EuroScience Open Forum 2008 Wilson da Silva reports from the EuroScience Open Forum meeting in Barcelona. Chinese archaeology and ancient civilisations The Three Gorges Dam project in China has flooded vast areas. Rowan Flad describes some of the thousands of fossil specimens he collected before the waters rose. Now Rowan Flad is using archaeological data to create a picture of an ancient Chinese civilisation. In addition to land lost to flooding, rapid development means lands are being covered and lost for archaeology. Haptics Haptics is the use of a device to relay touch sensations from computer generated 3D models. Forces are relayed to the hand. It allows you to feel a virtual object. The object could be a body organ in surgery. In law enforcement, robots could be operated from a distance. Synthetic biology Synthetic biology is the engineering of biological systems so make them beneficial. Genetic parts can be made, which makes synthetic biology different to genetic engineering. The new functional units are called biobricks. They are then built up to form large units. A created biological device could perhaps detect cancer and send out a signal. There are currently about 1,000 specially designed biobricks. Other applications could be a biobrick which detects unwanted temperature change on food packaging, or a system which detects infection and changes colour for medical instruments. Great Southern Oceans - New Taronga exhibit opens Taronga Zoo in Sydney in undergoing a 12-year multimillion-dollar redevelopment. David Fisher reports on the opening of a major exhibit, Great Southern Oceans showing Australia´s marine wildlife. New coral alga discovered in Sydney Harbour Coral in Sydney Harbour has been found to contain a previously undiscovered alga. The coral encrusts rocks under the water. The alga lives in the coral and give it sugars. The family tree of algae based on sequencing DNA shows the alga is in a new position on the tree, and is related to the malaria parasite. The alga is seen as a missing link between another alga and a parasite. It was previously thought to be extinct.