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A wheelchair in the shearing shed and breaking in brumbies
The Silent Forest: Pangolins
Three NSW fisheries - Agency application 2017
US solar plant costs fall another 30 per cent in just one year
Scientists use light to purge defects from solar cells
The night heron: at home on the Somerset Levels
Devastated land, scarred by peat digging, has been transformed into suitable habitats for birds unfamiliar to the UK
The news that night herons had bred in Britain for the first time barely registered on the ornithological Richter scale. Perhaps this was because it happened on the Somerset Levels, the UK’s new hotspot for long-legged wading birds.
Over the past couple of decades, first little egret, then little bittern, great white and cattle egrets, and now night herons, have flown across the Channel. Many ended up on the Somerset Levels, liked what they saw, and settled down here. Meanwhile, bitterns came over from East Anglia, while cranes were given a helping hand from us, via a reintroduction scheme. Now that we can see five or six of these exotic newcomers in a day, we have become rather blase about them.
Continue reading...How palm trees stand tall in the face of a hurricane
As Hurricane Irma battered the Caribbean, trees aerodynamically adapted to strong winds stood firm
When Storm Aileen ripped across the UK last week the worst of the winds brought down trees, snapped off branches and shredded leaves, made worse because the trees were in full leaf and caught the wind like a sail. Compare that with the palm trees that stood up to Hurricane Irma’s immensely stronger winds, which would have torn British trees to shreds. The palm trees simply bent over at crazy angles and then bounced back again.
Related: Scaling up our response to super-hurricanes
Continue reading...Curious Kids: What happens if a venomous snake bites another snake of the same species?
Scientists usually use the word "venomous" rather than "poisonous" when they're talking about snakes. Flickr/Sirenz Lorraine, CC BYThis is an article from Curious Kids, a series for children. The Conversation is asking kids to send in questions they’d like an expert to answer. All questions are welcome – serious, weird or wacky!
If a lethally poisonous snake bites another lethally poisonous snake of the same species does the bitten snake suffer healthwise or die? – Ella, age 10, Wagga Wagga.
Hi Ella,
That’s a great question.
If a venomous snake is bitten by another venomous snake of the same species, (for example during a fight or mating), then it will not be affected.
However, if a snake is bitten by a venomous snake of another species, it probably will be affected.
This is probably because snakes have evolved to be immune to venom from their own species, because bites from mates or rivals of the same species probably happen fairly often.
But a snake being regularly bitten by another snake from a different species? It’s unlikely that would happen very often, so snakes haven’t really had a chance to develop immunity to venom from other species.
Read more: Guam’s forests are being slowly killed off – by a snake
Scientists often collect venom from snakes to create anti-venoms.
Kalyan Varma/Wikimedia
Snakes can break down venom in the stomach
Many people believe that snakes are immune to their own venom so that they don’t get harmed when eating an animal it has just injected full of venom.
But in fact, they don’t need to be immune. Scientists have found that special digestive chemicals in the stomachs of most vertebrates (animals with backbones) break down snake venom very quickly. So the snake’s stomach can quickly deal with the venom in the animal it just ate before it has a chance to harm the snake.
People that have snakes as pets often see this. If one venomous snake bites a mouse and injects venom into it, for example, you can then feed that same dead mouse to another snake. The second snake won’t die.
Read more: Curious Kids: How do snakes make an ‘sssssss’ sound with their tongue poking out?
The eastern brown snake, which is found in Australia, is one of the most venomous snakes in the world.
Flickr/Justin Otto, CC BY
The difference between venom and poison
By the way, scientists usually use the word “venomous” rather than “poisonous” when they’re talking about snakes. Many people often mix those words up. Poisons need to be ingested or swallowed to be dangerous, while venoms need to be injected via a bite or a sting.
Some snakes can inject their toxins into their prey, which makes them venomous. However, there seem to be a couple of snake species that eat frogs and can store the toxins from the frogs in their body. This makes them poisonous if the snake’s body is eaten. Over time, many other animals will have learned that it is not safe to eat those snakes, so this trick helps keep them safe.
Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to us. You can:
* Email your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au
* Tell us on Twitter by tagging @ConversationEDU with the hashtag #curiouskids, or
* Tell us on Facebook
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Please tell us your name, age and which city you live in. You can send an audio recording of your question too, if you want. Send as many questions as you like! We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.
Jamie Seymour does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.
Top Trump officials signal US could stay in Paris climate agreement
Secretary of state Rex Tillerson and national security adviser HR McMaster both indicated the US is open to negotiations on staying in the accord
Senior Trump administration officials on Sunday signalled a further softening of America’s resolve to leave the Paris climate accord, amid signs that the issue will be discussed at the United Nations general assembly in New York this week.
Secretary of state Rex Tillerson and national security adviser HR McMaster both indicated that the US is open to negotiations on staying in the landmark international agreement to limit mankind’s role in global warming.
