A year five student who made a discovery about a new kind of link between protein and eggs was among those honoured at last night's Eureka Prize ceremony for excellence in science.

Inspiration can come from unexpected places, and for Ignatius Fox it came when his chickens suddenly laid bigger eggs after breaking into the worm farm.

"So we thought that the worms would give protein to them so we tried giving protein to give the big eggs and it worked," Ignatius said.

The student, from Oyster Bay Public School in Sydney's south, received the top honour at the awards in Sydney for a short science film made by a primary school student.

Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, who presented the award, thinks the student's insight puts him ahead of many adults.

"So we've got an 11-year-old person who's made an observation, accidental observation, then formed a hypothesis and then tested it out as opposed to certain radio jocks who'll say, gee, it was warm now and it's colder tonight, therefore there's no such thing as global warming," he said.

Global warming did not play much of a role in the awards but another, lesser-known global issue was front and centre.

Dr Dana Cordell was part of a team that won an award for research into sustaining the dwindling global supply of phosphorus, which is an essential ingredient in fertiliser.

"The good news is we can avert a crisis," Dr Cordell said.

"We will need to recover phosphorus from all organic waste and that includes food waste, human excreta, manure, crop waste.

"At the same time we'll also need to dramatically increase the efficiency of our current food systems."

Infectious disease find honoured

Medical innovations also received awards.

Dr Marc Pellegrini from the Walter and Eliza Hall Medical Research Institute has found a novel way to fight off infectious diseases by boosting the immune system.

He says the discovery could lead to treatment for a wide range of illnesses.

"There's at least five to six human clinical trials in HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and also cancer clinical trials as well, particularly testing this natural hormone called interleukin-7 to see whether it can boost the immune system and actually help these people," Dr Pellegrini said.

"And all the preliminary data from those clinical trials is very, very promising."

And some more abstract research did not go unnoticed.

A team from the University of New South Wales and Swinburne observed distant universes only to discover that electromagnetism changes from one side of the universe to the other.

Professor John Webb says that should defy physics as we know it.

"We just have always assumed that the forces of nature are constant throughout the universe and for all time," he said.

"And so if it's right, clearly it means that the universe is more complicated than we thought."