Adventure Ausrama Blog

Why do plant seeds in Australia start germinating after a fire? It is because of Karrikin Insensitive2 (KAI2) a protein which has been present in plants for millions of years. KAI2 has been important for all plants for 400 million years. When the KAI2 protein was removed from a higher, more recent plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, its leaves malformed. Yet splicing the KAI2 back by taking it from the ancient Selaginella resulted in improved A. thaliana growth, but it could no longer detect the presence of smoke the normal function of KAI2. This finding shows the more general function of KAI2. It not only identifies karrikins in smoke, it is important for plant growth. "Sensing" is the main purpose of KAI2. Apparently it can be tuned to detect different things. This could help farmers control seed germination times. Wheat is notorious for germinating in the grain during heavy rain periods. Being able to spray a chemical that stops this would save millions of...

There isn't much doubt that Tony Abbott the Australian prime minister is an ardent capitalist - odd for a person who calls himself a Liberal. This goes to show how Australian Political parties do not follow the international norm. Like most things in Australia our political system could be seen as unique with ardent conservatives forced to join the Liberal Party to secure power. Tony Abbott is being accused of interfering with the G20 statement, taking out "fair" and "inclusive" in the description of desired economic growth. Apparently, he blatantly left in “promote economic growth and jobs growth by strengthening the private sector”, highlighting this. Australia has been told that it has left the moral high ground of previous G20 meetings. Inclusive growth" is interpreted as a free for all in economies. Just getting there is important. Whether you run roughshod over the rights of people or not is not important in Tony Abbott's eyes. T...

There are serious problems involved in breeding top class cattle for the market. Like in breeding budgerigars recessive genes coming together can cause some young to be victims of early death. In creating the "perfect" animal, weaknesses have been seen in Angus cattle. The disease is call Development Duplication (DD). Its general name is polymelia. Embryos are dying and some are born with extra limbs. The disease is common in all cattle, but selective breeding has increase its prominence in Angus cattle. Some affected animals have had operations to remove extra limbs. This is complicating the issue particularly if they are used for breeding. Tests are available to identify the recessive gene causing the problem. It occurs at a rate of 3 per cent in the Angus breed. Pairing a sire with the recessive to a dam without it produces a normal calf. The recessive gene is passed on, however, not eliminated. It is believed that the presence of the gene has improved growth a...

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...

How could the experts get it so wrong. For many years we were told that Australia should populate or perish. The Bureau of Statistics has released data showing that 296,00 births occurred in 2008. This is 10,000 more that 2007 and 1971, earlier record years. The fertility rate for women is high at 1.97 babies for every female. Tasmanians are really getting on with it (must be the cold climate) with a fertility rate of 2.24. Hot Darwin had a lower rate of 1.76. Not only are women having more babies, but the proportion of women in the population is rising. And the reason for this increase is financial. The Government pays $5,000 to a woman to have a baby. Women are getting pregnant in some cases just to get the money. If they want a big ticket item they see this as the way to get it, irrespective of the lifetime cost of bringing up a child. Another thing is that women who have put off having babies are now reaching the point of no return where they must act or never have children. http:...