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Misadventure trims a red admiral's sails
Sandy, Bedfordshire The butterfly rested in the tractor tramline, cryptic wings held erect over its back
The open fields are no place for hot dogs in high summer. At other times dogs scamper along the straight tracks between wheat and barley, sometimes stopping to sniff, squat, or cock a leg, engrossed in a kind of Twitter wee.
But when the sun burns overhead, it toasts cereals and thick coats alike. The dog walkers therefore come early here, and I run earlier still.
Continue reading...Driverless vehicle research focus of MoU
Birdsville geothermal plant to finally get major upgrade
Australia ignores risks, shirks moral responsibility on climate
Australia’s new citizenship test: swear allegiance to Queen and Coal
It’s so hot in Phoenix, Arizona, planes can’t take off
Oil majors risk trillions in stranded projects in 2⁰C world
China province powered by renewable energy only for 7 days
Solar’s new sweet spot: Low cost, compact PV plants at $1/watt
Business, investors still ignoring 1.5°C climate target
Millions of mysterious 'sea pickles' swamp US west coast
Huge and unexplained bloom has fishers racing to save their nets, and scientists hurrying to study the rare animal
A rare, tiny marine creature known as the “unicorn of the sea” has swarmed in its millions on the west coast of America, ruining fishermen’s nets and baffling scientists who are scrambling to find out more about them.
Fishers along the west coast have told researchers that in some places they are unable to catch anything because the pyrosome clusters are so dense and tightly packed. Their hooks, when pulled from the ocean, wriggle with the odd-looking creatures, which are sometimes referred to as “sea pickles” or “fire bodies”.
Continue reading...How much does an ultra-supercritical coal plant really reduce air pollution?
Australian health groups urge coal phase-out and strong emissions reduction
World-first climate and health framework from 30 health and medical groups calls for recognition of citizens’ ‘right to health’
To save hundreds of lives and billions of dollars, Australia should rapidly phase out coal power stations and establish strong emissions reduction targets, according to a coalition of 30 major health and medical groups.
Related: Australia warned it has radically underestimated climate change security threat
Continue reading...The power of a billion: India's genomics revolution
Race to the bottom
Stop Adani to ease 'unprecedented decline' on the GBR: Sylvia Earle
Global banks reduce lending to dirtiest fossil fuel companies by billions in 2016
World’s largest banks lent $87bn to oil, coal and LNG companies in 2016 – a 22% drop from a collective $111bn worth of lending in 2015
The world’s biggest banks have reduced their lending to some of the most carbon-intensive sectors of the fossil fuel industry by billions of dollars, marking a potentially seismic shift against coal investment, a new study says.
The report commissioned by environmental groups tracked the lending decisions of 37 banks across Australia, the US, Europe, Canada, China and Japan in the first calendar year since the signing of the Paris climate agreement.
Continue reading...A venomous paradox: how deadly are Australia's snakes?
Australia is renowned worldwide for our venomous and poisonous creatures, from snakes, spiders and ticks on land, to lethal jellyfish, stingrays and stonefish in our waters. Even the shy platypus can inflict excruciating pain if handled without due care.
Yet while injuries and deaths caused by venomous snakes and jellyfish are often sensationalised in the media, and feared by international visitors, a recent review found that very few “deadly” Australian animals actually cause deaths. Between 2000 and 2013, there were two fatalities per year from snake bites across Australia, while the average for bee stings was 2.2 and for jellyfish 0.25, or one death every four years. For spiders – including our notorious redbacks and Sydney funnel-webs – the average was zero.
Snakes nevertheless strike fear into many people who live in or visit Australia. When we have a higher risk of injury or death from burns, horses, bee stings, drownings and car accidents, why don’t we fear these hazards as we do the sight of a snake?
Snakes and statistics through history James Bray, Venomous and Non-Venomous Reptiles (1897). State Library of NSW/Peter HobbinsWhen settlers arrived in Australia in the late 18th century, they believed that Australian snakes were harmless. By 1805 it was accepted that local serpents might kill humans, but they were hardly feared in the same way as the American rattlesnake or Indian cobra.
Until the 1820s, less than one human death from snake bite was recorded each year; in 1827 visiting surgeon Peter Cunningham remarked that:
…comparatively few deaths [have] taken place from this cause since the foundation of the colony.
