Show Kitten


"Just take it more smoothly.  Like this."
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Funny Animal Photos
-------Australian Blog-------

DNA Shows How Farming Reached Western Europe

Important discoveries have been made in regard to early farming in Europe. DNA evidence shows that invaders from Turkey brought farming skills to western regions 8,000 years ago. They were not hunter gatherers from Germany as was originally believed. Hunter gatherers didn't suddenly take up farming. It was a learned skill that was passed on to the younger generation.

The research has been so informative that the route invaders took is clear. An earlier movement of eastern people has also been identified. It took place 11,000 years ago. invaders moved through south-eastern Europe via the Carpathian Basin near present day Hungary into central Europe.

The history of Man is fascinating and we do not have all the answers yet. Perhaps in the past a civilization equal to our own existed and all the knowledge they had has been lost. There are many mysterious things we do not know about ancient Egyptians.  Their culture faded only in recent times.

Eyebrow Dog

 
"It's my eyebrows isn't it?"
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Funny Animal Photos
-------Australian Blog-------

The Aged Are Not Employed

Developed country are heading toward a crisis of not enough people to do the work. Baby boomers have reached retirement age and with such a large section of society no longer contributing there will be fewer taxpayers to fund economies. Government revenues will fall. Workers can only pay so much tax. Beyond a certain level incentive to work decreases.

Despite the problem, employers still persist in seeking young employees when there are plenty of elderly people who can hold down jobs. Old legislation covering those in public service force retirement on perfectly capable workers. Some Australian states are planning to change this.

The private sector has no restrictions. Many doctors, for example, work into their 80s. This is because they are self-employed, so they can decided when to stop. Fewer retirees are offering their service free in voluntary work. This means their lives just slow down and they spend their time doing very little. Their lives would be more interesting if they were given the opportunity to work.

Life expectancy has improved. There is no rational reason to refuse work to those who want it. The retirement age will be raised to 67, but this is ten years away. Governments are now heading into a funding crises. Australian businesses are bringing in skilled workers from overseas to fill vacancies that are really are not there. Government needs to give real incentives to businesses to encourage them to offer employment to mature workers.
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Society
Australian Blog                        

Dog Firefighter

"Just doing my firefighter training."
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Funny Animal Photos
-------Australian Blog-------

Aboriginals Arrived in Thousand on First Arrival - Questionable

An archaeologist, Alan Williams, has a controversial theory. He believes that people first arrived in Australia from Asia in their thousands. It was not a small group. There is no proof for this. It is just his belief.

There is a problem with this: How did "Asians" know that land was over the horizon? It must have been first discovered by a few people in one or even two boats. It also presumes that they made the return journey to Asia to tell everyone - very unlikely.

His estimate puts the Aboriginal founding population at 3000 people. This would have been a virtual "armada" of new arrivals all at one time. This premise is too far fetched to believe.

Making estimates about how the Aboriginal population grew is prone to distortion because the general population declined after the arrival of Macassans and Europeans. The highest population level is "pulled out of the air" and put at 1.2 million before the opening-up of the continent. This is not a proven figure. Determining population growth to this level can only be supposition.

Professor Joe Dutch says that European arrival did not impact that much on Aboriginals as they were mainly in the north. Europeans moved into the south of the country.
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Society
Australian Blog                        

Australia's Economy Would "Stop" if Oil Imports Ceased

Some countries are moving toward other fuels such as coal gas. However, public opinion about it polluting the environment could bring an end to the trend of companies running roughshod over properties belonging to others. The search is driven by potential profit not for any long-term goal.

People are complacent. Australia is dependent on fuel from mainly Middle Eastern countries. If a major conflagration occurred there the Australian economy would come to a standstill in a matter of weeks. Rationing would have to be introduced immediately. Health and food would be the main priorities. Distribution would be hit hard as it uses most of the oil imported, apart from private use of motor vehicles.

Australia does not keep an oil reserve. Even though some countries have reserves. It would put off the economic hit for a few months. What is shocking is that even dried food in this country would last only nine days.

Using solar power for transport is not possible. If such a scenario did happen there would be a quick move to other resources like using sunlight to turn algae into a usable oil substitute. It has been calculated that algae would produce a minimum of 60 tonnes of oil from each hectare of pond surface. Streamlined systems could increase yield to over 600 tonnes.

At the moment there is no need to "manufacture" oil from algae. Natural oil remains the cheapest form of energy. Many universities are working on algae. Like everything else in this world new opportunities are only taken when it becomes necessary. Personally, I believe that there are solutions to a cut in oil supplies. Obviously there would be a world economic downturn, but Man has survived due to adaptation to changing environments. An oil crisis would be no different.
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Society
Australian Blog                        

Cat Has the Answer


"Me!  Me!  I know the answer Sir."
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Funny Animal Photos
-------Australian Blog-------

Power Generation Via Hydrogen Is Not Taking Off

It is amazing how people will see something new, then run with it to the extreme saying this will change the world. This is true for virtually all non-fossil energy producing systems, but all of them have drawbacks and none have revolutionized the power sector. The two major problems have been high cost and non constant energy production during the 24 hour period.

