Adventure Ausrama Blog

From what you read you would think that genetic science is going ahead in leaps and bounds. Really it has been stuck in the same place for a decade. Ninety percent of human genes are not studied because they are too complicated. These genes impact on people just as much as the 10 percent of "easy" ones. Most genes are inside cell nuclei so they are difficult to get to. However, dealing with the obvious is not sustainable. The 90 percent have to be studied. Hardly any funding at all is allocated to lesser known gene research. Scientific papers keep on regurgitating the familiar. PHD students have tunnel vision. Industry can provide a firm basis to examine the known. The little known has no industrial foundation. A study to apply existing learning tools to the neglected genes failed as people moved back to what is safe. Clearly, scientific principles are not being applied. Critical knowledge to identify what is true about DNA is being selectively ignored. Throwing out the ...

Technology: Scramjet is tested at Woomera. Technology never stands still. Mankind progressed very slowly for centuries, but now things move forward at a rapid pace. Air transport could change dramatically in coming decades. The US and Australia are testing a hypersonic rocket that can travel at five times the speed of sound. Because of the angle of liftoff, together with takeoff and landing speeds, you couldn't really enjoy a lunch and drink while sitting in your seat. Woomera in South Australia is the busy testing site. The project is not aimed at space flight. Passenger travel is the main goal. A journey from London to Sydney is estimated to take two hours. The arduous passage though would mean taking your meal preferably after the flight. Australia helped develop the scramjet which uses oxygen from the atmosphere for power as the jet rockets upward. Consequently, it does not have to carry heavy and expensive fuel. Tests began in 2009. Norway and Germany are ...

How were ancient buildings constructed? They followed instructions of course. Archaeologists in Italy have found building directions on structures near Potenza. The actual identity of workers has been ascertained. Greek artisans contributed to the palace at Torre Satriano. Friezes had numbered feminine marks on them while cymatiums had male markings. Ornamental figures were replicated in molds. It seems pre-Roman people had architects in their midst who looked to the past for inspiration. The buildings were notably Greek in character. Much of daily life even today derives from established ideas. The ancient builders must have had records kept for such purposes. So culture strongly influenced life in the past. The tried and true was the norm for society. Until today people have resisted change. Indeed, many in our time are uncomfortable with the rapid pace of scientific endeavor. Will the Renaissance occur again? Probably it will when Mankind's experimentation runs out of steam...

Will Mankind survive the technological change? Since the year 2000 the world has changed extremely quickly. Our social lives have altered forever. At the turn of the century only a quarter of Australians were connected to the Internet. Now three quarters have Internet access with two thirds of these having broadband. Only a third of Australians had mobile phones in the year 2000. Today, just about everyone has one, including children. Verbal communication faded in favor of texting.  Even this is now declining in favour of voice and video.` We bought newspapers, magazines and books for news, general information, instruction and direction mapping. Now we do this over the Internet or by using direction indicators that speak to us. Relationships now begin on the digital information highway. We pay bills without even using a card or cash. And take our favorite music with us everywhere we go. Even ordinary emailing has been somewhat superceded by Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Skype....

The birthplace of Mankind is believed to be the Rift Valley in East Africa. It was thought that the valley formed over a long period of time. James Cook University scientists in Australia have found that a tectonic event changed the flow of the Congo, Nile and other rivers thus creating the Ethiopian-Kenyan eastern segment, and the Ugandan-Malawi western branch. Formerly the assumption was that this didn't happen at the same time. The eastern section developed up to 25 million years before the western segment. This was the prevailing theory. The Australian evidence indicates that the tectonic event created the eastern and western branches at much the same time. Climate change models will now have to be reviewed. Because the region is rich in fossils ongoing investigation occurs there. It is the only late Oligocene terrestrial fossil deposit in Africa below the equator. Though fossils of early Man have been found there, it may not be the actual birthplace of Mankind. I...

Karl Marx said that Mankind developed through political and economic stages. Scientists have proved that he may have been partially correct, but the key to human progress is water. Professor Terje Tvedt of Norway says "that water has played a unique and fundamental role in shaping societies throughout human history." Scientists have made a mistake by ignoring the presence and impact of natural resources on human development. All societies need water. A society cannot operate without it. You can try to control it. Yet water appears and disappears as it pleases according to the flow of nature. Why did the industrial revolution happen in Britain and not in China or India? The reason it occurred was the capacity to move goods via canals. Furthermore, production of grains and cotton products by the power of water mills created a need for bulk transport of goods. British rivers were clear. Boats could move quickly through them. Unlike rivers elsewhere which were silted up. Th...

If Man was pushed back into the stone age men would have to get women to fight for them. Men have become real cissies with all the modern amenities. Even laborers today don't do much laboring. Trench diggers and Bobcats are the order of the day. Even farmers use mechanised fence hole diggers. Professional fighter don't do it tough any more. They demand all the luxuries. Take for example ice hockey players. it is deemed to a be tough sport with fights breaking out in just about every game, but with all the protection there are few injuries from the physical clashes. If you were a Roman gladiator you could lose your life or have to fight on with painful injuries. Why are sporting records being broken you say? The reason is due to the greater opportunity for those with preferable genes to succeed at sport as children, not because athletes train harder. As a child I was awed by my father's capacity to carry two one cwt bags of cement, one on each shoulder. He was quite a small ...