Similar observations were made into the 1840s. What the colonists did note, however, was the significant death toll among their “exotic” imported animals, from cats and sheep to highly valuable horses and oxen.
By the 1850s, living experiments in domestic creatures – especially chickens and dogs – were standard fare for travelling antidote sellers. Given the popularity of these public snake bite demonstrations, from the 1860s, doctors and naturalists also took to experimenting with captive animals. It was during this period that official statistics on deaths began to be collated across the Australian colonies.
One sample from 1864–74, for instance, reported an average of four snake bite deaths per year across Victoria, or one death per 175,000 colonists. In contrast, during the same period one in 6,000 Indians died from snake bites each year; little wonder that around the world, Australian snakes were considered trifling.
The 1890s represented a dramatic period of divergence, though. On one hand, statistical studies in 1882–92 suggested that on average, 11 people died annually from snake bite across Australia. Similar data compiled in Victoria led physician James Barrett to declare in 1892 that snakes posed “one of the most insignificant causes of death in our midst”. On the other hand, by 1895 standardised laboratory studies, aimed especially at producing an effective antivenom, saw a global recognition that Australian snake venoms were among the most potent in the world.
In Sydney, physiologist Charles Martin claimed that Australian tiger snake venom was as powerful as that of the cobra. In 1902, his collaborator Frank Tidswell ranked local tiger snake, brown snake and death adder venoms at the top of the global toxicity table.
Over the ensuing century, this paradox has remained: why do so few Australians die from snake bites when our serpents have the world’s most potent venoms? Why aren’t they more deadly?
Deadly fearScientific research has delivered ever-expanding knowledge about venoms, what they do, how they work, how they affect us clinically, and their comparative “potency” based on animal studies. In response we have introduced first aid measures, guidelines, effective clinical management and treatment, which in Australia forms one of the world’s best emergency health care systems.
In contrast, countries where snakebites cause far more deaths generally face challenges in accessing affordable essential medicines, prevention and education options.
Snakes form an essential part of their ecosystems. They do not “attack” humans, mostly being shy animals, but are defensive and prefer to escape.
It would seem that venom potency is not a good measure of deadliness, and it may be a combination of our history, behaviour and belief that creates a cultural fear.
Without understating the potential danger posed by venomous snakes, what we offer instead is reassurance. As nearly two centuries of statistics and clinical experience suggest, most snake bites in Australia are survivable, if managed quickly, calmly and effectively. In fact, encounters with humans all too often prove deadly to the snakes themselves – a paradox that is within our power to change.
The authors are presenting on this topic at the upcoming Emerging Issues in Science and Society event at Deakin University’s Downtown campus on 6 July 2017. Sponsored by the Australian Academy of Science and Deakin University’s Science and Society Network.
The event brings together scientists with humanities and social science scholars to discuss common questions from different angles. For more information on the event and to book tickets see the event’s website.
Ronelle Welton receives funding from the NHMRC.
Peter Hobbins received an Australian Postgraduate Award to undertake his PhD on the subject of snakebite in colonial Australia, and was the 2016 Merewether Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales, which entailed research on a similar topic.
'Ocean Elders' urge Malcolm Turnbull to reject Adani coalmine
Prominent oceanographers and global leaders write to Australian prime minister and Queensland premier
A group of prominent oceanographers and global leaders headed by renowned marine biologist Dr Sylvia Earle has written to the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, urging him to reject the proposed Adani Carmichael coalmine, which it says will have a devastating impact on the Great Barrier Reef.
The letter from the group Ocean Elders argues that if it goes ahead, the coalmine will damage international efforts to mitigate climate change by increasing global carbon emissions.
Continue reading...Worried about climate change? I blame men | Brief letters
Normally I would write to complain about such a gendered phrase as “man-made” (Opinion, 17 June). In the case of “man-made climate change” however, I’m inclined to let it pass. On balance it seems likely that rather more men than women do bear responsibility for the changes which are leading our planet to fry. “Anthropogenic” is a much more elegant word though.
Sylvia Rose
Totnes, Devon
• Virginia Cumming (Letters, 21 June) calls out the Daily Mail for inflammatory language. On page 25, Aditya Chakrabortty declares that “Britain still murders its poor” (Opinion, 21 June) Mote and Beam?
J Moorhead
Gorstage, Cheshire