swallows streams of gas from dying stars at the rate of about 10 solar masses a year. * * * * * Construction will soon commence on the new 108-room Graduate House building on a site between Garran Rd and the Centre for Continuing Education. As part of the plan, a section of Eggelston Rd will be relocated westward (towards JCSMR). A more detailed description of the changes will appear in the next ANU Reporter. * * * * * The ANU branch of the Co-op Bookshop was named Australian Tertiary Bookseller of the Year at a ceremony for the Australian Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing in Sydney earlier this month.