Giant Ants in Ancient North America

Big insects once roamed the US. They were very big. Ants were the size of small birds 50 million years ago. They are thought to have crossed the arctic land bridge that once existed between Europe and the US. The Green River site in Wyoming has given up many new finds in the past.

Bruce Archibald of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia noted that the fossil was similar to one found in Germany. Only the queen of the Dorylus wilverthi species of ant living today reaches this size. Fittingly, the new ant has been named Titanomyrma lubei. Louis Lube found the specimen. While this ant is big for North America, big ants probably lived in other parts of the world because large fossils of other creatures have been found there.

Large ants only live a tropical climate in the present so North America was tropical millions of years ago. It is a mystery how they crossed the temperate Arctic region then. For brief periods this area became quite warm, up to 8 degrees Celsius, though not tropical. Bursts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from sediment was the culprit. With two sources for ancient giant ants now known it may be possible to identify where they originated.
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Science
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Lion Dinner

"Come home late again and your dinner will be over the fence!"
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Funny Animal Photos
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Tasmanian Tiger Did Not Fill the Evolutionary NIche of a Dog

It was believed that the Tasmanian Tiger perished in mainland Australia due to the dingo taking over their habitat. New findings show the dingo did not directly compete with the marsupial dog. They had different ways of getting their food.

Dingos were brought to Australia from Asia in recent times. It is not native to Australia. The demise of the Tasmanian tiger on the larger part of Australia 3,000 years ago was coincidental. Settlers in Tasmania feared their cattle and sheep would be slaughtered so they eradicated the quite timid animal in the early twentieth century.

Dingoes are wild dogs that run for long periods running down their prey. Tasmanian tigers were not distance runners. They ambushed sick and young animals. The tiger's skeletal structure was more like cats than dogs, particularly the elbow joint which was feline in character. The dingo has elbows that lock, while the marsupial dog had a flexible joint. This undermines the theory that the Tasmanian tiger filled the evolutionary niche open in Australia due to the absence of a native dog.
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Science
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Good Guy Bears

"Way to go, guys."
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Funny Animal Photos
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Teachers Bonus a Waste of Money

There isn't much doubt that the bonus scheme for teachers will not work. Like the mystique of "time and motion" where the claim is made that human productivity is linear and is an increasing curve, it's a pipe dream! Machinery can only be speeded up so much before parts start flying off in all directions and everything shuts down for maintenance. Furthermore, when task are done too quickly a lot of "non-size" rubbish is produced. While output in some industry can be improved, for paper carriers such as teachers this is virtually impossible.

Some teachers are better than others and for the main part this is innate: it is not learned and never can be. The only measurement is the quality of students that are lucky enough to be taught by them. Even then, tying down the factors that do improve matters is not easy to identify. Usually. students have an affinity with a teacher; thus they are prepared to work harder. It is not the teacher who is putting in more effort - it is the student. Testing students to deduce the performance of their teachers will also drive a wedge between teachers and students. Considering only one in ten teachers will benefit from the bonus scheme it is divisive for teachers themselves. Industrial strife is just down the road.

Overall, it is a silly exercise. Why should the Government, the taxpayer, pay more? Will good teachers be paid more for what they are already doing? It seems so. Why single out one sector of employment for a reward that everyone else doesn't get purely because it is motivated by one person, Julia Gillard? Apparently it has to do with good teachers being virtuous people. It is not much use holding out one group as an example if there is no intention to apply it to the whole workforce. Paying good teacher more will not make lesser beings respectful toward them. It will make the average teacher angry. Let's not go back to pet projects like in the Howard and Rudd eras.
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Education
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Seal Hit

"Wanna bonk?"
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Man Attacks Youth With a Hedgehog

Don't throw wildlife around! You may be punished for it.

A New Zealand man has to attend court for throwing a hedgehog at a teenager. Mr Singhalargh threw the poor animal five meters at a 15 year old in the eastern North Island town of Whakatane.

The teenager was injured. He got a large red welt and several puncture wounds. The man was arrested shortly afterwards for assault with a weapon, namely the hedgehog.

The police did not say whether the hedgehog was alive before the ordeal, but did say that the animal was definitely dead afterwards.
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Society
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Penguin Skip

"Skip to my lou."
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Funny Animal Photos
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The Government Should Publish the Real CPI Figure

It is about time the Government informed the public about the true rate of inflation and increased payments to those who are entitled to it. Okay, unemployment is low but those living in rural areas depend on it to survive. They can continue to to rely on the unemployment benefit, or they can move to the city. That is the last thing we want - more people living in the major coastal cities.

The problem is that non-essentials are included in the CPI. This offsets the real inflationary increase in the necessities of life. Many do not know that essential goods have increased by a massive 8 per cent over the past year. The high dollar is "hiding" this by making imported non-essentials cheaper. Prices of such goods have actually fallen. Those on low incomes spend a higher proportion of their income on essentials like food, electricity, water, fuel and rent.

Oddly, interest rates are not in the CPI package. Curiously, it was taken out in 1998. In other words both political parties have been covering up the cost of living. Furthermore, Price rises in property are out as well.

Another important thing that the public is not informed of is the practice of discounting a price that hasn't changed (quality adjustment). If the price of something has not increased over a year you would think that this would have zero effect on the the CPI. This is not the case. The price of an electronic product will reduce the CPI even if it has not gone up. How does this happen? It is because the Government discounts the price of this non-essential by saying it is a better product due to technological improvement. It says you are getting more for your money and the price has fallen when it has not. This is purely a value judgement. Measures of inflation should contain factual data only. This is no more nor less than doctoring of figures which benefits the Government. Both political sides alter the CPI to make things seem better. Note how the Coalition passed over the CPI when the GST was introduced? A fully independent body should regularly revue the way the CPI figure is evaluated and this nonsense should stop.
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Economics
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