Adventure Ausrama Blog

Animals may look alike and are asumed for decades as being one and the same, but scientists are often wrong. Australian and New Zealand little penguins ( Eudyptula minor ) look identical, However, new reseach shows that they are different species.  The cute little penguin is the smallest of all penguins. It is only 30cm tall. It lives along the southern coast of Australia and coastal New Zealand. Many scientists find it surprising that two different species inhabit the same region and look very much alike. The answer lies in the nature of the niche. Animals evolve to take advantage of a particular niche, so to a large degree the niche shapes the animal. There is strong opinion that the Australian little penguin should be given a name. A name has been put forward: Eudyptula novaehollandiae . There is a problem as the Australia species is also found in Otago on the southernmost tip of New Zealand: how they got there is a mystery. ◆ Biology y Buchanan   ◆ Adventure Aust...

While glucosamine has priced itself out of reach of the average consumer, sales of fish oil are still booming. Just about everyone you bump into is on it. The problem is the world-wide market is not sufficiently policed to ensure a healthy product. Cut prices for this popular addition to diet is a feature of the market. But are we paying the price? Tests show that the majority of packaged fish oil is contaminated and labels stated omega-3 fatty acid at much higher levels than reality. In other words suppliers are lying. Less than 10 per cent of tested sealed fish oil had the printed omega-3 fatty acid level. Some capsules are downright dangerous to take. In 92 per cent of tested packages the omega-3 fatty acid had oxidised - that is "gone off". What is more frightening is that most fish oil comes from two first world countries, namely, Australia and New Zealand. What happened to the philosophy of only exporting the best? This is disgraceful. Internation...

Captain Cook discovered Australia in 1770. If you believe this you are living in dreamland. The Portuguese took Malacca, a small Malaysian state, in 1511. Spain controlled part of the Philippines from 1521. Indonesia "welcomed" the Netherlands from 1596 and the Southeast Asian country was later ruled by the Dutch from 1825. France sent emissaries to Siam in 1600. The question is did any of the sailors from these countries land in Australia before the British arrived in Singapore in 1819: note Britain had been around in India since 1612. It is obvious that Dutch sailors landed on the north coast of Australia because Indonesia is just next door. Why didn't they claim it? Why didn't Portugal claim it? The Portuguese colonized East Timor from 1613 and that is even closer. The truth is they didn't want it because they couldn't find any advanced societies there. No trade was on offer. In those days trade was everything. There was no welfare state in those days. Y...

Calls from New Zealand to cover up one's hand by wearing gloves when driving a car is silly to say the least. This may be something to think about if one is a delivery van or a truck driver but ordinary people don't drive enough to warrant it. They say the belief that glass provides protection from ultraviolet radiation is a myth. Sunscreen maker "Oasis Beauty" has suggested putting sunscreen on hands before driving. This is sound advice, coming from a producer of sunscreen. The International Agency for Research on Cancer says drivers should wear gloves, long sleeved shirts and sun glasses. Unless one is a professional driver this is a bit much. Car producers state that laminated windscreens do block UV radiation: 80 percent of UV-a. It is side windows that are dangerous, though 37 percent of UV-a and 97 percent of UV-b are blocked. From these data obviously the New Zealand Cancer Society and Oasis Beauty are wrong and car glass does offer protection. Furthermo...

Jurassic Park is getting closer to reality. Australian scientists have managed to get DNA from fossilised eggshells of extinct birds. The Team warns though that bringing ancient creatures back to life is a long way off. Particles of fossilised eggshells from Australia, New Zealand and Madagascar were used in the research. A target species was the Moa bird which lived in New Zealand into the 18th century. Another was the Elephant Bird which went extinct in Madagascar during the 17th century. Older birds were also worked on: the New Zealand Duck, Australian Owl and an Emu which was 19,000 years old. Work on older fossils did not come up with usable DNA, but the relatively recent ones did give promising results. Techniques used were the usual reduction of samples and polymerase amplification. These were very short pieces of DNA obtained from minute samples. Eggshells were found to be even better than bones and hair for storing DNA. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http:/...

A New Zealand cat falls from a great height and lives! Alison and Graham Pike live a quite life in an apartment on Auckland's viaduct. They had no idea that their tabby cat, Camo , would become a celebrity. Spending life on an apartment balcony can be quite dangerous. One small slip and you fall a very long way.  And Camo did fall. It is not actually a free-fall from the balcony - there are things in the way to block the fall. The cat either jumped onto the glass balustrade then fell on to the tarseal, or ducked under the balustrade then slid off and fell further. A balcony lower down sticks out more than the fifth level balcony so the cat would have bounced off that before finally landing at ground level. In all it must have been like an obstacle course for the cat. Well, the outcome was a broken jaw and three broken teeth. Mr and Mrs Pike were informed by security staff that their cat was under the restaurant sofa and its mouth was bleeding. The cat has learned something...

There has been a weird finding in research done on IVF children - they are taller than average. Work done in New Zealand has found that by six years of age children conceived by IVF are taller. This occurred when fresh embryos were used, but not with frozen embryos. The higher quality of fresh embryos was the apparent reason for this. No benefits nor disadvantages were seen in children born using frozen embryos than children conceived normally. The real issue is - Are fresh embryos really of higher quality? Donors giving frozen embryos are just as selective. About one in thirty children are now conceived with IVF. It is girls who are notably taller. Another "weird" outcome is that mainly boys will be conceived if the embryos are left out in a dish for five days before implantation into the uterus. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAustralia http://www.technorati.com/blogs/http://adventu...

It fails me the means people will go to in order to maintain something of benefit. The courts have recently made a decision in favor of New Zealand importing apples into Australia. For decades Australian growers have been crying wolf about the danger of diseases from New Zealand apples. This is despite the fact that all requirements asked of New Zealand growers have been met. Now it is claimed that the new antibiotic resistant infection can be spread this way. Fair shake of the sauce bottle mate! This is a silly supposition. There isn't much doubt that superbug infection can occur with people having plastic surgery in Asia. But how do you prevent this by toughening quarantine regulations? It is impossible to stop people travelling. The real danger is consumption of meat injected with antibiotics to improve growth rates. Even with this it will take many years of food intake to detrimentally affect a human being. Just a mention to New Zealand to stop spraying antibiotics on apples fo...