Tag: Australia

Magpies in Oz outwit scientists

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Smarter than the average undergrad?

Australian magpies that were attached with tiny, backpack-like tracking devices for a study showed “seemingly altruistic behavior” by helping each other remove the tracker, according to a new finding that has left scientists stunned.

The research, published last week in the journal Australian Field Ornithology, showed one of the first evidences of cooperative “rescue” in birds – a behavior in which an individual Australian magpie, Gymnorhina tibicen, helped another member of the group without getting an immediate, tangible reward.

Study lead author Dominique Potvin from the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia wrote in The Conversation: Our goal was to learn more about the movement and social dynamics of these highly intelligent birds, and to test these new, durable and reusable devices. Instead, the birds outsmarted us. …

Within 10 minutes of fitting the final tracker, scientists witnessed an adult female without a tracker working with her bill to try and remove the harness off of a younger bird. They said they did not expect the birds to target the specific weakness in the harness and quickly team up to rid the device off each other as a group.

Now, what we need is a comparable study with magpies in my neck of the Southwestern prairie. See if response is similar throughout varieties of the species. Or is it the water in Oz?

Facebook blocked news pages as a negotiating tactic in Australia

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Facebook may wait up to a week before unblocking some of the pages of hundreds of non-media organisations caught up in its news ban, while anti-vaccination content and misinformation continues to run rampant on the social media platform.

Content designated as news was blocked on Facebook in Australia on Thursday morning in response to the federal government’s news media code, which would require the tech giant to negotiate with news publishers for payment for content…

Tim Hanslow, head of social at Preface Social Media and who also helps run the Australian Community Managers group on Facebook, told Guardian Australia he had heard from a couple of community managers who had been contacted by their Facebook representatives and were told an appeals process would be put in place for people to plead their case…

“An appeals process for the ban will launch on Feb 25 and you can request your page be assessed as outside the news ban. All of the government pages/sites caught up in this should be reinstated.”

So, just wait around for a spell and Facebook will decide who is banned, who isn’t…and apparently what is news.

You think YOUR weather report sucks?

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Weekend forecast for Australia

New South Wales residents should also be on alert for funnel web spiders, according to Australia’s Reptile Park, which issued a warning that the wet weather conditions and warm temperatures create “perfect conditions” for the deadly spiders to breed and “thrive” in gardens and homes in Sydney, Newcastle and the Central Coast.

Meanwhile, in Western Australia, the weather bureau issued a catastrophic fire warning for the state’s interior state on Thursday, while the risk level in the East Pilbara was extreme…

…Jake Meney, a reptiles and spider keeper at the Australian Reptile Park, said cool, damp places including laundry, clothes and shoes will attract funnel web spiders…

Meney also encouraged anyone who can safely catch a funnel web spider to donate it to the reptile park, so it can be milked and antivenom produced ahead of a summer of warm and wet weather – conditions which draw male funnel webs out in search of a mate to breed with…

The impact of La Niña on Australia’s wildlife is also being considered by shark experts, as they look to explain predatory behaviour that has seen more Australians killed in unprovoked shark attacks this year than in any year since 1934.

And please, please, keep your eyes open for irukandji jellyfish and eastern brown snakes.

Thanks, Honeyman.

You can catch a coronavirus from farts

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Speaking on the Coronacast podcast Dr Norman Swan said people should avoid farting near one another to stop the spread of coronavirus. He added it was everyone’s responsibility not to pass wind close to another person and “that you don’t fart with your bottom bare”.

The unusual discussion came after the government revealed on Friday it would be testing local wastewater as part of an ongoing monitoring and early warning system for coronavirus outbreaks…It’s been found that people infected with coronavirus shed fragments of the virus in their faeces and this can be detected in wastewater.

Responding to the question about farts, Dr Swan said clothing provided some protection from coronavirus, like a mask…“We wear a mask that covers our farts all the time,” Dr Swan said, referring to people’s underpants and clothes.

Who knew?

And so cute, too…

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Click to enlarge

Baby spider (Carrhotus xanthogramma juvenile)/Pierre Anquet

“No one knows, incidentally, why Australia’s spiders are so extravagantly toxic; capturing small insects and injecting them with enough poison to drop a horse would appear to be the most literal case of overkill. Still, it does mean that everyone gives them lots of space.”

Bill Bryson, “In a Sunburned Country” (2001)

Scientists Find the Oldest Material on Earth — it ain’t from here!

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Click to enlarge — Murchison Meteorite

Earth formed alongside the rest of the solar system roughly 4.6 billion years ago. The oldest rocks we’ve found to date are about 4.03 billion years old, but the oldest earth minerals ever discovered were actually found in lunar samples and date to about 4.1 billion years.

Now, scientists believe they’ve discovered the oldest material ever found on Earth: microscopic specs of dust pulled from meteorite dated at 7.5 billion years old, according to research published January 13 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…

The meteorite in which the grains were found is one of the most well-studied meteorites on Earth. The 220-pound Murchison meteorite plummeted to Victoria, Australia on September 28, 1969. (There were witnesses, too—a rare treat for studied meteorites.) It’s a type of meteorite called a carbonaceous chondrite…

The scientists took a small sample of the extraterrestrial rock and crushed it into a fine powder for analysis. They then turned it into a paste, which, according to the BBC, smells like rotten peanut butter. The grains were then dissolved out and dated using an isotope of the element neon, Ne-21.

RTFA. A milestone.

Confirming my wife’s theory there are 5 – not 4 – basic elements to the universe. Air, earth, fire, water…and peanut butter.

Lithium-Sulfur Battery Could Quadruple Battery Life

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Researchers at Australia’s Monash University have developed what they’re calling “the world’s most efficient lithium-sulphur (Li-S) battery,” an ultra-high-capacity design that could quadruple camera battery life and run a smartphone for 5 consecutive days without a charge.

…The Monash team, led by Dr. Mahdokht Shaibani, has reason to be optimistic. Their design already has an approved patent, prototypes have already been manufactured in Germany, and “some of the world’s largest producers of lithium batteries” have apparently expressed interest in upscaling production.

…The new Li-S design seems to offer the best of all worlds: boasting four-times the performance of the best Li-Ion batteries on the market while significantly decreasing the environmental impact of manufacturing. And while the main examples given in the announcement are phones (5 day battery life) and electric cars (1000km/621-mile range), the potential applications in all consumer electronics…are obvious.

I’m waiting, I’m waiting!

Thanks, Honeyman