"Just hanging around".
Funny Animal Photos by Ty Buchanan
Funny Animal Photos 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
National Australia Bank CEO Says People See Banks as Bastards
Though banks are now more cautious with their lending, National Australia Bank CEO Cameron Clyne says the community blames the banks for the economic crisis and rightly so too. Banks have kept their operations very secret while they risked investors money by loaning out money to potential defaulters.
He says banks should be more open about their interest rate tables and fees. Investors in the community are hit all the time by getting lower interest than they believe they will get, and being hit by fees without being informed why. Fees in particular have technical wording rather than "real life" wording.
In short, he says people believe that banks are robbing bastards. He further warns that banks will increase interest charged on loans or keep them the same despite the central bank lowering rates. People will see this as plain robbery. They will call for government intervention.
He says banks should be more open about their interest rate tables and fees. Investors in the community are hit all the time by getting lower interest than they believe they will get, and being hit by fees without being informed why. Fees in particular have technical wording rather than "real life" wording.
In short, he says people believe that banks are robbing bastards. He further warns that banks will increase interest charged on loans or keep them the same despite the central bank lowering rates. People will see this as plain robbery. They will call for government intervention.
Economics by Ty Buchanan
Early Life Found in Western Australia's Pilbara Region
There is so much to be found in remote parts of Australia, new animal species and signs of early life. The first signs of life were bacteria and remains of them have been located in northwest Australia. They were in the Pilbara, in sedimentary rock.
Evidence of life billions of years old have come to light in Greenland, but with earth movement their date of origin cannot be accurately defined. Western Australia's Pilbara is stable so the find has been claimed as the earliest signs of life.
No fossils of the bacteria are left. Traces of their movement in the sediment can be clearly seen. Of course the soft sediment is now rock. There were masses of them in the Dresser Rock Foundation.
Examination of the tiny living things will help research of material on other planets. We now know what to look for. Planetary "rovers" can be built with the right testing equipment.
Evolution by Ty Buchanan
New Technology Makes Testing for Explosives Easier
Australia had come a long since the days of someone walking through the center aisle of an inbound aircraft spraying insecticide. New Australian's used to laugh at the man with the can spraying over peoples heads not worrying about those with allergies. There is no way it would have killed all the insects on the plane.
Pests and drugs are one thing, but explosives are the main fear. Until now liquids in sealed containers such as liquor had to be accessed and tested for explosive potential. New technology enables the sealed liquid to be tested while still in its container. Battelle and Sellex are distributing the scanners.
Liquids, gels and aerosols can be scanned. This is a revolutionary development. It won an R&D 100 Award. Airports around the world are scrambling to get their hands on the scanners.
Testing is quick and it will not slow down passenger flow. Now all we need is a quick scanner for drug detection that does not have four legs and bark. Ironically, this will be possible in the future because the smelling function detects minute particles in the air.
Society by Ty Buchanan
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