Australians Only Thread

[Moon Monkey]

3 minutes ago, Toinho said:

Labor win the WA election after 43 minutes. At this rate the liberals will be a minor party and not the opposition...

Are Labor like the UK Labour Party?

[Toinho]

11 minutes ago, Moon Monkey said:

Are Labor like the UK Labour Party?

They are our center left so think so? I’m no politics expert. But of our two major parties they’re more “left”.

[Harry]

Mathias Cormann elected secretary general for the OECD.

https://www.9news.com.au/national/mathias-cormann-elected-secretary-general-of-organisation-for-economic-cooperation-and-development/1b07bf40-a2b1-48a1-b8b4-a425b43b3052

[CaaC (John)+]

Quote

Unpopular space launch fees

Proposed Australian launch fees are receiving criticism from the commercial space sector.

Rocket launch companies are firing up about federal government plans to charge them for take-offs and landings. They say the launch fees are “grossly disproportionate” and could be up to three times the value of rocket development and mission costs.

The Australian Government has proposed charging a range of fees for permits, including for rocket launches and returns, and for launch facilities, but has just started a new round of consultations on the plan.

Under the proposed cost-recovery model, if the Australian Space Agency needs to hire specialist experts to assess an application, it would cost $2200 a day.  Work done within the Australian Space Agency would be absorbed by the agency.

An example in the draft fees shows a launch permit might have a set fee of $40,294 and hiring an expert might cost $149,600, giving a total of $189,894.

The agency would absorb part of that, leaving the company with a $149,600 bill.

But the “launch leaders” of the Australian rocket industry say the fees could cripple the fledgeling space industry. 

The launch leaders comprise Southern Launch, which operates orbital launch services in South Australia, Gilmour Space Technologies, which is developing rockets in Queensland, and Equatorial Launch Australia, which operates the Arnhem Space Centre in the Northern Territory.

Southern Launch chief executive officer Lloyd Damp says New Zealand charges a flat rate of NZ$60 and the United States of America has no charges.

“[This plan] threatens to impose uncompetitive costs on operators of small launch vehicles and Australian launch facility providers,” he says.

“If implemented to its full extent the scheme may become a disincentive to growing the Australian sovereign space launch industry.

“No fees should be applied to the assessment of launch permit or facility applications.”

The leaders have written to a Parliamentary inquiry into the space industry pointing to the potential jobs and revenue that launches will generate and arguing for the fees to be abolished.

“Australia is poised to stand on the global stage as a credible provider of commercial space launches,” they wrote, adding that for Australia to compete on an equal footing globally, the fees should be abolished along with the need for external experts.

The fees were meant to kick in on July 1 last year, but were deferred because of COVID-19, and are now due to start on July 1 this year.

This week the Australian Space Agency started a new consultation process that will look at when payments will be due, and how the costs are calculated.

It will also consider whether fees “for activities that can demonstrate innovation and entrepreneurship in the sector” could be fully or partially waived. 

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/exploration/unpopular-space-launch-fees/

 

[Spike]

So the USA is slowly banning kangaroo products. 

Hmm, maybe the USA should be more concerned about the treatment of their animals before looking intervening internationally. Cows, pigs, and chickens raised in squalor, plumped to unhealthy sizes, and promptly slaughtered. They can’t even manage their wildlife issues of predator culling and deer populations, so what moral highground do they have to pass judgement on the practises of foreign nations? You’d think oil was involved with this sort of meddling. Not that it justifies any of it, just a bizarre thing for the USA to bleed their hearts about. They will drop a bomb on an Iraqi goat farming village but shooting roos is too far it seems.

At least where I am from the roos have huge populations, rampant, they have few predators, and the dominate the food chain of other herbivores, The professional hunting of roos was like a drop in the ocean, people got paid, farmers dont have  to worry about it themselves, and carcass was used, instead of just rotting on the ground. A pro shooter will use one bullet to kill, some out of empathy, others because it is efficient and cost effective. It isnt a perfect industry and there are some slimeballs out there, but many also hunt wild pigs, which are a menace, more so than roos. People get this idea in their head that lassez faire with the environment is how it is meant to be, but that isnt always the case, some animals will go extinct, others will dominate, kangaroos dominate. Just letting all the things go the natural course is naive, look at beavers they literally fuck up the ecosystem if they are to do what is natural to them.

I have shot a and killed a roo. No interest in doing it again.

[Azeem]

2 hours ago, Spike said:

They can’t even manage their wildlife issues of predator culling and deer populations, so what moral highground do they have to pass judgement on the practises of foreign nations? 

[CaaC (John)+]

Quote

How clean is the Hunter Valley air?

What’s the truth behind the NSW air-quality stoush between past and serving politicians?

The air quality in New South Wales’ Hunter Valley has made news this week, with serving and former politicians accusing one another of ‘cherry-picking’ data and misrepresenting information about how coal power stations pollute the air.

So, what is the air quality like in the Hunter – has it changed recently? And where can we find more information on it?

