Adventure Ausrama Blog

HEALTH It seems just about everybody is investing in vineyards. The wine industry has drawn in big investors and hobbyists. Unfortunately, people do not think before they jump in. They are seeking to fulfill a dream: there is a certain amount of glamour involved in saying I am a wine maker, a vintner. Too much drinking not enough thinking There is a world glut of wine, particularly the cheap ones. Nations have pushed to establish new vineyards. It has the aura of a local car industry or airline. Newcomers enter the industry all the time without doing any research and little training. It is no surprise to hear that the oldest wine club in Australia founded in 1946 is in the red, by a shocking amount. It owes a staggering $4.2 million to its wine producers. It operates as a distributor, buy and selling, though ostensibly not-for-profit. Supermarket chains sell nearly all wine in Australia and in a situation of oversupply they don't pay much for it. These major players ...

science Interesting things abound about Australia. It is a unique continent being isolated from the other land masses for millions of years. Animals have evolved with unusual behaviors. The cute, tiny Antichenus gets so high on testosterone that the little fellow doesn't eat or drink. He mates until he dies. The ugliest fish live in the deep sea off Australia's coast. They have large eyes, a necessity where light is almost total nonexistent.  Land creatures have evolved where some beauty is required to facilitate mating.  living in the darkest depths means seeing your mate is not so important, but large eyes, huge jaws and venomous spines are. Tourists and locals know about the deadly creatures living here. Oddly, Funnelweb spiders are not dangerous to dogs, cats, mice, lizards or snakes. An unlucky human can die if bitten by this spider.  Muscles in our bodies fibrillate.  Unsynchronized contraction of heart muscles can kill us. Bundaberg is the home of t...

Everyone knows that Australia is old. Just how old has been defined by science - A zircon crystal on a Western Australian sheep station is the oldest piece of planet Earth. It is 4.4 billion years old. Tests were done to determine the crystal's age. The rate of decay of uranium against the constant lead showed how old it was. This was confirmed by atom-probe tomography where the mass of lead atoms is measured. The zircon particle was created on the Earth's crust soon after the planet formed. And the Earth was not a violent place until much later. Water was already present and there is a high probability that life began at this time. The Hadean eon as this period is called in now a misnomer because it means Hadean the god of hell. Proof of life is unlikely. Science is not advanced enough yet to fully examine this period. Very little can be identified as originating in this period of the Earth's development. Science by Ty Buchanan http://www.adve...

Earliest life on this planet looked like tennis and soccer balls. Images show round ball-like creatures. One type has the curved line around it like a tennis ball. Another has five sides shapes around its surface like a soccer ball. At first the lifeforms were believed to be giant bacteria. Currently the verdict is they are metazoan embryos. They could ultimately be found to be protists such as fungi, algae and diatoms. Though they are the earliest kind of life found, the find at this particular site in China is just by chance. Different life could have developed elsewhere. Two animals have also been found at the site that lived during the "Snowball Earth" period. One of the animals could be the first instance of a bilateral, life with a symmetrical body. China and Australia were once joined together on the supercontinent of Gondwana. Fossils in the Flinders Range of Australia also claim the "ticket" for the oldest known form of life. http://www.adventure--...