Yabbies eat kangaroos in the name of science

Yabbies are well-fed at ANSTO (Photo credit: www.ctpetclub.com)

To find out who eats what in wetland ecosystems, ANSTO scientists have been feeding some very lucky yabbies a strict diet of kangaroo and lamb. Weird, I know, but I explain why in my article on the ANSTO website.

Climate change stunts your growth - if you're an Antarctic moss

A juvenile fur seal reclines on coastal moss in Secluded Bay, Antarctica. Photo credit: Rob Brandle (www.antarctica.gov.au)

While the fur pup can't help being the star of this picture, the mosses underneath the seal can live for more than 100 years.

Read my article on the ANSTO website to find out why Antarctic mosses can be used to monitor changes in climate.

Humans linked to extinction of megafauna in Tasmania

Source: http://rhamphotheca.tumblr.com/post/14491093518/a-marsupial-lion-thylacoleo-carnifex-chases-down


In the picture above, a marsupial lion chases down giant kangaroos (Protemnodon sp.) during the pleistocene epoch of Australia.


Marsupial lions may not have been the only hunters of giant kangaroos and other megafauna, with new evidence suggesting that Tasmanian megafauna became extinct soon after humans arrived from the Australian mainland. Read more about it in my article here on the ANSTO website.

They found a Higgs what?

I'm no physicist, so when I heard this afternoon that scientists had used the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland to find the Higgs Boson, I immediately looked for some explanation of this that I could understand.

This video cartoon by Jorge Cham (of PhD Comics fame) is pretty good - at the very least, I now feel like I have some idea of what's going on now!



The Higgs Boson Explained from PHD Comics on Vimeo.

UNSW - now smoke-free!

With the usual controversy that surrounds new smoking restrictions, UNSW became a smoke-free environment on July 1, 2012.

Smokers must now go to one of four designated smoking areas on campus to light up, allowing non-smoking staff and students to breathe more easily. I spoke with Professor Nick Zwar, an academic in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at UNSW, about the new restrictions. Read more in my article here.