Continue reading...How regulators could kill off Australia's water recycling industry
A world-leading system in Sydney’s Central Park precinct helps residents reuse up to 97% of their water. But a pricing change threatens future schemes
In the basement of a Sydney housing development is the world’s largest water recycling plant in a residential building.
Normal apartments put more than 90% of the water they consume back into the sewer. But thanks to the recycling plant, units in Central Park, built on the site of the old Carlton brewery close to the CBD, return just 3%.
Continue reading...Beware nuclear industry’s fake news on being emissions free | Letters
I wholeheartedly agree with much of your editorial (14 September), as the economics of new nuclear is weaker than ever at a time when renewables are coming in cheaper year on year. You point out the crisis in the funding of renewables and we could not agree more. The UK desperately needs to reboot financial support for decentralised energy in order to maximise long-term benefits for all. Councils, in particular, are calling for the restoration of feed-in tariffs and other support that has been instrumental in the creation of innovative, local, low-carbon energy schemes, Passivhaus-accredited buildings, and energy efficiency programmes for dealing with the scourge of fuel poverty.
While the dramatic cost reductions in offshore wind are to be welcomed, it has to be joined with renewed support for decentralised energy projects, approval for tidal energy schemes and the resumption of support for solar and onshore wind. The government must see that the energy landscape has changed dramatically. An energy review and reboot is urgently required.
Cllr David Blackburn
Vice-chair, UK and Ireland Nuclear Free Authorities
Agriculture holds the key to unlocking Africa’s vast economic potential | Letters
Only the final paragraph in your article on cocoa farming causing deforestation in Ivory Coast (Forests pay price for world’s taste for cocoa, 14 September) mentioned the most fundamental thing – the farmer’s livelihood, or lack of it. The low value of his (or more likely her) crop is undoubtedly the cause of this problem. But cocoa farming could also provide the solution.
Recently, I was in Ivory Coast for the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) in Abidjan. It united many different parties – governments, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), private sector agribusiness like Syngenta, Bayer and OCP, Rabobank and the World Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They are united in one firm belief: that agriculture holds the key to unlocking Africa’s economic potential – 41 million smallholders on a fertile continent that grows every crop imaginable.
Continue reading...Press regulator censures Mail on Sunday for global warming claims
Mail on Sunday criticised by Ipso for article claiming global warming data had been exaggerated to win Paris climate change agreement
Claims in the Mail on Sunday that global warming data had been exaggerated in order to secure the Paris climate change agreement have been criticised by the UK’s press regulator.
The Independent Press Standards Organisation censured the newspaper for publishing a story in early February that was flawed in key aspects. The news story suggested that data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), one of the world’s gold-standard sources of weather and climate research, had been treated in such a way as to suggest greater warming than had really occurred.
Continue reading...Nancy Hatch Dupree obituary
Nancy Hatch Dupree, who has died aged 89, was an American archivist, writer and champion of Afghanistan’s culture and its people, who defied communists, fundamentalists, warlords and foreign invaders over nearly five decades in Kabul.
Her most important legacy is an archive documenting some of the darkest periods of Afghan history: turbulent years of civil war and Taliban rule that many would happily have let slide into obscurity. The documents are housed in the Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University, established in 2006 and one of the city’s most impressive post-Taliban buildings, inspired by traditional architecture and a reflection of Nancy and her husband Louis Dupree’s love of Afghan culture.
Continue reading...How killer flies have the fastest vision of any animal
The 'miracle pill': how cycling could save the NHS
Cycling can make people healthy and live longer, and cut public health costs, so why can’t it be prescribed to the nation?
Imagine if a team of scientists devised a drug which massively reduced people’s chances of developing cancer or heart disease, cutting their overall likelihood of dying early by 40%. This would be front page news worldwide, a Nobel prize as good as in the post.
That drug is already here, albeit administered in a slightly different way: it’s called cycling to work. One of the more puzzling political questions is why it is so rarely prescribed on a population-wide level.
Continue reading...The eco guide to ancient grains
Selective breeding gives the highest yield, but potentially at a price. It’s time to go back to our roots
If you find the whole business of organic too tame, there’s always landrace crops, which are positively subversive. Landrace crop varieties (sometimes known as folk crops) are ancient versions of the standardised crops we rely on today. Genetically variable, these biodiverse cultivars are allowed to grow at will and to cross pollinate. Farmers collect the seeds from successful crops and these become the parents of next year’s varieties. Simple.
If this sounds primitive (it is in fact Neolithic), it makes much more sense than modern agriculture, which is reliant on selective breeds that are addicted to fertilisers. The idea is that the selective breeds give the highest yield when conditions are good. This is a terrible strategy in an era of climate change when conditions are not ideal. Modern agriculture has wiped out almost all original genetic diversity. Ancient cultivars of wheat are used for straw or shoved into seed banks. Proponents of the Real Green Movement want them released into the soil.
Continue reading...Paris climate deal: US denies it will stay in accord
Fishing for better food solutions
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