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The CSIRO Marine Research facility maintains an active collection of microalgae cultures for the purposes of both scientific research and commercial purposes.
CSIRO established its Plant Pathology Laboratory in Canberra in 1930 at the Division of Plant Industry. Researchers there studied crops such as tobacco, wheat, tomatoes, apples and bananas.
This scanning electron micrograph shows a frozen intact zoosphore and sporangia of the chytridfungus -- one of the most deadly threats to Australian frogs. It was only discovered in 1993 on dead and dying frogs in Queensland, but research since then has revealed that the fungus has been present in the country since at least 1978, and is widespread across the continent.
No prizes for guessing where this magnificent crustacean gets its name. The most abundant of the rock lobster species that inhabit Australian waters, the ornate rock lobster has an incredible migratory pattern, as discovered by the CSIRO. Every year, lobsters at least two years old travel hundreds of kilometres across the Torres Strait to breeding grounds in the Gulf of Papua -- after which they never return, seemingly disappearing.
The Australian National Fish Collection, housed in the CSIRO Marine Laboratories in Hobart, is one of the most comprehensive and important reference collections in Australia, containing some 150,000 specimens from nearly 3000 species found in Australasian, Asian, Antarctic and sub-Antarctic waters, as well as a massive collection of photographs and X-rays. The specimen pictured above, preserved using a 70 percent ethanol solution, is a species of bathypelagic anglerfish.
This spiky fellow lives in the waters south of Tasmania on seamounts in the Coral Sea and Tasman Sea -- underwater mountains formed from extinct volcanoes. They have been largely left alone for thousands of years, but in recent years, deep-water trawling expeditions have been targeting seamounts looking for deep-sea fish, threatening the seamount habitats.
Protein crystals undergoing X-ray crystallography, a technique that examines how light diffracts from crystals to determine their chemical bonds, atom size, disorder and other information.
Arachnophobe warning: the next four images are of spiders. If you don't like spiders, skip ahead.
The Goddefroy's wolf spider is common in open areas, paddocks, grasslands and gardens across Australia. They look a bit scary, but are relatively harmless, living in silk-lined burrows in the ground and hunting for prey at night. They will rear up if provoked, but their bite is mild, producing at most some nausea and headache. The mother will carry her egg sac around with her, and, upon hatching, the spiderlings will ride on her abdomen for a few days before dispersing to live their own lives. You can see another image of this mother and her babies here.
The striking redback spider -- so named for the red streak on the abdomen of the female -- is a little less benign. They prefer warm environments, so will gravitate towards human residences, and their bite is venomous to humans, causing nausea, vomiting, headache and agitation. Since the development of the redback antivenom in 1956, though, there have been no deaths directly related to the redback bite.
The huntsman spider looks a lot scarier than it is. They are large and fuzzy and have sideways-jointed limbs that give them speed when they are hunting prey -- mostly insects and other invertebrates. They do not build webs, but live in dark crevices, and tend to avoid confrontation with humans, biting only in defense. Their venom is also mild, and usually does not require hospital treatment.
This is the one you have to watch out for. The Australian funnel web -- named for the funnel-shaped homes it builds -- is one of the deadliest spiders in the world, with the male's venom (pictured) considerably more dangerous than the female's. Males tend to wander around in the warmer months looking for females, and are aggressive when threatened. They're also found frequently around human habitation; however, only 13 recorded deaths have occurred from funnel web bites in the last 100 years, and none since the introduction of the antivenom in 1981.
Every spring, the bogong moth migrates, travelling from northern New South Wales and Southern Queensland to the alps of Victoria to hide in cool caves for the summer. Every autumn, they fly back again. These migratory patterns and winds sometimes land them in towns and cities; every year, for example, the Australian Parliament House becomes infested with the insects, which lose their way due to the city lights. In fact, one new Canberra building, all brightly lit, once became so full of bogongs, the lifts couldn't operate. Australia, where even something as goofy-sounding as "bogong" can be a massive problem.
