When Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour brought the United States into World War 2, the U.S. was faced with a huge logistical problem. While Britain and Nazi-occupied Europe weren’t very far apart, the distance between the eastern shore of the Pacific and Japan is so large that any offensive across the Pacific would have been…
Did your grandma have the same diet as Hercules? Good question. If your grandma was around in 1960s Australia it’s possible. You see, in ‘60s Australia many people were fond of a treat called Squill Candy. “What on earth is Squill Candy?” you might ask. Well, as you might possibly have guessed, Squill Candy is…
As the climate crisis accelerates, the need to understand and protect coral reef ecosystems grows ever more urgent. One important element of this quest to unravel the inner workings of reefs is mapping reef biochemistry, which reveals far more about the stress the reef is under than visual surveys do. This is especially useful as…
There’s a lot of talk at the moment about how to make agriculture less harmful, such as by encouraging people to get their protein from vegetables instead of meat, for example; however it seems like changing our diets might not be necessary. Scientists have figured out how to decouple protein production from agriculture, through a…
At the moment the mouse plague afflicting Australia feels almost biblical following extensive fires, drought and rain in recent times. Millions of mice are on the move in Western NSW and parts of Queensland, Victoria and South Australia, causing millions in property damage. The mice arrived with the First Fleet in 1788 and have been…
