"What an interesting story."
Funny Animal Photos by Ty Buchanan
Funny Animal Photos by Ty Buchanan
Keeping Australia's Car Industry Afloat Is Not Economically Rational
There are calls from many quarters for keeping Australia's car industry alive. I am not so sure that a country needs its own motor industry anymore. Times have changed. No vehicle is made entirely in one country today. The days of getting prestige from it are long gone.
Propping up a floundering car sector is against all practical economic and social theory. It doesn't make sense to spend taxpayers money in such a wasteful way. Holden and Ford continue to take handouts while still not making any profit. Ford has already gone. The days for Holden are numbered. Holden was never a truly Australian car. It was an old General Motors design left in a drawer collecting dust until it was thrown on the table at a meeting in Australia.
Australia has never been a manufacturing country. It is not like Britain which has very in the way of natural resources so must generate income somehow from industry. Large businesses have only been in the primary sector. Exporting what comes out of the ground has always been the way Australia survives.
Those who hang on to so called Australian icons are sentimentalists. Things do change and old things fall away. Vegemite and Billy Tea are foreign owned. This doesn't stop us from claiming these icons. If Holden dies in this country that will be it. The car is not composed completely of Australian parts anyway. We can always rebadge an American designed car and race it at Bathurst.
Economics by Ty Buchanan
Society by Ty Buchanan
Eucalytus Trees Store Gold in Their Leaves
A way of detecting gold deposits beneath the ground has been right in front of our eyes for years. Eucalyptus trees take up gold particles into their leaves. X-ray imaging could replace test drilling.
Eucalyptus roots go down a very long way in search of water. Some sinker roots reach 40 meters below the surface. If there is gold in the ground it is concentrated in the leaves. It is pushed to extremities of the tree because gold is toxic.
Research has proven the theory. Trees above gold deposits store gold, but in gold-free areas there is no stored gold. It is place specific as well: the amount of gold particles varies with the level of gold deposits in the ground.
There is no threat to the trees as the amount of stored gold is minuscule. All types of plants store minerals besides eucalyptus. However, the overwhelming number of plant species in Australia are eucalyptus.
It is no longer necessary to drill in difficult, rocky places. Taking a few leaves for analysis does not damage the trees. This will make the search for gold much easier and cheaper.
Society by Ty Buchanan
Police to Identify People by Nose Shape
Police are upgrading detective work from fingerprints to "nose prints". It seems we all have different noses, so we can be identified by surveillance cameras. While fingerprints and iris scans are being used for "signing in" and entry to premises, work on identification by nose shape is being ramped up. A lot has been done on ear shape, which also differs quite markedly from person to person.
People tend to cover everything but their noses when they are up to no good. Another thing is, if a suspect does not cooperate he/she can be identified by the shape of their nose.
Plastic surgeon Dr Peter Callan says some noses are easy in determining a person's identity. For example, there is the classic Roman nose, Greek nose, turned-up, snub and hawk nose. Cameras that film in 3D give a very accurate picture of nose shape. However, to take a picture this way a person has to be moving quite slowly. It would be okay for prisoners. For general camera surveillance, when a person walks briskly at airports and train stations, only a basic shot can be taken.
It seems pinning a person down by nose shape will remain a backup system. It certainly does have its uses. Iris, face recognition and finger printing will still be the main ways of identifying a possible felon. There is a problem with fingerprints. A US citizen was recently arrested for a crime in the Middle East when a computer made a positive match. However, the real perpetrator was caught and had a fingerprint virtually identical to the American man.
People tend to cover everything but their noses when they are up to no good. Another thing is, if a suspect does not cooperate he/she can be identified by the shape of their nose.
Plastic surgeon Dr Peter Callan says some noses are easy in determining a person's identity. For example, there is the classic Roman nose, Greek nose, turned-up, snub and hawk nose. Cameras that film in 3D give a very accurate picture of nose shape. However, to take a picture this way a person has to be moving quite slowly. It would be okay for prisoners. For general camera surveillance, when a person walks briskly at airports and train stations, only a basic shot can be taken.
It seems pinning a person down by nose shape will remain a backup system. It certainly does have its uses. Iris, face recognition and finger printing will still be the main ways of identifying a possible felon. There is a problem with fingerprints. A US citizen was recently arrested for a crime in the Middle East when a computer made a positive match. However, the real perpetrator was caught and had a fingerprint virtually identical to the American man.
Society by Ty Buchanan
Revolutionary Mineral Drill Rig Announced
Drilling techniques in industry have not changed for decades. Oil rigs are built in he same old way. Now something has come along that will improve drilling enormously. The Deep Exploration Technologies Cooperative Research Centre based in Adelaide has announced a new type of drill. It is constructed with coiled tubing.
Costs will fall dramatically as drilling is faster. Australia's mines are mostly over 30 years old. New mines have to be established. We can only rely on the old mines for another 20 years.
No longer is it necessary to keep stopping to add a new drilling section. The new drill is a continuous coil of tubing. Being smaller and lighter transportation is easy. The motor is at the bottom of the shaft, not at the top. The tubing no longer twists during drilling. Any twisting will occur in the other direction as the motor pulls the tubing around.
Less drilling power is needed as the tubing is being pulled around in already drilled space. A lot of torque was lost with the old system as the engine had to force the whole length of the drill around. Drilling will continue with fewer drill breakages. Thus, downtime will be reduced.
Technology by Ty Buchanan
Part-Time and Full-Time Employment Means Fewer Babies
It is not work in general that is causing a decline in women giving birth at a young age. It is specifically temporary jobs that are responsible. In Australia part-time and casual employment has boomed over the last decade as employers see it as a way to keep costs down. Many work extra hours for no money at all, afraid of losing their jobs.
Women working full time can afford to pay for child care, or at least for critical periods when they are working. Such career women are having children before they reach the age of 35 years. There is a myth out there that it is these career women who are starting families at an older age. Oddly the effects of not working full time changes the behavior of women in the high socieconomic group as well. They may be able to afford childcare from a financial "nest egg", but it is the state of mind about not working enough and not having sufficient income for a family.
Financial security in regard to income is essential for women to even consider having children. Careers are not that important to women. This goes against all of the prevailing stereotypes. The number of years spent in part-time work had a strong impact. A year of part-time employment reduced the probability of having a baby by 35 years by 8 per cent. Five years in such work increased the rate to more than a third.
Another myth is that university graduates go straight into full-time employment. Over 60 per cent of these began working in a job with reduced hours. Therefore, high and low-skilled women suffered the same job market problem.
All economies are moving to less-secure employment to reduce production costs. This means that as the decades go by the world population will fall, confounding all predictions. Furthermore, the population in most countries will have a larger proportion of elderly people. Some of these will have to work to survive. Providing old age pensions will become too costly.
Economics by Ty Buchanan
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