Air quality can be monitored in a few different ways, including from space. But the most accurate accounts come from on-the-ground reading. In Australia, this is managed by state departments and environmental protection agencies. Daily readings and predictions are available on a few websites, which is particularly of use to people with asthma and heart and lung conditions, who are more sensitive to pollutants in the atmosphere.

In NSW, air quality is monitored by the Department of Planning, Industry and the Environment.

“The NSW Government operates the largest air-quality monitoring network in Australia, with more than 90 monitoring stations across NSW,” says a spokesperson for the department. “This includes 14 air-quality monitoring stations in the Upper Hunter region.”

These stations are fitted with a range of instruments that measure various substances in the air. Most have PM₁₀ and PM_2.5monitors, which register how many particles are in the air that are smaller than 10 and 2.5 micrometres in diameter per cubic metre, respectively. These are the two most frequently used measures of air pollution. They’re measured using tapered element oscillating microbalances, which track particulates in the air by precisely monitoring how they hit a vibrating glass tube, changing its vibrations. 

Stations can also record specific pollutants like sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, ozone, and ammonia, as well as wind and weather data.

Standardised instruments are used at each station, and data from each station can be freely obtained through the department’s website.

Has the air quality in the Upper Hunter improved recently?

NSW deputy premier John Barilaro has told the Guardian that “air quality in the Upper Hunter has improved over the past six months. Daily particle levels in Muswellbrook and Singleton have been within the national benchmark for 99% of the time during spring 2020”.

This is technically true. According to the Department’s seasonal reports, air quality has improved compared to spring and summer 2019–20. But those previous seasons saw drought and unprecedented bushfires, causing unusually high particle levels from dust and smoke. It’s unsurprising that the air is better 12 months later, in a much milder bushfire season – particularly since it’s been rainier.

“Air quality in the Upper Hunter and across NSW was greatly improved compared to the previous two years, as drought conditions weakened throughout most of NSW following good rainfall events from February 2020,” says a spokesperson from the department.

Particle levels in spring 2020 were comparable to levels recorded in 2011–17, without dramatic improvement.

It’s also worth noting that while Muswellbrook and Singleton each only recorded one day over the national benchmark for PM₁₀(50µg/m³) particulates in spring, the national policy aims to have no days above the benchmark annually, excluding ‘exceptional particulate events’: caused by bushfires, hazard reduction burns, or large dust storms. Background pollution and poor air quality are not considered reasonable exceptions.

How does the Upper Hunter compare to the rest of New South Wales?

The department also recognises that the Upper Hunter faces poor air quality from nearby coal mines and power stations.

“Air quality in 2020 varied across NSW regions, meeting national standards on 99% of days during the year on the Mid-north Coast, down to 85% of days at the Port of Newcastle. Historically, annual average PM₁₀ and PM_2.5 levels in the Hunter region have tended to be higher in some areas than elsewhere in the State, due to local industrial activities, such as the Port of Newcastle,” says a department spokesperson.

In a submission to the NSW Planning department opposing the expansion of a coal mine at Mount Pleasant, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull used information from a 2018 report by the Australian Conservation Foundation, which listed the Hunter region as one of the most polluted postcodes in the area.

Turnbull also used the NSW’s publicly available monitoring system to point out dates when Muswellbrook and Singleton had particulate levels that exceeded the benchmarks.

“It is important to note that one of the consistent failures of the [Environmental Impact Statement on Mount Pleasant] is the lack of cumulative impact assessment (resulting from current and proposed mines) to inform proper decision making,” Turnbull told Cosmos. “This is contrary to the NSW Government’s own guidelines and policies.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/climate/how-clean-is-the-hunter-valley-air/

 

[Devil-Dick Willie]

 

Wat. 

[Azeem]

Female kangaroos have three vaginas

[CaaC (John)+]

Quote

How scientists found 'Nemo,' Australia's newest dancing spider

© Photograph by Joseph Schubert 'Maratus nemo the Nemo Peacock Spider standing on the surface of a leaf'.

In a wetland near South Australia’s Mount Gambier, Sheryl Holliday crouched in ankle-deep water, camera lens trained on blooming purple orchids a few feet away. Just as Holliday prepared to hit the shutter, she caught a glimpse of something tiny jumping out of the frame. 

She didn’t know it on that clear day in November, but she’d just discovered an entirely new species of peacock spider, a group of little-known Australian jumping spiders known for vibrant colours and elaborate mating dances.

“I’ve been chasing peacock spiders for three or four years,” says Holliday, an ecological field officer for Nature Glenelg Trust and citizen scientist, but this one looked different. For one, its abdomen was drab, and the creature had distinctive orange-and-white facial patterns. 

Intrigued, Sheryl shared her photos to a Facebook peacock spider appreciation page, which caught the attention of page administrator and arachnologist, Joseph Schubert, who had never seen one like it before. 

The pair connected, and Holliday collected and sent live specimens to Melbourne, allowing Schubert and colleagues to formally identify the arachnid as Maratus nemo, after Nemo, Disney’s heroic clownfish. (The Walt Disney Company is the majority owner of National Geographic Partners.)

