Adventure Ausrama Blog

Yes, we have something new for you! Aenigmatinea glatzella is a new moth that is very primitive indeed - a living dinosaur in fact. It is in a new family of its own. With its feathered wingtips and specs of purple and gold it is certainly unique. A new primitive moth in over forty years, it is something to get excited about. This new moth was found on Kangaroo Island, a place that people regularly visit, yet it remained unknown until now. Be sure though that many more will be found by motivated naturalists. The moth's ancestry goes back to Gondwanaland. It is extremely short-lived: leaving the cocoon, mating and dying in a day. This is why it was not observed by previous researchers.  It is only a centimeter long. DNA analysis shows that moths and butterflies have a complex evolution. Enigma moth has no tongue. Moths and butterflies developed tongues later, probably more than once independently. More moths will be found because it is believed that over 10,000 ...

Australia continues to make great strides in new developments thus helping the world move forward. For such a small country in population terms it is in the big league. CSIRO as always is at the forefront, leading the research team. Recently in Western Australia the SKA Pathfinder radio telescope (ASKAP) took a photo of the sky with much improved clarity and over a larger area than ever before. It is much faster as well. Professor Brian Boyle said a new era for astronomy has arrived. ASKAP is part of the International Square Kilometer Array (SKA) with South Africa. Scientists are so impressed they are touring Europe explaining their results. The aperture-synthesis telescope is the first of its type to be used. CSIRO's phased array has perfected the system. Performance is much better than current telescopes. Photos are created from radio waves. A massive area of 10 square degrees is covered, which is 50 times bigger than the a full moon. The "snap" is j...

Australia's slaughter of wildlife continues despite warnings from CSIRO. Nearly half of Australian mammals will end their existence very soon. Zoologist Fred Ford said 11 extinctions have occurred in recent years in the south-eastern forests of Australia. The reserve system is not working. They are just for show. Plants are doing well because they are surviving outside and inside reserves. Nothing is being done to protect small native mammals. Reserves are havens for introduced feral animals and invasive weeds. Rangers are not being trained to look after the endangered species. Money should be allocated more efficiently. With all the money put into reserves there must be more positive outcomes. Native animal need to be researched and the data must be analyzed. Records should be kept to formulate action. An astounding 65 per cent of reptiles in Australia have been discovered in the last 35 years. The public has not been adequately informed of this. http://www.adventure--australia...

CSIRO has made a new chip for the Square Kilometer Array (SKA). A decision on where the SKA will be located, Australia or South Africa, has yet to be made. The new telescope array will analyse data from small radio dishes spread over a 3,000 kilometer area. Silana is working with CSIRO on the chip made of silicon-on-sapphire (SOS). It is designed for the mid-band range (500MHz - 2GHz). The unit is a one piece integrated circuit board replacing the multi-unit board previously used for this process. The new SKA "telescope" will be the largest ever built and it will give high resolution images of distant parts of the universe. Though the array will evaluate a wide range of frequencies, the mid-range is important as it is the emission line for hydrogen which gives the distribution of galaxies and stars. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAustralia http://www.technorati.com/blogs/ http://...

Australian moths and butterflies are being barcoded. There are 10,000 species in Australia and 65 per cent of them have been coded, 28,000 specimens in all. They are not flying around with a tag on them. DNA is analyzed then recorded with an image of a specimen in a barcode system. The database is a combined project by the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) and CSIRO's Australian National Insect Collection (ANIC). It is the first time such a system has been used to categorize a group of insects in a country. This is the beginning. Plans are in train to record most organisms worldwide. The technology has been used to determine if wrongly named fish are being sold. It will be used to identify dangerous pests coming into Australia. Species will now be more effectively categorised in research. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAustralia http://www.technorati.com/blogs/ http://a...

There is danger from future widespread use of nanotechnology. It is seen as the new savior to save the world from food shortages and so on. But like bio-fuel production it could do more harm than good. CSIRO is calling for more study of nanotechnology. This is despite the fact that no country has yet examined safety issues involved with it. Nanotechnology creates "micro-fine" products that have no safe disposal system. If they get into the environment there is not telling what damage they could do. Risks are seemingly endless: use by terrorists; environmental damage; self-reproduction (goo everywhere); even the future of Mankind on this planet could be under threat. Once a material has been modified or a new nano-product created it becomes a permanent structure. It must be chemically altered to make it safe. A nano-substance is not inert. It will act on the environment if it can. At the moment there are no restrictions. Developers can do what they wish. Let's h...

A fly is a fly and a mosquito is a, well, mosquito right? The difference isn't as distinct as that. A CSIRO research team has reached the conclusion that in evolutionary terms they are very close. They are both on the same main evolutionary branch: flies splitting of this line 175 million years ago, mosquitoes 50 million years. Flies make up a tenth of all animal species on Earth. There are 152,000 fly species in total. Flies are very interesting having three evolutionary attempts at flying until evolving with the flying method of today. Earth has had very different climates in the past. Despite dramatic changes flies survived. They can consume any nutrient rich substance available. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAustralia http://www.technorati.com/blogs/http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Science

There is hope yet that people will reduce their use of fossil fuel. CSIRO is working with universities to make biofuels from enzyme interaction with plant waste. The product will be low-emission. It will not divert resources from food production because only unwanted plant material will be used. The mere growing of food crops will balance out the carbon dioxide pushed into the environment by using such fuels. Growing plants absorb carbon dioxide thus keeping it out of the atmosphere. More profit for the farmer from this by-product is a good thing because it will encourage planting of more crops. With oil running out it is paramount to find other ways of creating fuel. Enzymes that will do this have been identified by CSIRO . The research body's target sector is transport, freight movers. Trucking causes a third of the toxic gases emitted into the environment. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/Advent...

CSIRO continues its groundbreaking work in broadband technology. After taking US based computer manufacturers to court to make them pay for Wi-Fi developed by CSIRO, work goes ahead on wireless broadband. The new system uses ordinary VHF antennas already on rooftops. Smithton in Tasmania is the town chosen for project testing. Terminals were set up on six farms, the furthest one being 8.2 km away from the transmitter. Phone, the Internet and video were tested. A speed of 12 megabits per second was achieved using just one TV channel. VHF channels are soon to be phased out with free to air television moving to UHF. The new broadband is very efficient. Where television had broadcast using 40 kilowatts per channel, wireless Internet worked perfectly with 3-watt. The technique of "beamforming" was used: multi-user input and spacial division multiplexing output. Work still has to be done to improve downloading capability. Such an Internet system is of paramount importance to Austra...