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Life & Environment

Fly

Scientists find the secret to swatting flies

Friday, 29 August 2008

Using high-speed video footage, bioengineers have discovered the key to the evasive manoeuvrability of flies – and found the best strategy for swatting them.


vines

Most plants are left-handed, study says

Friday, 29 August 2008

Over 90 per cent of vines twist anti-clockwise, according to a massive Australian study of plants in 75 locations from Zambia to Patagonia.


Cows

Cows line up to Earth's magnetic field

Wednesday, 27 August 2008

Wondering which way is north? You might want to look at grazing cows.


Parthenon

Parthenon yields clues to quake-proof design

Monday, 25 August 2008

Japanese scientists will next month look into seismic resistance secrets in the design of the 2,500-year-old Parthenon which has withstood scores of quakes.


RedDetect

GM plants detect landmines and turn red

Friday, 22 August 2008

Genetically-modified plants that turn red when they grow in the presence of explosives are being trailed for their effectiveness to detect landmines.


Grueneberg ganglion

Mammals emit smell to signal danger

Friday, 22 August 2008

A new study proves that mammals can communicate danger to each other through smell, and reveals exactly how they do it.


Birds

Birds can't keep up with climate change

Thursday, 21 August 2008

The habitats of wild bird species are shifting in response to global warming, but not fast enough to keep pace with rising temperatures, according to a study.


A red blood cell infected with malaria

'Oscars' of science honour Australia's top scientists

Wednesday, 20 August 2008

A Sydney-based scientist with a new hypothesis on human obesity, based on his research into swarming locusts, has taken one of the top prizes at this year’s Eureka Awards


Foraging ants

Simple rules smooth traffic on ant highways

Thursday, 14 August 2008

Biologists are learning that ants have an increasingly large number of inbuilt rules which govern their behaviour on foraging trails, and which could offer clues to better control human crowds.


Elephant seal

Seals offer glimpse under Antarctic ice

Wednesday, 13 August 2008

Huge elephant seals have been recruited to help Australian scientists break through a critical blind spot and chart climate change under the Antarctic sea ice in winter.


Protemnodon skull

Tasmanian fossils finger humans in extinction whodunit

Tuesday, 12 August 2008

The fossilised teeth of a giant kangaroo from Tasmania may confirm once and for all that humans, and not climate change, pushed Australia's large prehistoric marsupials to extinction.


Kangaroos

Kangaroo meat: much better for environment

Monday, 11 August 2008

Skippy could be increasingly on the menu following a new report that expanding the kangaroo industry would significantly cut Australian greenhouse gases.


Leatherback turtle hatchlings

Deep mystery: why turtles plumb the depths

Friday, 8 August 2008

Biologists have figured out why sea turtles that normally feed and breed in shallow water or on land will, very rarely, go deep sea diving.


Eucalypt forests

Australian trees have secret stash of carbon

Thursday, 7 August 2008

Australia's native forests may be storing three times more carbon than previously thought, a new report says.


Exhaust fumes

'Air-purifying' concrete sucks up pollution

Thursday, 7 August 2008

A road in a small Dutch town is to be paved with air-purifying concrete in a trial that could lead to a new method to fight exhaust pollution.