They have been hailed by one of their guardians as CSU's best kept secret, but the low key presence of olives at CSU may be about to end.

The establishment of a drought monitoring system in Australia using remote sensing tools is one project catching the attention of the new head of the International Centre of WATER for Food Security at CSU.

It is a matter of urgency that the impact of maternity unit closures on Australian women living in rural and remote areas is addressed, according to CSU midwifery academic Dr Elaine Dietsch.

A new health degree to be introduced by Charles Sturt University in 2009 will help address some of the gaps in health services in inland Australia.

Gaining vital practical work experience in their degrees has become easier for some veterinary science students at CSU after they were named as the inaugural recipients of scholarships to assist them with essential part of their professional education.

CSU lecturer Dr Stephen Bird helped the Indonesian national team win medals at the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing, China, shared a bus ride with Jamaican gold medal sprinter Usain Bolt, met the entire US Olympic basketball team, and narrowly missed catching the football David Beckham kicked into the crowd at the closing ceremony.

Journalism students at CSU will produce a daily newspaper for the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers' Association annual conference – PANPA '08 – on Queensland's Gold Coast from Monday 8 to Wednesday 10 September.

While modern athletes seem to be a marvel of evolution, a CSU academic questions whether the remarkable stamina that they display is a product of modern training techniques and a deep understanding of human and animal physiology or 'mind over matter'.

If media coverage of the XXIX Olympiad at Beijing, China, has prompted high school students to consider a career in the global media industry, they can discover how to launch their career at CSU communication courses information day - iDay08 - at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum on Saturday 30 August.