Adventure Ausrama Blog

You may think humans are changing to adapt to city life. However, animals living in cities are evolving faster. Metabolisms of the little creatures are running hot. In Puerto Rico, anole lizards can travel across concrete due to changes in their feet structure. Charles Darwin did get things wrong. Evolution does not just happen over tens of thousands of years. It is dynamic. Alterations are rapid. PCB (Polychlorinated Biphenyls) levels rise in cities and it will kill some animals. The mummichog fish has quickly evolved to survive the poisonous chemical. The shorter the lifespan of living organisms the faster they evolve. A long-time resident of cities is the European blackbird. It has developed more practical beaks and songs. Moreover, their digestive system can digest food scraps discarded by people. Urban blackbirds no longer migrate. Mosquitoes in the London Underground have changed dramatically. They breed one-on-one, not in the clouds of mozzies in a sexual frenzy like their...

A Prisoner of her magesty (POM) started brewing up a drink for the colony. The man who established beer in Ozyland was a Romani from England - shock horror! Yes, he was a gypsy. Now Aussies today know hardly anything about the discrimination they face even in modern England. In some regions they are classed as lower than dogs. I have personal experience of this.   ⦿2 z aussie z beer x began x With z convict z james z squires ⦿2 James Squire (Squires) was born in 1784 in Kingston upon Thames. He was transported to America for highway robbery. However, by enlisting in the army he was eventually able to return home where he managed a hotel. Caught stealing he was sent on the First Fleet to New South Wales.   ⦿3 b aussie b began b With b convict b james b squires ⦿3 An opportunity arose :  he would make and sell beer. His thieving continued. He stole beer making ingredients. A flogging was administered and he was later freed. Receiving 30 acres of land he opened a...

Our beloved Australian prime minister has put his foot in his mouth yet again. I don't believe that I have experienced such a pig headed, mislead person who has gained the highest position in the land before. He has weighed into the debate of Western Australia's intention to close down remote Aboriginal communities, despite the first Australians being born and bred there. It is a case of whites controlling the lives of black people because Caucasians dominate power and authority in Australia. Western Australian governments of both persuasions have a history of being bigoted toward Aboriginals. There have been cases in the past of whites buying votes at state and federal elections by giving Aboriginals alcohol. This is despicable behavior. Tony Abbott, the Australian prime minister, has said that aboriginals should be forcibly moved to cities because they are a drain on the welfare system. He believes that they will fill job vacancies that do not exist in built...

While a new very strong El Niño is on the way, fears of continuing La Niña are real as well. Although Australia is known as a drought country, severe floods are damaging. This is because the continent is flat with a few mountains in the east of the country. If the El Niño does not arrive flooding will continue. Furthermore, the drought in the US will cause further damage to their economy. The odd thing at the moment is that Australia has drought inland with flooding along the coast. This isn't s normal state of affairs. It could be due to global warning. We have had a very long intermediate period where La Niña persists and El Niño threatens. Research shows that La Niña will return every 13 years instead of 23 years. It seems to Australians that La Niña has been here for ever with the long intermediate period persisting. There are extreme El Niño and La Niña though. And it is these that do the most damage economically and socially. ✴ Science by Ty Buchanan ✴ ...

Just what has Australia got? Quite a lot actually. The visitor can indulge in the rich Australian culture - G'day mate! The largest island in the world, though for some reason it is not classed as an island, too big apparently. Wildlife sanctuaries, busy cities, dry mysterious deserts, tropical beaches, it is all here. Sydney is a clean city with bright blue harbour water. Must sees are Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Enjoy surfing Bondi and Manly beaches in the hot sunshine. Cairns in Queensland has the Daintree ainforest and the Barrier Reef. Go scuba diving, snorkelling and hiking. island resorts abound. Vacationers always view the whales and dolphins. Alice Spring in the hot center stands on it own. You can get a drink anywhere. It is a long drive but worth it. Two hundred miles away lies Ayers Rock (Uluru). Another ideal place to take a driving holiday. Darwin on the other hand is a busy place. Melbourne is the go ahead city. Somethi...

