Adventure Ausrama Blog

Science: Fagus Nothofagus gunnii is Australia's only temperate deciduous tree. Australia has always been very hot. So hot in fact that only a few deciduous trees ever evolved. True some have been brought from other countries and the trees do grow in the cooler regions of Australia today. However, except for small pockets in the tropics evergreens predominate. Trees which drop there leaves prefer a fixed unchanging climate. Australia is where the unexpected happens. Like the present where we are having a long hot end to summer and it is unusually wet. Evergreens can adapt and take off when conditions are favorable. When deciduous trees lose there leaves it could rain heavily, but they can no longer absorb the moisture. Conversely, putting out leaves when it dry for months on end is totally ineffective. Hold onto your leaves is the moto. When it rains evergreens are ready to push on to further growth. Australia has one lonely temperate deciduous tree. And wouldn...

Technology: Google must pay Optus to get ads on its network. Optus in Australia is planning to block ads on its network. This is a blow to companies like Google who are trying to bring down the system by banning ad blockers from its app store. Google's actions will not change anything. Many browsers are making ad blockers a built-in feature. If companies want to advertise they will have to send a popup to users to turn off their blockers to view the site. Of course, users will move on to another site. Don't be fooled though by carriers blocking ads. They will take money from adverrisers to let ads through, only to be blocked by individual users' local blockers. Power! Telcos do not have that much power. The market will not turn back now. Carriers do have power over Facebook, Google, and news organizations. They will have fork out "blackmail" money to telcos who will say no pay now show . Companies like Shine in Israel are in a new market. Shine been...

Biology: monitoring of levels of polluted in the air is needed. Want to lose weight? Just stop breathing. It is as easy as that. Pregnant rats in China got fat because they breathed in polluted air.  People face the same problem.  Babies being born fatter may be desired.  However, it could indicate a lifetime of illness for those living in polluted regions. The rat's cholesterol went through the roof. They also became insulin resistant with diabetes just a short way down the track. Livers and lungs were inflamed. The longer they breathed the bad air, the fatter they got. Baby rats from the pregnant females were much sicker. Inflammation per se is directly related to obesity which is a precursor to diabetes, or even synonymous with it. Cancer, stroke and heart attacks are related to bad air. Poor health from polluted air is not just a Chinese problem. Western countries do not monitor bad air very intensely. A case in point is Brisbane in Australia where...

Genetics: Australian Aboriginal stone tools use was made within the Aboriginal gene pool. Australian Aborigines have been isolated on this vast continent for 50,000 until Europeans came and messed everything up. DNA sequencing shows Aboriginals were pure for this whole period. Contrary to the view held by many scientists for centuries, people did not arrive from India 4,000 years ago. Seafarers from India and Southeast Asia did stop here to get fresh water and herbs to treat constipation. Yes, this is true. Data tracing the Y chromosome from father to son shows no Asian genes in their profile. Aboriginals were the first people out of Africa. Once they reached Australia no more came from Asia. The out of Africa theory has now been pushed back 200,000 years. There is no real evidence of where these people went as far back as that. Tasmanian Aboriginals are a mystery. All have now died out so we will never know if they came here before mainland Aboriginals. Their DNA cou...

The chemistry of lighting a match. If you want to see in a dark room, light a match. It's simple isn't it? Not so fast, it is actually quite complex. A slow motion video at 40,000 frames per second shows the process. The completed video spreads out 0.10 of a second into one and a half minutes. Ignition takes place inside the "live" head of the match. It is just a little explosion followed by "slow" burn. The chemical blob does not burst into pieces. I holds together with small bits rolling to the outside surface.  It looks a planet exploding. The main ingredient of a match head is antimony trisulfide : potassium chlorate makes this burn. Ammonium phosphate is also there to reduce particles from escaping, but some smoke is inevitable. Paraffin wax coats the match down to the halfway mark to ensure the flame continues on down the matchstick. Powdered glass and red phosphate in the strike strip on the side of the matchbox ignites by f...

Archeology: dog digs up jawbone with teeth under Tasmanian house. A Tasmanian gentleman doing renovations to the foundations of his home has discovered a jawbone which has some white teeth still embedded therein. His dog actually located it and dug it up. Other pieces of the skull were then found by the man. Forensic police took the "evidence" away. This find is not surprising as the house is built on top of a one hundred year old graveyard. The graveyard was supposed to be completely cleaned out before development but some skeletons were left behind. Archeology students have flocked to the site to get some hands-on experience. The owner of the house, his daughter and dog will have to get the kettle on for all the new visitors.  Maybe they can make a buck from making and selling sandwiches. ◆ Archeologyby Ty Buchanan   ◆ Adventure Australia Funny Animal Photos Funny Weird Things Articles News Reviews ● Vista Computer Solutions Blog   ...

Anthropology: Adam and Eve hominids in the Garden of Eden. Humans were not alone on the evolutionary path. There would always be at least one more type of hominid existing nearby until the last 13,000 years (Hobbits). If the number of chromosomes was very close then fertile offspring were possible. The case for neanderthal closeness is still not yet known for sure. Some make bold claims about humans having neanderthal genes, but note that we did have a common ancestor. "This is the Garden of Eden love, from the volcano God." Take it with a pinch of salt about us being Neanderthal, Denisovan, human hybrids. This is fairytale stuff. Neanderthals were mainly in Europe and Denisovans were for the most part in southeast Asia. This would mean that humans from Africa would be genetically pure. However, the Neanderthal gene chains are also in them. Perhaps these genes are common to most hominids. Only a few decades ago many scientists loudly proclaimed that people ca...