In Central Australia, a massive outcropping of sandstone rises from the desert landscape. This is the iconic Uluru, sacred to the Aṉaŋu people, listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and one of Australia's most beloved and recognisable landmarks. It stands 348m (1,142 ft) high, and is surrounded by caves, springs and waterholes, making it an unusual haven for wildlife on the otherwise flat plain.
Most of Australia is desert, but that doesn't mean it's devoid of life. However, rainfall is low in the middle of the continent: Central Australia in the Northern Territory gets just 150mm of rain per year.
Spinifex grass growing in the Western Australian desert, near the town of Paraburdoo.
CSIRO does a lot of work with bees. Earlier this year, it announced a project to use tiny RFID tags to track bees' movements in the hopes of figuring out whether that plays a part in colony collapse. The organisation is also participating in the Honey Bee Genome Sequencing Project. As part of this project, CSIRO researchers discovered that the proteins in bee silk are small and non-repetitive -- unlike the silk of spiders and silkworms -- which means it is more compatible with artificial production.
After millennia of fire hunts, much of Australia's bushlands now require fire in order to propagate -- seed pods, for example, that won't open except under intense heat, or the highly flammable oils in eucalyptus leaves that encourage fire, eliminating competition from other, less hardy flora. Every year, the threat of deadly fires loom during the hotter months.
The challenge for CSIRO is how to manage the fires carefully and safely. This means conducting experiments to see how fire can best be managed -- using different fuels, for example, and the safest times of year to conduct controlled burns. In this grassfire experiment, CSIRO researchers examined the way the fire burned in order to better predict grassland fire behaviour.
The Division of Computing Research at the University of Adelaide takes delivery of a brand new CDC 3200 computer via crane.
The new CDC 3200 computer being installed at the CSIRO Division of Computing Research, circa 1970. The CSIRO used the CDC 3200 to set up one of Australia's first computer networks, providing a scientific computing service across all its divisions -- and, of course, the organisation used it for computing research.
The flightless cassowary is only a little smaller than the ostrich and the emu, reaching up to 2m tall -- but it's a whole boatload meaner. It has strong legs, a powerful kick and a very sharp middle claw, and most attacks come from cassowaries that have been fed by humans -- the cassowaries will get impatient and aggressive. However, only one human death from cassowary attack has been recorded -- a 16-year-old boy in 1926 who fell to the ground and took a kick to the neck.
It is not known why the cassowary has a crest on its head, known as a casque. Some believe it is used to bash a path through underbrush; another hypothesis suggests it amplifies sound.
The cassowary is an endangered species in its native northern Australia.
The rainbow lorikeet, with its brilliantly coloured plumage all colours of the rainbow, is perhaps the most beautiful of the Australian parrots. They're also monogamous and mate for life. Awww.
Laser diagnostics is used to conduct highly detailed and accurate measurements of flow fields in gas and liquids, alongside particulate flows. CSIRO's laser diagnostics equipment includes Laser Doppler Velocimetry, to measure gas and particle velocities; Phase Doppler Particle Anemometry for simultaneously measuring particle velocities and particle sizes; Particle Image Velocimetry for instantaneous velocity measurements of entire flow fields; and Particle/Droplet Image Analysis for detailed sizing of particles and droplets alongside velocity measurements.
CSIRO has over 4000 videos and images in its archives. You can take a look for yourself on the CSIRO Science Image website.
EXCLUSIVE: Writer Sascha Penn has landed 2 premium script deals: one at Fox for Unknown, a drama with Brett Ratner attached to executive produce, and one at the CW for Confessions of a Back-Up Dancer with Marcos Siega attached to direct and produce. The CW pact is now being finalized.
Unknown is described as an action series in the vein of The Fugitive that follows a man on a journey to discover who he really is. Penn wrote it on spec, which Martha Haight, president of Rat TV, took to Bert Salke, the recently appointed president of 20th TV’s division Fox21. Fox21 is producing the Fox project, which is eyed to film abroad, possibly in China. Ratner is executive producing with Penn serving as co-exec producer.
