It’s research that could give baristas the world over and Australia’s $10 billion coffee industry sleepless nights.

An international team from Monash University and the University of Toronto has found that the sights and smells of coffee can have the same impact on alertness and energy levels as actually drinking a coffee.

Dr Eugene Chan from the Monash Business School tells Mark the coffee placebo effect is more pronounced in western countries.

As most parents of young children know getting them involved in organised sport can be a very expensive exercise, particularly if they have a big family.

Depending on the sport the costs of registration can run from a few hundred dollars to much more, to say nothing of the cost of properly kitting kids out.

Peter Cummiskey from the Sports Federation of Queensland tells Mark when it comes to being able to support juniors not all sports are equal.

The discovery of White Spot Disease on prawn farms around Logan absolutely devastated the local aquaculture industry and drove many of the farms right to the edge.

The industry is rebuilding and one prawn farm has gone from near disaster to glory walking away with an armful of awards from the Royal Sydney Show.

Alistair Dick from Gold Coast Marine Aquaculture tells Mark a long hot summer has made all the difference.

Being able to read is absolutely fundamental to a child’s success in school and it is grades one to three that are essential in setting kids up for their educational future.

Disturbingly new research by a team at the Queensland University Of Technology finds there has been a drastic decline in reading levels.

Professor Linda Graham from QUT’s School of Early Childhood Education explains to Mark that grade four is when children switch from learning to read to ‘reading to learn.’

Police have now charged 11 vegan activists over protests held late last month and early this month at farms and abattoirs in southeast Queensland.

After formal complaints by the owners of the properties police laid a total of 18 charges, including unlawfully entering farming land (trespass) and drug offences.

The move has been welcomed by the beef industry group AgForce and CEO Michael Guerin tells Mark he’s satisfied that everything that can be done is being done.

The Winter Carnival is supposed to be a celebration of horse racing in Queensland however the sport seems to be beset on all sides at the moment.

Questions over integrity issues last week saw major industry player Aquis Farms say it won’t run horses in Queensland and now legendary trainer David Hayes says he has no plans to run horses in the sunshine state until the problems are sorted out.

Cameron Partington from the Australian Trainers Association Queensland tells Mark there’s no problem with the industry’s integrity, it’s the integrity process that’s the problem.

The future is coming and to ensure we’re not caught like a deer in the headlights the state government has begun consultation on its draft Queensland Transport Strategy.

The 30 year plan envisages everything from driverless cars and buses to airborne passenger drones.

Associate Professor Matthew Bourke from the Cities Research Institute at Griffith University tells Mark many changes are just around the corner, including a possible end to car ownership.

You can view the draft strategy at www.tmr.qld.gov.au/QueenslandTransportStrategy

It’s sometimes said that “no-one wants to see how the sausage is made” but that depends on the sausage.

Recently a round of the The Australian Meat Industry Council’s Sausage King, Best Butchers Burger and Smallgoods Competition was held in Brisbane’s north west.

Chad Horner from Narangba Select Meats cleaned up and now heads to the state finals at the Ekka.

He tells Mark the secret to his success is a 50 year old family recipe.

The continuing rise of drug resistant infections is one of the biggest issues facing the global medical community.

The situation has become so critical that only a handful of antibiotics can now be relied upon to fight potentially deadly infections, with around 700,000 people a year around the world dying from once routine infections.

In an Australian-first, The University of Queensland is joining forces with the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership to find new drugs.

Dr Mark Blaskovich from UQ’s Community for Open Antimicrobial Drug Discovery tells Mark we basically have 30 years to avert a catastrophe.

Figures show more than 520 ambulance patients were left on stretchers in emergency hallways at hospitals in Brisbane’s south last month, the vast majority at Logan Hospital.

The ramping crisis has prompted the state government to task a senior public servant in the Health Department to fix the Patient ­Access Co-ordination Hub system which tracks ambulance jobs and hospital workloads.

Deputy State Opposition leader Tim Mander tells Mark the situation never should have been allowed to get as bad as it is.