Posts tagged Australia

News release from La Trobe University of Melbourne, Australia:

A beloved Australian bird best known for its stunning tail and powers of mimicry may have a cunning hidden talent.

New research has revealed the superb lyrebird to be a resourceful farmer, creating micro-habitats to host and fatten its prey before returning later to feast.

Scientists from La Trobe University observed the ground-dwelling birds working to create habitats suitable for their diet of worms, centipedes and spiders.

HELL yeah bird farmers

News release from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia:

A new species of rock skink has been discovered in central Australia by Monash University researchers.

Characterised by its orange, pointed snout, the Central Ranges rock skink, or Liopholis aputja, inhabits the hills of the Mann-Musgrave Ranges near the northern border of South Australia.

Jules Farquhar, who led the research for Monash University’s School of Biological Sciences, said “aputja” is a local Aboriginal word meaning “of the hills”.

Hell yeah new lizard just dropped, I’ll take seven

Tiffanie Turnbull for BBC News:

Australian scientists have solved a mystery which has gripped Sydney: what were the sticky dark blobs which washed up on some of the city’s famed beaches last month?

Excuse me, the what?

Initially believed to be tar balls, they were in fact a “disgusting” combination of human faeces, cooking oil, chemicals and illicit drugs, researchers say.

Ah, great, super wish I hadn’t asked, well I hope everyone who’s not me has a great day because I’m sure not going to have one

Nick Dole for ABC News (Australia):

The government says NSW has taken a “big step forward” after a bill allowing transgender people to change their birth certificates without having to undergo surgery passed the parliament.

…

No other state or territory requires a transgender person to have gender-affirming surgery before changing their birth certificate, although some states require a person to have counselling before a change is made.

Good

Rachel Treisman for NPR:

Millions of Australians just got official permission to ignore their bosses outside of working hours, thanks to a new law enshrining their “right to disconnect.”

The law doesn’t strictly prohibit employers from calling or messaging their workers after hours. But it does protect employees who “refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact or attempted contact outside their working hours, unless their refusal is unreasonable,” according to the Fair Work Commission, Australia’s workplace relations tribunal.

Nice

Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton has already pledged to repeal the right to disconnect if his coalition wins the next federal election in 2025. He has slammed it as damaging to relations between employers and employees, and portrayed it as a threat to productivity.

The Business Council of Australia echoed those concerns in a statement released Monday, saying the new workplace laws “risk holding Australia’s historically low productivity back even further at a time when the economy is already stalling.”

That’s how you know this is a good idea

Mithil Aggarwal for NBC News:

They were the penguin power couple, a world-famous same-sex pairing whose love was taught about in schools and inspired a pride parade float. Now Magic, mourning Sphen’s death, has led their community in a tribute song.

Sphen died earlier this month just before his 12th birthday, the Sydney Sea Life Aquarium said Thursday, a long life for a Gentoo penguin in captivity who can live up to 13 years.

RIP to a real one

News release from James Cook University of Australia:

Former JCU PhD student Dr Nicolas Lubitz and his team were busy tagging marine life off the coast of Orpheus Island, north Queensland in May 2022 when the shark they caught regurgitated a dead echidna.

In what is believed to be a world-first discovery, Dr Lubitz said he could only assume the shark had nabbed the echidna as it swam in the shallows off the island or even between islands, which the monotremes are known to do.

“We were quite shocked at what we saw. We really didn’t know what was going on,” he said.

“Hey look at this weird thing I ate” [pukes directly in front of scientist]

Shrivatsha Sridhar for The Indepenent:

Former US Open champion Dominic Thiem huffed and puffed his way into the main draw of the Brisbane International but not before a hissing intruder slithered onto the court and briefly halted play.

Thiem lost the opening set of his qualifying clash against Australian youngster James McCabe before eagle-eyed fans spotted a snake near the courtside electrical wires, prompting officials to call in security staff and stop play.

A professional was brought in to catch the 50-cm (20-inch) reptile, which local media identified as a deadly eastern brown snake, holding up play for 40 minutes.

“I really love animals, especially exotic ones,” Thiem said. “But they said it was a really poisonous snake and it was close to the ballkids, so it was a really dangerous situation.”

Give the snake a racket you cowards

Beth Mole for Ars Technica:

A neurosurgeon in Australia pulled a wriggling 3-inch roundworm from the brain of a 64-year-old woman last year—which was quite the surprise to the woman’s team of doctors and infectious disease experts, who had spent over a year trying to identify the cause of her recurring and varied symptoms.

A close study of the extracted worm made clear why the diagnosis was so hard to pin down: the roundworm was one known to infect snakes—specifically carpet pythons endemic to the area where the woman lived—as well as the pythons’ mammalian prey. The woman is thought to be the first reported human to ever have an infection with this snake-adapted worm, and it is the first time the worm has been found burrowing through a mammalian brain.

I feel like it should be fairly obvious to you whether you should click through to the full story or not, based on whether you had an immediate reaction to the above quote of “dear lord I sure don’t need that in my life now or ever.” The story has a couple of pics of the roundworm post-extraction and in a container but nothing during surgery or containing blood or anything.