The Nemo peacock spider, described recently in the journal Evolutionary Systematics, is the latest in a flurry of peacock spider discoveries that has brought their known numbers from just 15 in 2011 to 92 today. 

Schubert, a biologist at Museums Victoria, credits the boom to the ease of modern photography, in which anyone can quickly take a photo on their smartphone and upload their findings to social media.

Of course, being popular also helps. These rice grain-size arachnids’ charming mating dance has led to countless viral memes that have made the peacock spider an internet sensation.

Movers and shakers

That doesn’t mean they’re easy to find. Most of the year, peacock spiders are brown; only males gain their striking colours after they molt in the spring. Combine that with their diminutive size, and it’s no surprise studying the non-venomous arachnids can be a challenge.

That’s why, when identifying a new species, Schubert hones in on the male’s colourations as well as their mating dance, which is unique to each species and involves a male flexing and gyrating to show off its fitness. When Schubert encouraged a male Nemo to dance for a female in the lab, he was surprised by what he found.

This one individual didn’t “lift its abdomen completely like other species, and it doesn’t have those opisthosoma flaps”—which give the spider its famous colorful display—"underneath the abdomen. It’s just got a little brown booty,” explains Schubert. 

Instead, the male impressed the female by raising its third set of legs and vibrating its abdomen on the ground, generating an audible sound. It’s unknown, he says, whether this is a trademark dance of the Nemo peacock spider.

Schubert noted Nemo’s wetland home is also “really strange,” as the majority of other known peacock spiders prefer dry scrublands.

But peacock spiders are always surprising him. In 2020, scientists found one species, Maratus volpei, living in a salt lake. “We’ve learned that we should be more open to the sorts of habitats where we look for peacock spiders,” Schubert says.

Though peacock spiders play a valuable function as a predator controlling insect populations, there’s still far too little known about their role in the ecosystem and conservation status, he adds.

A tangled web 

“Peacock spiders are excellent because they challenge the prevailing view of spiders as being big, hairy, and dangerous,” says Michael Rix, principal curator of arachnology and research fellow at Australia’s Queensland Museum, who was not involved in Schubert’s study.

“This is a really excellent example of just how interesting, diverse, and still understudied the Australian spider fauna is,” Rix says. 

Only around 30 per cent of Australia’s invertebrates have been formally documented, and there could be as many as 15,000 spider species still to be identified.

Discovering new spiders can also benefit humankind, whether it’s controlling agricultural pests or inspiring new medical treatments, Rix says. Proteins from funnel-web spider venom are already being used to develop pain relief medication, as well as treatments for epilepsy, stroke, and potentially some cancers.

Meanwhile, arachnid and insect populations are plummeting worldwide. In Australia, habitat loss, wildfires, and pesticides may kill off entire spider species before we’ve had a chance to find them, Rix cautions.

“Fundamentally, we can't conserve our biodiversity for future generations,” he says, “if we don't know it even exists.”

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/how-scientists-found-nemo-australias-newest-dancing-spider/ar-BB1fEsGN?li=AAnZ9Ug

 

[Toinho]

8 hours ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

 

Wat. 

Bizarre 

[Spike]

@Devil-Dick Willie you probs already saw this but any thoughts on the wollongong promoters he destroyed ?

 

[Spike]

On 14/04/2021 at 19:50, Devil-Dick Willie said:

 

Wat. 

The Libs really want us to be Reagan USA, fuuuuuck me cunt

[Devil-Dick Willie]

7 hours ago, Spike said:

@Devil-Dick Willie you probs already saw this but any thoughts on the wollongong promoters he destroyed ?

 

Hate yours and owls 

[Spike]

33 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

Hate yours and owls 

couldn't believe the audacity in the letter he wrote Jordies, takes a real worm to insult someone with hand and kiss their arse with the other.

[Devil-Dick Willie]

He clearly thought he was being diplomatic 

[Spike]

13 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

He clearly thought he was being diplomatic 

a good tip is not to be condescending with unwarranted self importance

[Spike]

@Devil-Dick Willie @Toinho @Harry @CaaC (John)

 

these people run the country

 

[Devil-Dick Willie]

1 hour ago, Spike said:

@Devil-Dick Willie @Toinho @Harry @CaaC (John)

 

these people run the country

 

Are you 12?

[Spike]

5 minutes ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

Are you 12?

yes

 

[Spike]

maybe you missed the point but that is an official video from the federal government on giving consent, in reaction to the latest scandals

[Azeem]

Veronica should let Bailey touch her butt for her mean behaviour 

[Devil-Dick Willie]

Shed cream my face and I'd cream hers. 

[Devil-Dick Willie]

"SAY YOU LIKE MINE BETTER!!!"

*Slaps the bitch, chokes her the fuck out* 
"SAY YOU LIKE IT SLUTTTTT"

Fuck now I'm flying half mast. 

[Spike]

6 hours ago, Devil-Dick Willie said:

"SAY YOU LIKE MINE BETTER!!!"

*Slaps the bitch, chokes her the fuck out* 
"SAY YOU LIKE IT SLUTTTTT"

Fuck now I'm flying half mast. 

i am reporting you to triple j for this post, this is so not okay