Adventure Ausrama Blog

"Look, I'm a giant!"   ✿   ✴  Funny Animal Photos by Ty Buchanan   ✴ http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com/atom.xml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Australia is again ignoring advice and is pushing an endangered bird to extinction. There are fewer than 2,000 swift parrots left. Most are taken by sugar gliders. However, destruction of habitat is a major threat. They could be extinct in 15 years. Logging is being allowed in the bird's breeding areas. They do not nest if their natural environment is changed. People have lobbied the Tasmanian government with no success. There is high unemployment in Tasmania and job creation takes priority over birdlife. The swift parrot is already on the endangered list. This does not guarantee any work to save it. If it is put on the critically endangered list something will be done. An application has already been submitted to the federal government. It will take time to get this through the government bureaucracy. ✴ Conservation by Ty Buchanan ✴ http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://adventure--australia.blogspot....

"I'll just shuffle on out of here"   ✿   ✴  Funny Animal Photos by Ty Buchanan   ✴ http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com/atom.xml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Australia has always been seen as remote. Yet new new things are being discovered about its history. It has been identified as the "target" of one of the world's largest asteroid impacts. Two craters found by Andrew Glikson and his team are thought to have been caused by a large meteor which broke into two pieces. Each crater is 200 kilometers in diameter. One of these craters on its own is larger than the impact in Mexico: the Central American collision wiped out the dinosaurs. It isn't the biggest, however. The Sudbury comet did a great deal of damage, but the world's widest crater is the Vredefort in South Africa. The twin craters in Australia have been flattened out over eons of time. They were found by geothermal research. It appears that asteroid impact covers the Northern Territory, Queensland and South Australia, a very large area. Seismic traverses is going to be applied next. This will hopefully bring new things to light. If the as...

"Quick!  They'll never know."   ✿   ✴  Funny Animal Photos by Ty Buchanan   ✴ http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com/atom.xml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Insects and animals are moving to different regions. As climate changes with Queensland and Western Australia becoming tropical far down the coast insects are leaving their native areas. Mosquitoes are in epidemic proportions in Brisbane and they are even reaching Sydney. More than a million people a year die from malaria. Many recover but become very sick. The illness does return to sufferers in future years. It is not just the warmth that attracts mosquitoes thus spreading the disease. A hotter climate means more rain that the insects thrive in. They breed in pools of water trapped in all kinds of crevices. Certain kinds of mosquitoes transmit different disease. Dengue fever,  Yellow fever virus,  chikungunya, West Nile virus, Japanese encephalitis, and malaria are all spread by mosquitoes. They get to new regions in people's belongings due to increasing world travel. The dangerous insect is taking over virgin ground rapidly. A few years ago the chikungunya virus ...

Man like other animals has inherited a fine sense of smell from ancestors who did not have technology to know things that would help them survive. The environment gives out smells when something changes. Because we now mostly live indoors these smells do not come to our attention. However, they still exist. Before it begins to rain the air falls and oil is released from the earth. A special odour is notable. CSIRO has named this smell " petrichor" . It seems no one had given it a named before. The particular smell was made public in 1964 when Isabel Bear wrote a paper which was published in Nature journal. Mineralogists were first aware of it and mentioned the odour in text books but little was made of the smell. Aboriginals would have know of it because oils given off before rain are stronger after drought. The word "mattiak ka attar" is used in Asia to describe the odour trapped in sandalwood oil to enhance the perfume. Scientists at CSIRO i...