Australia is known worldwide for its often bizarre and sometimes terrifying wildlife. Many will recognise the koala, kookaburra, kangaroo and emu but would they recognise the Rakali? The Rakali was once referred to as ‘water rat’ but now we use one of the names given to it by the First Peoples. There are at least … Continue reading Australian Otter
We know we get zombies from drug provided by Fugu but where does the Fugu get it? Still want more? Transcript can be found here Podcast notes can be found here
So… apparently… a man injected himself with sperm to treat his back pain. Hard to know where to begin with that one… In an attempt to stop this sort of thing happening again I want to look at what a sperm actually is. I think most adults can probably say that they understand the primary … Continue reading Sperm – A Cure for Backache?
Hares and rabbits are very similar in appearance and are difficult to differentiate. In Australia, if you were to see a rabbit it will most likely be the european rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) If you see a hare it will probably be the European/brown hare (Lepus europaeus). When you place those pictures side by side you … Continue reading The Hare and The Rabbit
When you reference an organism in Science, you use its scientific name. This is known as binomial nomenclature or the two naming system. This is just the genus and species of the organism. So to hark back to a previous example, a wolf is Canis lupus. That is just its Genus, Canis and its species, … Continue reading Bear Bear Bear and Washing Bears
Ecologists, environmental scientists, botanists and other such peoples need to be able to accurately identify specimens. This might be a tree, butterfly, lizard or mammal. A rather large task… If you want to learn it’s going to be a long road filled with embarrassing misidentifications (I have definitely never identified a bird as a black … Continue reading Frilled Cten-o-tus
Australian man screaming at spider ‘why don’t you die?’ triggers full police response https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/02/australian-man-screaming-at-spider-why-dont-you-die-triggers-full-police-response The Guardian article detailed a rather unusual story of a passerby hearing a male voice yelling, “why don’t you die” accompanied with a toddler’s screams. The passerby promptly called the police who then raced round to the house. Instead of finding … Continue reading Murder Most … Crawly