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Two young aerial photographers filmed a pod of orcas off Bremer Bay on the south coast of Western Australia. Jampal Williamson said the orcas moved so fast they were difficult to film. Williamson and his friend Michael Goetze are using drones to capture different perspectives of WA for their aerial photography project, Salty Wings

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INFERTILITY CLUES: Crocodile sperm is more like human sperm than scientists previously thought, according to new research that could help in the search for causes of male human infertility.

HUNGER GENE: Scientists have pinpointed a fault in a gene that should turn off hunger signals in Labrador retrievers making the dogs more inclined to become food obsessed.

Transport secretary urged to commit to timetable in light of Airports Commission report backing third runway

Delaying a decision on a third runway has “squandered the opportunity” to act on evidence and expand Heathrow, a cross-party committee of MPs said as it called on the government to commit to a clear timetable.

The Commons transport select committee described ministerial claims of progress in the decision-making process as “illusory” and demanded that the transport secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, make clear what the outstanding areas of contention were.

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The Middle East, north Africa, central Asia and south Asia due to suffer biggest economic hit from water scarcity as climate change takes hold, report finds

Water shortages will deliver a “severe hit” to the economies of the Middle East, central Asia, and Africa by the middle of the century, taking double digits off their GDP, the World Bank warned on Tuesday.

By 2050, growing demand for cities and for agriculture would put water in short supply in regions where it is now plentiful – and worsen shortages across a vast swath of Africa and Asia, spurring conflict and migration, the bank said.

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Break free and join the biggest global action against fossil fuel companies the world has ever seen

An interesting question is, what are you waiting for?

Global warming is the biggest problem we’ve ever faced as a civilisation — certainly you want to act to slow it down, but perhaps you’ve been waiting for just the right moment.

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April 2016

Bohdan Dorniak - Director of Bohdan Dorniak & Co Architects.

Bohdan Dorniak is the Director of Bohdan Dorniak & Co Architects, an Adelaide based architectural practice, established in 1989 and designing buildings that are sensitive to the environment and energy efficient. With a client-centered approach which respects the client’s wishes, needs, budgetary constraints and lifestyle, further consideration is given to energy demands and ongoing building efficiency and sustainability. Bohdan has extensive experience designing strawbale building, with a number of projects in completed and in progress around the state. He is also one of the founding members of Ausbale - Straw Bale Building: Australia & New Zealand

Cast: AdelaideSBN

Hundreds of activists take control of vast site and bring operations to a halt as part of a coordinated global direct action against fossil fuel companies

Hundreds of environmental activists have invaded the UK’s largest opencast coalmine and halted operations across the vast site.

Dressed in red boiler suits, groups of protesters crossed barbed wire fences to gain access to Ffos-y-fran mine near Merthyr Tydfil in south Wales. Some chained themselves to machinery, others lay across access roads.

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Environment Portfolio Budget Statements 2016-17

April 2016

Klara Marosszeky - Managing Director of Australian Hemp Masonry Company

Klara Marosszeky has been involved in the Australian Hemp industry for 16 years in both the farming and construction sectors. Beginning with agronomic research on 2ha in Wollombi in the NSW Hunter Valley in 1999, she has grown hemp for fibre on dryland as well as irrigated farms in several regions of NSW and since 2006 she has worked with seed breeders, farmers and processors around Australia.
Her research at the Australian Centre for Construction Innovation at UNSW between 2000 and 2006, resulted in the development of the low embodied energy, BCA compliant Hemp Lime building materials that the Australian Hemp Masonry Company has now supplied into 42 builds in Australia as well as into Singapore's first zero-energy public building. Klara is a qualified workplace assessor and provides training and information to architects, building designers, builders and owner builders. Her goal is to consolidate regional supply of Australian hemp for carbon neutral construction. She is the President of the recently formed Australian Industrial Hemp Alliance and Secretary of Northern River Hemp Inc.

Cast: AdelaideSBN

Tags: green buildings, hemp, hempcrete, hemp masonry, natural building materials, sustainable building, sustainable design and sustainability

The 2.42-metre whale washed up on Lake Tyers beach and authorities suspect it could be rare species spotted only 17 times since records began in Australia

A rare dwarf sperm whale that has been spotted only 17 times since records began in Australia may have washed up on a Victorian beach, local authorities have said.

The 2.42-metre whale died after becoming stranded on Lake Tyers beach in Gippsland, about 330km east of Melbourne, on Saturday.

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GREAT MOMENTS IN SCIENCE: What would it be like to only live in the moment? Or to relive the past over and over again? Dr Karl explores the extreme range of memory.

ULTRACOOL DISCOVERY: Astronomers have discovered three planets orbiting the habitable zone of an ultracool dwarf star just 40 light-years from Earth.

New studies suggest that the weather in far off Greenland, one of the fastest warming parts of the Earth, is affecting the rainfall patterns in Britain. This is linked to the extremely wet summers of 2007 and 2012.

Sheffield University, checking data back to 1851, found that since the 1980s there has been an increase in the number of summer high pressure blocking systems that become anchored over this vast island ice sheet. The result has been to drag warm air over Greenland causing melting on a much-increased scale.

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Footage from a live web camera nest shows bald eagles serving up a cat to eaglets – but the Audubon Society determines dead cat was not preyed upon

Cat owners have been warned of the dangers their feline companions face when venturing outdoors after video emerged of bald eagles feasting on the body of a dead cat near Pittsburgh.

Footage from a live web camera mounted at the Hays bald eagle nest, located a few miles from the center of Pittsburgh, showed the eagles serving up the cat to hungry eaglets. Concerned cat owners bombarded the local Audubon Society about why the eagles had preyed upon the cat.

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While Europe was deep in the Dark Ages, Asia’s Tang Empire was the richest and most powerful political unit in the world. Benjamin Law looks at treasures from the golden age of China alongside latest art world innovations at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Pure Land: inside the Mogao Grottoes at Dunhuang (2012/16), created by Sarah Kenderdine and Jeffrey Shaw at City University Hong Kong in partnership with the Dunhuang Academy. Installed for Tang: 唐 treasures from the Silk Road capital by the Laboratory for Innovation in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums, University of New South Wales

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National eNews - Rapid transition to low carbon economy, Engineering in a +2C world, Limits, Risks, Education

This statement provides an overview on carp in the Murray-Darling Basin, current efforts to manage the species and the role of the Commonwealth environmental water.

Government’s failure to tackle health and safety issues, food poisoning and pollution leading to ‘largely avoidable’ deaths, says thinktank

Thousands of people are dying each year because of the government’s failure to tackle food poisoning, health and safety breaches and pollution, a thinktank is warning.

A new report from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (CCJS) claims that lax regulation and weak enforcement are failing to hold businesses in check and are tantamount to state-facilitated “social murder”.

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The purple emperor and chequered skipper await, whether you just fancy a flutter or metamorphose into a full-blown spotter

The purple emperor butterfly, a rather eccentric 1950s schoolmaster called Ian Heslop once declared, is the ultimate “big game”. A renowned collector, he boasted of catching as many emperors as he had shot elephants (four) but said that no exotic African beast gave him “so much joy as the seeing of my first emperor safely in the net”.

It is no longer acceptable to shoot elephants or catch purple emperors but Heslop was on to something – the overlooked adrenal pleasure of a butterfly safari. Chasing butterflies, to photograph or simply to enjoy, may seem like a whimsical pastime but can be surprisingly thrilling.

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