Around The Web

Image showing Megalodon swimming past U-boats off Cape Town was doctored. Come clean, or prove me wrong

The suspicion that the Discovery Channel had abandoned its professed editorial standards was a powerful one. As I mentioned in my earlier blog, its documentary claiming that the giant shark Carchardon megalodon still exists contained images which gave a strong impression of being faked; reports of incidents which don't appear to have happened; and interviews with "marine biologists" no one has been able to trace.

But allegations of fakery are very hard to prove. As you know, absence of evidence doesn't mean evidence of absence. Just because no one has been able to find the news reports the Megalodon show claims to have found, or any record of the deaths of four people in an attack by a giant shark off South Africa last year, or any trace of the suspiciously handsome experts it used to confirm its thesis doesn't prove definitively that all of them are inventions, even though it's hard to see how they could not be.

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List of successful applicants.

Release of the Terms of Reference for a review into the Renewable Energy Target (RET) scheme.

Release of the Terms of Reference for a review into the Renewable Energy Target (RET) scheme.

Agency 2014 application on ecological sustainability - comments close 18 March 2014

The first edition of the Emissions Reduction Fund Update newsletter is now available. The newsletter provides regular updates on the implementation of the Emissions Reduction Fund.

Applications close 5.00 pm AEDT Friday 14 March 2014.

The Department is currently seeking public comment on a draft assessment bilateral agreement with the State of South Australia. Comments close 17 March 2014.

The Government has released the annual report on its activities to meet the goals of its 2010–15 Australian Packaging Covenant Action Plan. The report shows strong progress is being made by all Australian Government agencies on best practice...

Quarterly Update of Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: September 2013

Quarterly Update of Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: September 2013

Scientists believe the group is one of the last chimp 'mega-cultures', sharing a unique set of customs and behaviour

In one of the most dangerous regions of the planet, against all odds, a huge yet mysterious population of chimpanzees appears to be thriving – for now. Harboured by the remote and pristine forests in the north of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and on the border of the Central African Republic, the chimps were completely unknown until recently – apart from the local legends of giant apes that ate lions and howled at the moon.

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Applications close 5.00 pm AEDT Friday 7 March 2014.

The Minister has approved the listing of a new threatened ecological community: Proteaceae dominated kwongkan shrublands of the southeast coastal floristic province of Western Australia

The 2014 State Party Report is a progress report outlining Australia’s substantial progress in implementing key requests made by the World Heritage Committee, and recommendations of the Reactive Monitoring Mission to the Great Barrier Reef mission report.

Environmentalists are fiercely opposed to controversial pipeline that would carry tar sands oil from Canada to Gulf refineries

What is Keystone XL?

The Keystone XL project would expand an existing pipeline from the vast tar sands of Alberta to refineries in the US Midwest, nearly doubling the initial capacity and transporting crude oil deeper into America to refineries on the Gulf coast of Texas. Its proposed route would stretch about 1,660 miles, connecting Hardisty, Alberta to Port Arthur, Texas. It was first proposed in 2008.

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Photographer Richard Bailey has created an unusual set of portraits of 50 pigeons in honour of Charles Darwin's regard for Columbia livia

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Following a review of the 2013 extension to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, the Australian Government is seeking a minor boundary modification.

Applications close 5.00 pm AEST 20 June 2014.