Confessions of a Back-Up Dancer, from Warner Bros. TV and Alloy Entertainment, is an adaptation of Alloy’s young adult novel by Tucker Shaw. Penn is writing the project, which explores the glamorous and gritty behind-the-scenes world of a major pop tour from the point of view of the star’s troupe of backing dancers. The show’s producing team includes Alloy’s Les Morgenstein and Gina Girolamo, Penn and Siega. This is the second consecutive year that CW, Warner Bros. and Alloy are developing a series adaptation of Confessions. Last year, it was written by The L Word creator Ilene Chaiken and didn’t go to pilot. Siega, who directed the pilot for CW’s Vampire Diaries and was a producer on the show’s first season, now serves as co-executive producer/director on the new NBC drama series Outlaw. Penn wrote two pilot scripts in the past couple of seasons, both with Doug Liman and Dutch Oven on board. On the feature side, last year he sold the feature sci-fi prison break spec The Ditch to Warner Bros. with Madhouse Entertainment producing. Penn and Ratner are repped by CAA. Penn is managed by Madhouse. Siega is with Gersh.
trade war between Washington and Beijing pressured prices.
Corn edged lower, while wheat also fell.
after closing up 0.2 percent on Thursday.
heading for their biggest monthly fall in seven months.
tonnes of U.S. soybeans for shipment this summer.
normal pace as steep tariffs imposed by Beijing remain in place.
$3.73-1/2 a bushel after closing little changed on Thursday.
posting losses of 11 percent last month.
Gamecocks struggling to fill seats … and with good reason.
There is fierce debate over the trajectory of the University of South Carolina football program under head coach Will Muschamp.
The 47-year-old native of Rome, Georgia – who recently completed his third season at the helm of Gamecock Nation – appeared to be on track after inheriting a program in shambles following the decline of former head coach Steve Spurrier, who inexplicably fell asleep at the switch following his three 11-win seasons.
Muschamp guided the Gamecocks to nine wins during his second season and appeared poised for a breakthrough year in 2018 … but it didn’t happen.
South Carolina ended up taking a huge step backward last year, slogging through a deflating 7-6 campaign that was punctuated by an embarrassing shutout loss to ACC also-ran Virginia in the Belk Bowl.
Looking ahead, the 2019 schedule offers little room for improvement – with matchups looming against postseason No. 1 Clemson, No. 2 Alabama, No. 6/7 Florida, No. 7/8 Georgia, No. 11/12 Kentucky and No. 16 Texas A&M.
Yeah … good luck with that, Gamecocks.
While there will be plenty of time to debate the “right direction” versus “wrong track” question when spring practice commences, one metric that is not in dispute is “butts in seats” – or in this case, butts not in seats.
Add it all up, and the Gamecocks averaged 73,628 fans per game last year – down 4,958 fans per game (or 6.3 percent) from 2017’s total of 78,586 and down 8,773 fans per game (or 10.6 percent) from 2013’s total of 82,401.
Obviously, 2018’s total was adversely impacted by the cancellation of a home game scheduled for September 15 against Marshall – but the numbers were trending downward even before the sparsely attended makeup game against Akron was played on December 1.
Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, S.C. has an official capacity of 82,500, although it has exceeded this total on at least a dozen occasions in the past (most recently against Georgia on September 8).
Also, it is important to remember these are announced crowds. The actual crowds, on average, clock in at an estimated 78 percent of the announced total – or at least that is what school officials claimed during the 2017 season (the national average was 71 percent, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal). Assuming that percentage were applied to 2018, the Gamecocks would have drawn only 57,429 fans per game.
Make no mistake: This isn’t just South Carolina. This is a national phenomenon. Attendance at college football games is down across the nation, although South Carolina’s top SEC East rival – Georgia – sold out every one of its home games in 2018 at Sanford Stadium, drawing a whopping 92,746 per contest.