Scientists have worked on hydrogen systems for decades and success seems very distant. It is not being accepted for widespread use. Actually, hydrogen is a "byproduct" of energy production. When electricity is generated by any method the excess not used at a point in time is passed through water. It splits into oxygen and hydrogen via electrolysis with the fuel stored to be used in the future. When hydrogen is recombined with oxygen, electricity is generate. Heat from the process can also be used directly for heating purposes.

As with other environmentally friendly electricity producing methods time will tell if hydrogen is accepted for general use. Perhaps hydrogen can be made in significant quantities from solar and wind generation. It could potentially make for a hybrid system producing electricity 24 hours a day. Until now, governments have been the main source of funding for hydrogen experiments. Apparently, the private sector sees little future in it. For non-fossil energy systems to flourish it is necessary for the community to work together. Unfortunately, individualism is the norm. Perhaps this is why there is very little progress.

Take Away Animal


"You just come along with me then."
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Funny Animal Photos
-------Australian Blog-------

Fish Oil Prevents Premature Birth

Over recent years there has been a host of controversial claims about fish oil, calcium and glucosamine. The questions are do these supplements do any good and do they all have to be taken? Some doctors say take them and other GPs say claims about them are nonsense.
Fish oil stops premature birth
Some tests have been done. It has still not been proven that taking calcium prevents deterioration of bones in old age. And there is no proof that glucosamine gets into joints thus reducing pain. Tests on fish oil offer some hope of benefit.

During research into omega 3 (which is in fish oil) on young children a potential benefit came to light. It seems that premature birth is delayed when fish oil is taken. Omega 3 prolongs pregnancy. Subjects who took the supplement also had larger babies. Their birth date was later than predicted. Of course, this brings up another question: Are heavier babies healthier? As the cause of premature birth is unknown perhaps this benefit overrides the perceived consequences of larger babies.
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Health
Australian Blog                        

Dog Eat Lobster

 
"No, I can't eat it with this"
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Funny Animal Photos
-------Australian Blog-------

The Flores "Hobbit" had a Small but Sufficient Brain

The "miniature" humans on the island of Flores in Indonesia have had extensive tests performed on them. Their remains have been examined in detail.  While their brain was as small as an orange it was large enough for them to develop many skills. At a third of the weight of modern-day people it was in proportion.

The world of the "Hobbit", Homo floresiensis, was composed of pygmy animals, so it was a natural environment for them. They would not have perceived themselves to be small.

This sub-species developed from one of the first branches of humans that walked upright, going back two million years. Their direct forebear, Homo erectus, was larger than modern humans. It roamed over a large part of Asia.

Isolation on a small island led to dwarfism occurring. All mammals progress this way when trapped in a limited domain, though reptiles get larger. It was doubtful that they hunted the much bigger reptiles. If their environment was more challenging they would have developed larger brains. A small brain was sufficient. They did use flaked stone points in their weapons. This points to Homo erectus having such knowledge.

Early Hobbits first arrived on Flores 95,000 years ago, before humans moved out of Africa, so they possibly shared the world with Homo erectus with no challenge from Homo sapiens. The problem is the gap between the demise of Homo erectus at 300,000 years ago and the branching off of the large version of the Hobbit. Apart from Homo erectus no direct ancestor has been found.
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Evolution
Australian Blog                        

Mouse Under Bird Wing

"Let me take you under my wing."
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Funny Animal Photos
-------Australian Blog-------

Damage Claims for RSI and Internet Related Radiation Are Falling

Watch that computer. It could be bad for your health. Remember when complaints were rife about Wi-Fi signals damaging your brain? This charge was also aimed at mobile phones. Signals from towers were so small as to be hardly measurable. Radio and television transmissions are stronger. Home WiFi and computers generally are extremely low. 

You are more likely to suffer repetitive strain injury from using a computer than brain damage. Repetitive strain is becoming a problem in all industries because computer use is so widespread. The upper-limb and neck are the danger areas. Even now though, many "experts" say the "illness" is imagined.

It is difficult to prove that the injury was caused at work. People do many odd things away from work, though employment is the greatest culprit.  Like factory jobs where the same movements are repeated, data processors are likely to suffer from RSI. In the 1980s half of Telstra telephonists claimed they had RSI. Oddly, today few suffer from this, or fewer complain. Over time, the number of people off sick with this complaint has fallen despite computer use becoming more widespread.  It seems workers are putting up with the problem rather than being ridiculed.
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Health
Australian Blog                        

Dog Examination

"No, I can't see anything down there."
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Funny Animal Photos
-------Australian Blog-------

New Zealand Migration to Australia Is Not Bob Birrell's Problem

Hate the Kiwi seems to be quite widespread in Australia, though personally I have not experienced any bad feeling toward them. Indeed, most Australians welcome New Zealanders into society seeing them as ideal immigrants who can fit in immediately.

Bob Birrell, a Monash University demographer, says New Zealanders are the cause of the the recent jump in unemployment in Australia. He points out that New Zealanders holding temporary visas increased by 5.4 percent over a year. This is 1,620 of the 30,000 coming here.  Considering the rise in unemployment was 0.6 per cent across the whole nation, New Zealanders working here could not possibly be responsible for all of this.

