Famous Australian Ideas and Innovations

You're going to be very surprised at some of the great inventions Australians have been responsible for...

Heck, Aussie are even responsible for turning dishwater and beer into electricity, AND running cars on nothing but water!

This page presents a variety of those for your perusal - please REFRESH to see a different selection of ten Aussie innovations.

To find out more, can I suggest you visit
The Power House Museum and Questacon

• The world's first pregnancy using In-vitro Fertilisation (IVF) technology was reported from Monash Medical Centre in 1973. The first frozen embryo baby was born in Melbourne in 1984.
  
  
• Shepherd Castors are strong, easily manoeuvrable dome-shaped castors for furniture, and replaced traditional pivoted wheel castors. They were developed by George Shepherd in 1946.
  
  
• The Wine Cask - a modern version of the traditional European wine 'bladder' (a leather pouch which collapses as the wine is poured, keeping air out) - was developed by Thomas Angove in 1965.
  
  
• The Surf Lifesaving Reel was first demonstrated at Bondi Beach in 1906. It was designed by Lyster Ormsby.
  
  
• The world's first plastic spectacle lenses, 60% lighter than glass lenses, were designed in 1960 by Scientific Optical Laboratories.
  
  
• John McGarvie Smith donated his secret discovery of an anthrax vaccine to the NSW Government in 1918.
  
  
• The first Black Box Flight Recorder recorded the pilot's voice and some instrument readings was invented in 1958 by Dr David Warren from Melbourne. It is now used in aircraft worldwide.
  
  
• In Victoria, the first prototype of a solar water heating system was developed by the CSIRO in 1953
  
  
• The first ultrasound scanner was built in 1961 at the ultrasonics institute in the Commonwealth Department of Health by George Kossoff and David Robinson.
  
  
• It wasn't the first Australian rotary clothesline with a winding mechanism which allowed the frame to be raised and lowered, but the Hills Clothes Hoist (developed by Lance Hill in Adelaide in 1945) was certainly the most successful.
  
  

Hit REFRESH to reload the page to see another random selection of more Aussie ideas :)

Written by coais

About Stephen Spry

Stephen Spry is a freelance web designer and Internet publisher. He has been working online, full-time, since 1995 after an 18-year career as a high school Careers Adviser. Stephen operates several websites and web directories in a variety of niches. His main web design business can be found here » Come On Aussie.