Given the marquee matchups on tap this year – including home games against Alabama, Kentucky, Florida and Clemson – we have no doubt attendance at Williams-Brice Stadium will bounce back in 2019 (even if the Gamecocks do not improve on the field). If attendance doesn’t tick up, though, it will likely mean the product on the field has deteriorated further … which would mean Muschamp is likely facing his second straight “four-and-out” as a head coach.
Lest anyone forget, Bill Cosby is still a comic.
"I'm going down there to make people laugh," he told The Root, a few days prior to a mid-January performance for a North Carolina audience that is paying to hear Cosby's comedy.
From his Massachusetts home, he was winding down an almost hourlong conversation in which he mentioned his newest book of humor, I Didn't Ask to Be Born (but I'm Glad I Was), but mainly continued his unabashed critique of what ails some parts of black America, which has put Cosby in the headlines and, with certain critics, in hot water.
"These are liniment salesmen," he said, dismissing the critics, including some fairly famous black ones. "They're selling things for their own good. It doesn't make any difference [to the salesmen] if people are getting well or not."
His public pointedness about the travails of black people, who account for some of the worst statistical markers of life in America, is no different from what many a black preacher says on any given Sunday. It's what an average black person on the block routinely says to a neighbor, Cosby said.
For his own part, he has been disavowing black-on-black crime, lambasting disproportionately low black academic performance and workplace strides, and the failure of some blacks to call black dysfunction what it is and then set out to correct it.
"I don't know how many decades ago it was, but I remember Jesse Jackson saying 'babies having babies' … We really did not address the psychology of this. We were busy trying not to offend the teenager, to scar the teenager for life," Cosby said.
Until an uptick in 2006, the black teen birth rate (pdf) had declined by 45 percent during the prior decade. But babies born to black teens, along with Latino teens, still disproportionately outpace the figure for whites. The manifold consequences of these facts are staring black America in its face right now, Cosby said.
His 75th birthday is in July. Aging, life experience and his involvement in various public endeavors — whether as a barrier-breaking, Emmy-winning TV producer or as a philanthropist — have heightened his determination to speak up. Though several prominent commentators have accused Cosby of blaming a black underclass for its troubles, the comedian said, his dead-on tackling of those issues is part of a longer-standing black tradition.
"As a child, if you do something that doesn't match up with what you were being disciplined to do, you hear somebody say, 'You know, I worry about you sometimes.' It was their way of asking, 'Is this child really going to be able to make it in life, or is he as crazy as he's acting right now?' " said Cosby, born to native Virginians and reared in a public housing project in Philadelphia.
"The key word was 'sometimes,' " added Cosby, as he rolled out those classic admonitions from his own childhood. The fuller sentiment suggested that, with loving support and correction, even a misbehaving child might have a solid adulthood.
He continued: "But I'm telling you that I'm worried and very, very concerned today when a mother, speaking about the son being in jail, says, 'I'm happy. He's in a safe place.' You cannot take that casually."
That mother's assertion is emblematic of the powerlessness, surrender and defeat explored in Come On, People, a 2007 tome co-authored by Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Dr. Alvin Poussaint and Cosby, who earned a doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts in 1976. Come On, People, released after Cosby's various May 2004 observations about poor blacks drew a backlash, takes on the lack of black self-empowerment and related topics.
Some commentators argued that his strident observations lacked empathy. Some faulted him for airing blacks' "dirty laundry."
"The dirty laundry is reported with the murders," Cosby said. "I want the murders stopped. I want the children stopped from dropping out on their education … If you cannot read or write, you're going to wind up having difficulty getting a job. You'll find yourself being of low value to yourself."
That fight was against a different "enemy," he said. "Governors, mayors, presidents, secretaries of state" and, broadly, Jim Crow.
