Dinosaurs Found in Australia - What is Fact?

Australia is a very old continent. It seems the ancestors of Tyrannosaurus rex lived here. A hip bone has been found that dates to 110 million years ago which is 40 million years before T.rex roamed elsewhere on earth. Until now it was believed that T.rex only lived on northern continents.

Many of the things stated as fact by scientists are indeed just matters of faith until they are "proven" otherwise. Scientists argue about when dinosaurs developed feathers and why. They claim that birds today are direct descendants from dinosaurs. This is like saying humans are descended from dinosaurs. Much evidence points to birds having a line of descent completely separate from dinosaurs.

The same rings true with the Hobbit people of Flores Island. Some scientists will not accept that people different from humans survived until 18,000 years ago alongside humans. Neanderthals lived until 50,000 years ago, so why not another type of human? Science is much like religion. What is just theory is put forth as fact. Ah, the dangers of religion - and science!
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Beer Squirrel

"A great beer."
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Australia

Australia by ►CubaGallery
Australia, a photo by ►CubaGallery on Flickr.

See a rainbow.

Song Dog

"I am going to sing you a song."
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Bombs Dropped Near Barrier Reef

The Us has dumped bombs near Australia's Great Barrier Reef. It was not intentional. Two of their Marine aircraft were in fuel trouble and had to jettison the dangerous cargo for safety reasons.

Before dumping the explosive devices they were disarmed. The planes were operating from a Navy ship. The now harmless bombs are sitting in a deep channel away from the Barrier Reef. They are in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage area, however.

Plans are under way to retrieve the bombs. Just how this is to be done is unknown at present.  It is not an international incident. The Australian government knows full well the immediacy of the action. There has been no protest. Removal will be done as soon as practicable.
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Hampster Hat

"I'm really into Country man."
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Improving National Productivity Will Not Be Easy

There is a problem with the call for improvement in productivity. Those calling for it will not be the ones working harder. The experiment was tried in the 1970s when many UK factories moved in the time and motion guys and started timing machinists.

Unions and workers saw them coming, however. Before they even got going unions tied management down with a new contract that guaranteed workers would not be put on a lower rate if the business ran out of orders. They would be paid at the previous month's average rate when walking around doing very little.  This was done to make sure employees would not lose income due to them working harder. Furthermore, when foremen, leading hands and motion "experts" started milling around a machine workers knew what was about to happen. An older naturally slower machinists was soon moved in and lathe speeds were reduced.  Considering the motion timers had never seen capstan lathes before this was an easy trick.

It took several years before management caught on to what was going on. Ultimately, workers did work harder. They moved up the machinist grades A, B, C and D. Thus improving their pay per task. Obviously, they speeded up machines and produced more per hour to increase overall income.

In the long run businesses failed to make a profit. Paying employees to work harder then continuing to pay them at the same rate when work ran out was plainly stupid. A country needs easy dismissal laws to make a more flexible workforce, a nervous workforce in fear of being sacked.

It must be remembered that a monitored worker must be watched by someone.  Extra staff like a separate time and motion division was a costly burden. Every new product made for new tasks. Time and motion was working harder than anyone.

BHP Billiton CEO Andrew Mackenzie is banking on a Coalition win in the next election to change industrial relations laws. Let us hope he is right because business needs a boost. Changing a country's working culture is very difficult though. Pumping money into timing employees raises costs. And workers will duck and weave to block any change forced on them.
  
Source: Based on Wellworthy Engineering, a factory in Ringwood, Hampshire, England.

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Brush Cat

"Humans won't do it.  I will brush myself."
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Fish Fossil Sheds More Light

There are new facts about the evolution of fish. An ancient fish fossil has provided preserved muscle tissue. European and Australian scientists have examined a placoderm fossil 380 million years old. Early fish did not have moving jaws with joints. Their mouths were fixed partially open, though they could still move.

Jaw structure was presumed to be like sharks, because that was taken to be a living example. The fossil has changed this assumption. It shows a pronounced shoulder structure. From this girdle neck muscles attached to a dermal joint. So the head moved relative to the body but the jaw did not. Sharks do not have joints in the neck - their necks are flexible.

Another difference is musculature in the abdomen much like four-limbed vertebrates such as horses. Rather than being a evolutionary step for four-legged animals it was fully developed by placoderms, the first vertebrate with armoured plates and no teeth.
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Hat Bird

"I'm going out."
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Climate Change Could Make Timid Animals More Aggressive

Climate change can cause changes in behavior. As water becomes warmer so some species of fish become aggressive. Some fish are inherently timid while others are bold. In experiments on fish from the Australian Barrier reef, when water was slowly warmed normally timid fish became aggressive. Their rate of activity increased as well. Evolution has created fish that fit into a niche where survival depends on a fish being very careful about its surroundings. If they openly attack larger fish it could mean the smaller ones will be eaten.

It is possible that similar changes will occur with reptiles, amphibians, ectotherms and even mammals. If timid animals become bold then they could be killed off by predators or by humans using harvesting equipment trying to catch other animals for food. Only a very small increase in temperature led to the change.

In the tests, fish were bred in captivity then released into holding tanks where the water was slowly warmed. They had no chance to socialize with wild fish. When the water was cool the fish hid in plastic pipe. As the water heated up the fish ventured further from the protective pipe.

Certain assumptions can be made from this research. As the Arctic ice disappears, Polar bears wandering near small towns in Alaska, Canada and Northern Europe could become more brazen in their search for food from garbage cans and dump sites. They could kill humans more frequently in their anger. Similarly, rats living in these cold climes may not just die of shock when hit. They could turn on people and fight back.
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Sliding Cat

"I'll do my fishing line from the ceiling trick"
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Brave New World of Criminal Investigation

We are entering a brave new world where DNA will be accurately read to predict eye color, distance between the eyes and nose shape. This will greatly improve police work in solving serious crime.

Even knowing whether a suspect is bald is helpful. Genes contain single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs).  These can now show whether someone is probably bald. We have some way to go because of the complex interaction of male and female chromosomes.

A rough composite picture will be soon be available. This can be used to screen out suspects. Facial metrics is advancing rapidly. Analysis of insulin-like growth hormone (IGF-1) and human growth hormone (HGH) can give a rough picture of build and height.

The importance of mitochondrial DNA which passes along the female line is well known. This can predict ancestry using Y chromosome (NRY) and autosomal markers. Patterns for Europeans, white Americans and East Asians have been identified.

In the future the crime rate could be significantly reduced and we could live in societies that are much safer than today's dangerous milieu where we are afraid to go out at night. A safe world - that is something hard to imagine.

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