Surely, Kiwis bring some capital of their own and spend nearly all of their income here. Australia benefited a great deal economically by paying the fares here for European immigrants in the middle of the last century. These were mostly unskilled, poor people. New Zealander moving to this country should be no different.

The door has always been open for New zealanders to come here. It also works the other way. Australia can move to New Zealand very easily. It would be a pity if this partnership is damaged. Our history is intertwined. The ANZAC spirit is getting even stronger with the younger generation.
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Society
Australian Blog                        

Cow at Trough

"Good of Humans to provide food in these special containers."
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Funny Animal Photos
-------Australian Blog-------

Energy Use Due to Mobile Phones Is Unstainable

There is an energy crisis slowly creeping up on us. We go about our daily business enjoying the benefits of computer advances while not realizing that massive amounts of energy are being consumed.

Mobile phones are designed with very little hard storage. Reliance on cloud services is increasing at a rapid pace. Many developing countries do not enjoy continuous energy supplies. When the electricity goes off so does cloud storage. In advanced countries aluminium producers were blamed for eating up too much power, now everyone is responsible.

A new study, The Power of Wireless Cloud, clearly shows that the continuing use of electricity is not sustainable. Energy use by cloud services will be equivalent to 4.9 million cars over the period 2012-2015. This is known by comparing energy from petrol to power station input.

It is not just the cloud. Wi-Fi will use more power than anything else. Computing networks are not "clean". Many do not consider that most electricity is still being produced with dirty energy inputs. Even nuclear is dirty - it contaminates.
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Society
Australian Blog                        

Bear Down Here

"We are down here!"
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Funny Animal Photos
-------Australian Blog-------

Tony Abbott's Broadband Will Be an Op Shop Network - Money for Burried Copper

Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull's plan to use old copper from the node to the house will notwork. You could see the stress all over Mr Turnbulls's face as Tony Abbott spelt out the plan to the media. Malcolm was exceptionally reticent. He looked like he wanted to say something, perhaps the truth.

Tony Abbott offered a much slower broadband speed than Labor and promised faster speeds in the future. How will this be possible without putting in optic fiber? He has said only $30 billion will be needed. However, he has to buy the old copper from Telstra first. The government cannot set its own price. The contract has been signed. There will be massive financial consequences if the contract is broken. Telstra has already shown legal consideration by starting the roll-out. The deal is set in concrete.

Using existing copper will produce a patchwork broadband network that will damage Australia's economy. This nation will be left with a slow network compared to other nations. Let's face it copper is twentieth century technology. It may as well be left in the ground to rot. With "extra" high definition visual media coming online there is no way copper can handle it. Optic fiber all the way to homes is the only way everyone can enjoy such products. Australian CEOs will not be able to join international online conferences. They will not be able to communicate fully. Australia will become a backwater.

The Coalition's plan is too "soft". It is doing this just to be different from Labor. Many Coalition members of parliament know that the national government must step in and lead the way. Private industry will not achieve much without being pulled along on a leash. Telcos will concentrate on where the profit is - in the populated cities.
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Society
Australian Blog                        

Frog to Prince

"Please, just one kiss"
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Funny Animal Photos
-------Australian Blog-------

"Extinct" Animals Are Still With Us

Animals are going extinct, though some are still turning up. This is true. In the past 100 years many species have been declared extinct. Oddly, a third of these have been found still living. Many have not been seen for a very long time. This is the reason for them still being around.

The okapi a zebra-like animal was recently re-found in the Congo. In Cuba the solenodon "rat" was seen jumping around. Another find was the Indonesian Talaud Flying Fox. In Australia the rock rat was identified. And the Christmas Island shrew came to light.

This is embarrassing for the conservationists about to meet in Japan at the United Nations Summit on Biodiversity. It appears that emotion has won out over rationality. It is too easy to make predictions about what will happen in the future. With climate change, little real knowledge is available to researchers, though change is occurring. Perhaps now more cautious steps will be taken.
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Society
Australian Blog                        

Funny Walk Cat

"Imagine you have a book on your head"
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Funny Animal Photos
-------Australian Blog-------

The Climate Changes in 20-30 and 50-70 year Cycles

Climate change is not all one way. There are cycles. Research on coral areas has shown two cycles, 20-30 years and 50-70 year. The region tested is in the northern Pacific which has a strong influence on Asian Monsoons. The amount of rainfall can vary a lot.

In regard to Australia, the climate varies across the continent. Western Australia is usually out-of-kilter with the rest of Australia. When there are floods in the east there are droughts in the west.

The cycles were discovered by drilling out cores and examining the undersea strata with ultraviolet light, a process called Spectral Luminescence Scanning.

Findings have helped to clarify changes in the climate of Madagascar since 1950. Changes in rainfall and river run off have left their mark. Cycles can be traced as far back as 1708.
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Society
Australian Blog                        

Tertiary Dog


"How learn-ed am I?"
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Funny Animal Photos
-------Australian Blog-------