Black people led the charge that undid Jim Crow, and that's an essential lesson, Cosby said. That history is so important to him that he notes in his book some who helped make it. The name of civil rights icon Dorothy Height is the first on the acknowledgments page of I Didn't Ask to Be Born.
"John Hope Franklin … Write his name down," he said, adding the noted historian to his own short list of important blacks.
Cosby's proclamations these days are grounded in his hope for black America, he said. "I'm optimistic because there are people out there working. I'm working and working."
He mentioned a project to keep young blacks out of jail in New Haven, Conn., which has one of the nation's highest black-on-black murder rates. He's glad that one of two young black men he recently met through that program is making his way forward. The other is back in prison.
The comedian also highlighted a recent trip to Greenwood, Miss., where, he said, historically black Rust College is still molding minds, but the black businesses that once thrived nearby have largely disappeared.
"People will say to me your words are very harsh," Cosby said. "They're certainly not as harsh as a [drug dealer] shooting another [drug dealer] boy and blowing his brains out over [territory]. Not as harsh as the stray bullet that paralyzes a 9-year-old child playing somewhere … This is not a prediction anybody could see coming."
Changing the situation demands a concerted, communal effort, Cosby said.
"Yes, Obama runs for president and people jump up and want to vote. But [many of them] don't vote for the mayor or the dogcatcher and the school superintendent," Cosby said. "We want more activism, so the people take charge in the neighborhood. As I've been saying, the revolution starts in your own house."
Katti Gray is a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based freelance writer.
David O. Russell (Three Kings, The Fighter) has been set to write and direct Columbia Pictures’ Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, an action-adventure based upon the best-selling PlayStation 3 game, it was announced today by Doug Belgrad and Matt Tolmach, presidents of Columbia Pictures. The film will be produced by Avi Arad, Charles Roven, Ari Arad, and Alex Gartner.
The game, developed by the acclaimed team at Naughty Dog, was one of Sony Computer Entertainment’s best-selling and most critically acclaimed games for the PS3. Named IGN‘s Best Action Game and Best PS3 Game, “Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune” sold one million copies in the first 10 weeks of its release at the end of 2007 on its way to moving more than 2.6 million copies and spawning a sequel. That sequel, “Uncharted 2: Among Thieves,” was a major commercial and critical success, winning Game of the Year honors from several influential critics, being named the most critically acclaimed game of the year by Metacritic, and selling more than 3.8 million copies worldwide. Both games are among the all-time best-selling games for the platform.
The project will be overseen at Columbia Pictures by Tolmach and Jonathan Kadin. Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer wrote the first draft of the screenplay.
Bier, bier glorious bier. The Irish and Scots have whiskey and scotch. Mezcal and tequila are muy sabroso. Caribbean rum is second to none. No one—but no one—does bier like the Germans, and danke for that, you Nordic brewmeisters. If not for your skills we'd suffer a shortage of steins, boots and pilsners, plus lagers for pour-age. OK, enough "poetry." Long story short, downtown Boise got a little more beery this summer with the opening of Prost! Boise—part of a regional chain of German-themed pubs with four locations in Seattle and two in Portland, Ore. Our local Prost boasts the full Deutsche deal, with liter mugs, schnitzel, brats, plenty of sauerkraut and nothing but German imports on tap. A seasoned trinker will recognize labels like Bitburger, Hofbrau and Warsteiner, but aficionados will be pleased to see less well known braus such as Maisel's Weisse, Andechs Vollbier and Reissedorf Kolsch—and that's just talking about what's on draft. The bottle selection goes even further into Teuton territory. Like the sign says, "Prost!"
Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon boasted that he repeatedly lied during the final days of the 2008 presidential campaign when he speculated on-air "about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism." Sammon has repeatedly used his position at Fox to slant the network's news coverage to the right.
