australia

Australia’s Answer to the Cat Communicates Through Poop

This is the “quoll,” otherwise known as the “native cat.” On the plus side, it’s not venomous. (Way to hold back for once, Australia.) On the negative side, well… it seems to have a feces-based communication system. The quoll technically isn’t just one species; it’s any member of a group of carnivorous marsupials from genus…

Australia’s Climate Change-Denying Prime Minister Has Been Ousted

He said he was “hugely unconvinced” on the science of climate change and once called wind turbines “awful.” Now the same Australian prime minister who’s been labeled an environmental villain has been removed from office. As we reported back in July, Tony Abbott’s troubled term included undoing lots of the great work that Australia had…

Why the Somerton Man Endures As One of Australia’s Most Fascinating Cold Cases

He’s one of the most famous figures in Australian history … only because police can’t figure out who he was or what happened to him. On December 1, 1948, a man’s body was found propped up against a stone wall at Somerton beach. He had no identification whatsoever. Really, truly, no identification whatsoever: The tags…

From Space, a Remote Salt Lake In the Middle of a Desert Looks Like an Alien World

This is Lake Amadeus, the largest salt lake in Australia’s Northern Territory. Taken by Sentinel-2A (mean orbital altitude of 786 km/488 miles), this image of Lake Amadeus shows the salt crust, rock, and sand that are part of this lake’s unique look. Also visible in the full image below are the Australian landmark Uluru/Ayers Rock…

Even Eagles Hate Drones

It’s not just fishermen or emergency responders who hate having drones annoyingly buzzing overhead. Apparently the Australian wedge-tailed eagle isn’t a fan of camera-equipped quadcopters either, and this one makes short work of one invading its territory. But don’t worry, while the drone took a nasty tumble, the eagle was unharmed. [YouTube via Digg]

No, You Can’t Make Moonshine Out of Vegemite

News broke this weekend that the Australian government was concerned about Indigenous communities using Vegemite to brew alcohol. The government even floated the idea of banning the spread in some places where alcohol was already banned. Can you really brew alcohol using Vegemite? In short: No. “Addiction of any type is a concern but communities,…

A Deep Space Antenna Looks Majestic Against the Night Sky

A dish antenna 35 meters in diameter is bright against the night sky in New Norcia, Australia. This station is part of Estrack, a international network of ground stations that link satellites with the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. It also communicates with deep space missions like Rosetta. Estrack turns 40 this year,…

Driving Australia’s Most Challenging Off-Road Trail

For most of Cape York, the remote peninsula north of Cairns that runs parallel to the Great Barrier Reef, the nearest major city isn’t even in Australia, it’s in Papua New Guinea. You know, where head-hunting was a thing up until a couple of decades ago. We just drove through it on the most challenging…

Australian Snow Is So Rare They Don’t Have Tools to Measure It

As a new climate report concluded this week, our planet is definitely getting warmer, which leads to more extreme temperatures around the world. Now Australia is seeing its coldest temperatures in decades, and last night, many Australians saw snow for the first time in their lives. The local Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Gorrdon Banks told…

The Australian Government Wants to Cull 2-Million Feral Cats by 2020

In addition, the government hopes to create new safe havens for endangered native animals in an effort to protect 20 mammal, 20 bird, and 30 plant species. Top image: Feral cats in Australia can get big. Like really big. (Credit: Jake Weigl /NT News) To make its recently unveiled Threatened Species Strategy (PDF) work, the…

Australia’s Prime Minister Is Hell Bent On Scrapping Clean Energy

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott seems determined to push his country back decades on environmental policy. In his latest scheme, Abbott has ordered Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation to stop investing in wind and small-scale solar energy. The mandate comes after Abbott tried and failed (twice) to scrap the CEFC, a green bank that lends…

An Ancient Volcano Cluster Has Been Found off the Coast of Australia

The 50-million-year-old volcano cluster was found by accident about 155 miles (250 km) east of Sydney, but there’s no risk of an eruption. As reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, the volcanoes were discovered by the CSIRO’s new research vessel, Investigator. Sonar images revealed a cluster of ancient in-line volcanoes that clearly erupted at some…

These Ghoulish Crimes Inspired Ultra-Scary Aussie Horror Film Wolf Creek

Lots of horror films carry the not-so-subtle message that city slickers, especially good-looking youths thirsting for adventure, shouldn’t linger in the backwoods—including 2005 Australian entry Wolf Creek. It’s a gruesomely scary flick. And it was inspired by genuinely frightening real-life killers. First was the case of Ivan Milat, said to be one of Australia’s most…

A “Zombieroo” Terrorizes The Outback In This Ghoulishly Fun Short

A mysterious contaminant in an Australian town’s water supply unleashes delightful kangaroo zombie carnage in Waterborne, a nine-minute prequel to a planned feature film. This is good news, because after this short, you’ll be as hungry for more of that adorably lo-fi “zombieroo” as he is for brrraiiinnss. [Via Geek Art Gallery]

Does Water Really Swirl Differently in Australia? YouTube Stars Find Out

Smarter Every Day and Veritasium, two of the best science channels on YouTube, have teamed up to answer once and for all: Does water really flow the other way in the southern hemisphere? Destin Sandlin, host of Smarter Every Day (based in Huntsville, Alabama) and Derek Muller of Veritasium (who’s in Sydney) each filmed a…

The Turtle Frog Is The Least Frog-Like Frog You’ll Ever See

This pink lump of jelly is a frog that has just about given up on anything associated with being a frog. Instead it decided to live in a desert, digging burrows. The turtle frog is not something that, on sight, you would automatically call a frog. For one thing, if you see it, you’re probably…

Britain Sent Thousands of Its Convicts to America, Not Just Australia

The joke about Australia is that it was founded by a bunch of criminals. And from 1788 until 1868, Britain did send roughly 164,000 convicts to the land down under. America’s dirty little secret? The same exact thing was happening here. In fact, experts estimate that over 52,000 British prisoners were shipped off to colonial…

Newborn Baby Gorilla Enjoys A Nap While Its Mother Keeps Watch

Just six or seven days old, a baby Western lowland gorilla has a snooze in the arms of its proud mother, Frala, at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo. So far, mom and newborn have been hanging so tight that keepers haven’t been able to determine whether their newest charge is a male or a female. AP Photo…

An Australian is suffering a rain of spiders. The phenomenon, called “Angel Hair” for the dusting of webs that covers the area, is the result of the combination of a mass hatching of spider and the babies taking to the wind on silk parachutes in perfect weather conditions. [ABC News]

Learning From Australia’s Drought Lessons to Avoid a Mad Max Future

The drought is no longer a California problem. The Colorado River, which supplies water to one-eighth of the country’s population, is reporting record low water levels due to overallocation. The US needs a little perspective when it comes to how bad this is going to get. Luckily we have one: Australia. Over the past 20…