Archeologist Zenobia Jacobs can date a single grain of sand. AN archaeologist who has overcome a major hurdle in dating fossils, artifacts and landscapes more than 50,000 years old has been named a 2013 Scopus Young Researcher of the Year. Julie Hare Zenobia Jacobs, from the University of Wollongong, developed a way to date individual grains of sand. The work has applications in archaeology, Dr Jacobs" research speciality, but also has applications in a wide range of other scientific and environmental areas. As an archaeologist, you are driven by how old things are - what's the oldest and what's the earliest. But carbon dating can only date back 50,000 and there were problems with other techniques that could date things older than that. An existing technology that dated layers of sand that accumulated around an object could easily be compromised by environmental factors, such as human or animals disturbing the layers. So Dr Jacobs developed a technique that could date a single grain of sand. "A single grain of sand can only be one age," she said. Fifteen researchers received Scopus awards are based on the average number of citations and her H-index derived from Scopus, as well as external impact and esteem measures. Dr Jacobs credits her academic success with "a series of serendipitous meetings and meeting the person who would become my PhD supervisor" and "almost always being in the right place at the right time." Meanwhile, UNSW student Shan Shan Wang has been awarded the local James Dyson Award for a portable oxygen tank for children. The design was inspired by seeing a child being push gently on a swing by her mother but was restricted by being attached to a large oxygen tank. The award is an international design award run in 18 countries and open to students in the fields product design, industrial design and engineering, who "design something that solves a problem."