Sammon Pushed Obama/Socialism Smear That He Privately Found "Far-Fetched"
Days Before '08 Election, Sammon Tied Obama To Socialism. In the final days before the 2008 election, Sammon used his position at Fox to engage in a campaign linking then-Sen. Barack Obama to "socialism" and "Marxists." On October 27, 2008, Sammon sent an email to colleagues highlighting "Obama's references to socialism, liberalism, Marxism and Marxists" in his 1995 autobiography. Sammon subsequently appeared on multiple Fox programs -- and penned an article for FoxNews.com -- promoting Obama's ties to "Marxists."
* After his sophomore year, Obama transferred to Columbia University. He lived on Manhattan's Upper East Side, venturing to the East Village for "the socialist conferences I sometimes attended at Cooper Union," he recalled, adding: "Much of what I absorbed from the sixties was filtered through my mother, who to the end of her life would proudly proclaim herself an unreconstructed liberal."
* After graduating from Columbia in 1983, Obama spent a year working for a consulting firm and then went to work for "a Ralph Nader offshoot" in Harlem. "In search of some inspiration, I went to hear Kwame Toure, formerly Stokely Carmichael of SNCC and Black Panther fame, speak at Columbia. At the entrance to the auditorium, two women, one black, one Asian, were selling Marxist literature."
During this period, according to Obama, he began a serious romantic relationship.
* "There was a woman in New York that I loved. She was white," Obama wrote in "Dreams." "We saw each other for almost a year. On the weekends, mostly. Sometimes in her apartment, sometimes in mine. You know how you can fall into your own private world? Just two people, hidden and warm. Your own language. Your own customs." But Obama said their relationship was doomed by the racial difference. "I pushed her away," he recalled."The emotion between the races could never be pure; even love was tarnished by the desire to find in the other some element that was missing from ourselves. Whether we sought out our demons or salvation, the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart."
Sammon Uses Position To "Slant News To The Right"
Sources tell Media Matters that the situation in the Fox Washington bureau represents a dramatic change from when Hume was managing editor.
According to one source, the pressure to slant Fox's reporting is coming from Sammon himself. Another source says that directives are coming from Fox management in New York and that Sammon -- unlike [former Fox Washington managing editor Brit] Hume -- doesn't have enough sway to push back.
The allegations fly in the face of Fox's claim that its news division is straight down the middle and not opinionated.
...we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies.
Sammon Directed News Staff Not To Use Phrase "Public Option." At the height of the health care reform debate in 2009, Sammon sent a memo to Fox News' journalists directing them not to use the phrase "public option," but instead "government option" and similar phrases. Sammon's directive echoed advice from top Republican pollster Frank Luntz on how the GOP could turn public opinion against Democrats' reform efforts.
Sammon Slanted Fox's Coverage Of Obama's 2009 Cairo Speech. Shortly after President Obama's June 2009 speech in Cairo, Sammon sent an email to Fox's journalists pointing out that Obama did not use "the words 'terror,' 'terrorist' or 'terrorism.' " Sammon's criticism, however, was misleading. Obama devoted a significant section of his remarks to denouncing and confronting Al Qaeda and other "violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security." Nevertheless, the critique was repeated -- both by Sammon and other network personalities -- throughout the network's coverage of the speech.
Sammon: Obama's "Views On The White Race" Are "Fairly Controversial."
Sammon's Fox News Colleagues Describe Him As A "Conservative"
WALLACE: How do you reconcile the fact, Bill -- I mean, I think it's fair to say you tilt conservative in your views -- with the fact that this was a fellow in the arena, obviously liberal, was taking the country in a direction that perhaps you didn't admire, but that he did have a lot of people whom he touched and who felt that he represented them?
SAMMON: Hey, I grew up in a Irish-Catholic working-class neighborhood of Cleveland where Kennedy was a hero. It was a Democratic neighborhood, and he was an effective legislator. There's no question about it.
And you know, I saw that interview clip that you just showed from 2006. During that clip, you know, you're asking him about liberalism, and so on and so forth, and I noticed that he was one of the few senators to vote against welfare reform, for example.