Straya!

[tattuchu]

So I got ajar of this stuff, of Australian origin

[L'Emmerdeur]

Intriguing. A quote on the aroma of frying with the stuff: 'Like a dog that had been recently cleaned, but still like a dog.'

I wonder if they get any repeat customers, or if it's all simply taking the piss. 'A great gift item!'

[tattuchu]

Intriguing. A quote on the aroma of frying with the stuff: 'Like a dog that had been recently cleaned, but still like a dog.'

I wonder if they get any repeat customers, or if it's all simply taking the piss. 'A great gift item!'

I haven't dared to remove the lid and smell it yet

[Brian Peacock]

Chicken

[pErvinalia]

Straya!

[JimC]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-04/ ... /103282804

Jostling to establish new territories, homes and food sources is prompting Queensland's animal population to be highly active in the wake of heavy rain.

Snakes, crocodiles, cane toads, crown-of-thorns starfish and venomous jellyfish are among creatures on the move.

Dr Christina Zdenek from the University of Queensland's Venom Evolution Lab explained why unusual snake encounters were being reported.

"Extreme rain displaces populations and then individuals re-establish territories, find shelter and find food," Dr Zdenek said.

"Their prey will be more abundant after rain and they will likely boom.

A venom expert who recently appeared in ABC TV's Built to Survive series, Dr Zdenek said more rain made the environment more productive.

"It supports more insects, which then supports the things eating insects, which then supports snakes, predatory birds et cetera," she said.

Our biota likes to kill...

[Brian Peacock]

[JimC]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-04/ ... /103286268

With fangs that could pierce a human fingernail, the largest male specimen of the world's most venomous arachnid — discovered by chance — has found a new home at the Australian Reptile Park, where it will help save lives.

The deadly Sydney funnel-web spider dubbed Hercules was found on the Central Coast of New South Wales and was initially given to a local hospital, the Australian Reptile Park said in a statement Thursday.

Spider experts from the nearby park retrieved it and soon realised it was the largest male specimen ever received from the public in Australia.

The spider measured 7.9 centimetres from foot to foot, surpassing the park's previous record-holder from 2018, the male funnel-web named Colossus.

Sydney funnel-web spiders usually range in length from one to five centimetres, with females being generally larger than their male counterparts, but not as deadly.

They are predominantly found in forested areas and suburban gardens from Sydney, Australia's most populous city, to the coastal city of Newcastle in the north and the Blue Mountains to the west.

[JimC]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-14/ ... /103308842

As part of Victoria mops up from another flood event, the State Emergency Service is again warning people not to drive through floodwaters, with volunteers performing more than 50 swift-water rescues during last week's floods.

Driving into floodwaters remains the leading cause of death during flood events, despite emergency services' constant warnings: "If it's flooded, forget it".

So why do people do it?

I think the answer is pretty clear. Significant numbers of Victorians contain lemming DNA...

[JimC]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-24/ ... /103383064

Researchers say they have confirmed a theory that a flesh-eating bacteria that affected hundreds of Australians last year is being spread from infected possums to humans by mosquito bites.

The bacteria Mycobacterium ulcerans (M. ulcerans) creates toxins that destroy skin cells, blood vessels and fat under the skin, causing the Buruli ulcer.

According to Victoria's health department, the Buruli ulcer often appears as a spot that "looks like a mosquito or spider bite", but grows bigger over days or weeks.

There is usually no fever or other signs of infection, but the ulcer will continue to grow.

[Brian Peacock]

Stop kissing the marsupials Australia.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Mu!

'People once lived in a vast region in north-western Australia – and it had an inland sea'

For much of the 65,000 years of Australia’s human history, the now-submerged northwest continental shelf connected the Kimberley and western Arnhem Land. This vast, habitable realm covered nearly 390,000 square kilometres, an area one-and-a-half times larger than New Zealand is today.

It was likely a single cultural zone, with similarities in ground stone-axe technology, styles of rock art, and languages found by archaeologists in the Kimberley and Arnhem Land.

There is plenty of archaeological evidence humans once lived on continental shelves – areas that are now submerged – all around the world. Such hard evidence has been retrieved from underwater sites in the North Sea, Baltic Sea and Mediterranean Sea, and along the coasts of North and South America, South Africa and Australia.

In a newly published study in Quaternary Science Reviews, we reveal details of the complex landscape that existed on the Northwest Shelf of Australia. It was unlike any landscape found on our continent today.

...

The region contained a mosaic of habitable fresh and saltwater environments. The most salient of these features was the Malita inland sea.

Our projections show it existed for 10,000 years (27,000 to 17,000 years ago), with a surface area greater than 18,000 square kilometres. The closest example in the world today is the Sea of Marmara in Turkey.

...

Our ecological modelling reveals the now-drowned Northwest Shelf could have supported between 50,000 and 500,000 people at various times over the last 65,000 years. The population would have peaked at the height of the last ice age about 20,000 years ago, when the entire shelf was dry land.

This finding is supported by new genetic research indicating large populations at this time, based on data from people living in the Tiwi Islands just to the east of the Northwest Shelf.

At the end of the last ice age, rising sea levels drowned the shelf, compelling people to fall back as waters encroached on once-productive landscapes.

Retreating populations would have been forced together as available land shrank. New rock art styles appeared at this time in both the Kimberley and Arnhem Land.

[Brian Peacock]

Who'd want to live there anyway?

/dutchy

[JimC]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-12/ ... /103455728

A data analysis done by the ABC revealed in 2022-23, Queensland police shot more people than police in the rest of Australia combined.

Watch out, mac! And rEv, they might cross the border!

[macdoc]

we're in Queensland