If you want to clean up the environment get a bike. Not just any bike though: you need a Hy-Cycle with pedal power assisted by hydrogen. A team of developers at the School of Chemical Engineering led by Associate Professor Kondo-Francois Aguey-Zinsou has put a lot of work into the new bicycle. The main problems in the past has been storage and cost. Hydrogen is now safely stored in hybride, a stable metal. This "compound" is then secured in a canister. Hydrogen is fed into a fuel cells that charges a lithium battery. The battery range is 125 kilometers at a cost of $2.00. This distance is sufficient for a day's use on one charge. Major cities across the world have already established bicycle pools where people can collect a bicycle, ride it to their destination and leave it at the nearest bike station. It would not be difficult to hire out the new powered Hy-Cycles at a small fee alongside ordinary bicycles. Improvements are already on the way. The current sto...

Human societies change as the climate changes. Man is a clever animal. He uses his mind to overcome obstacles in nature. When we came down from the trees the first changes were made. This sped up our evolution to become more intelligent. With evolutionary advancement certain things are lost. Tree clearing has led to an unforeseen event : languages are disappearing. Some, usually forest living , people speak more than a dozen languages. However, their tribes are decreasing in number as more contact with advanced societies and destruction of the environment they live in continues. Papua New Guinea still has about 1,000 languages. Isolation is diminishing so more dialects are lost as times goes on. It has been said that as biodiversity falls so languages decrease in number. However, less biodiversity is an effect of less forestation rather than a causal factor. Forest living people are moving to cities to find work as their livelihood disappears. Furthermore, g...

Australians like space. The major cities are relatively sparsely populated by world standards yet we still try to shun them to avoid people. Perhaps we are spoiled for space. Australia is the most sparsely populated country after Mongolia. Yes that is a fact. We do not hold the record, though many still claim it. Another issue is - What is a city? For world records this can be a problem. An "average" Chinese city would have more people than the whole of Australia. Some Australian politicians are aiming to keep our cities small in the near future. But is this still possible in a world seemingly full of refugees? Time will tell if placing refugees overseas from Australia will work.  It will certainly cost us a great deal.  Tony Abbott's idea of turning the boats around will only cause refugees to put a hole in their boat.  Most boats are seriously overloaded and unseaworthy anyway, so they should be taken into safe custody.  Ignoring safety concerns could be breakin...

The National Sustainability Council presented its long awaited report called the Sustainable Australia 2013: Conversations with the Future . This is the first of a series of biennial papers to advise the government about the state of the economy vis-a-vis the environment. Full of optimism, the newly founded council said the future looked bright if we changed to building sustainable communities. However, the type of community needed is far more radical than envisaged by the council. Despite Australia having many of the most livable cities in the world we need to start planning immediately for the kind of balanced society of the future. Oil will not be around forever and coal is too polluting to be used at such high rates. This means individuals driving around in five seater cars will not be possible. Electricity use is skyrocketing with Internet cloud servers and hungry mobiles gobbling up tonnes of coal and oil in power stations. Future cities will have to be designed with hou...

If you want healthy lungs don't take up running or vigorous exercise. Perhaps it is better to head for the country and stay away from smokers. Your body needs clean air in order to stay healthy. Living in cities is a no, no. If you live in London you will already have lung damage. Spending just 48 minutes there is equivalent to smoking a cigarette. It is not only cigarette smoke that is troublesome. Fumes from cars and diesel buses is something you can't avoid. Heading indoors is a waste of time. Pollution condenses down into corridors, tunnels and homes. Toxins are more than double that of the external environment. Plants help to clear the air. Don't use artificial air fresheners. Even the television pumps out volatile organic compounds (VOC). Unfortunately there is not a lot we can do in the modern world to avoid toxins. It's everywhere. Doing exercise will make the body take in more pollutants. Taking a holiday in the country is no answer - ozone from cities ends up ...