Posts by Patrick Kinsella
Cats: Cute camping buddies or marauding maulers?
After the week that was—where the issue of travelling with pets reached pantomime proportions, with the creepy video of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard apologising for smuggling their pooches into Australia—we chanced upon a website dedicated entirely to camping with cats, and the two contrasting stories combined to spark an interesting debate: should cats and … Continued
Brainy bees and self-conscious ants—and their role in the rise of the machines
To bee or not to bee. That is the question that some invertebrates could be asking themselves on a regular basis, if two Australian academics are correct in their hypothesis that insects such as ants and honeybees have some level of self awareness, instead of merely being dumb drones that operate on a robotically simplistic … Continued
Were dinosaurs dying out before the asteroid apocalypse?
A new study has revealed that dinosaurs were already in serious decline before an asteroid slammed into the side of the planet and finished them off once and for all. From a juncture estimated to be about 220 million years ago, the creatures we know as dinosaurs clawed their collective way to the top of the … Continued
Couple find fortune in whale vomit on British beach
A couple of British beachcombers have just struck gold, in the slightly unsightly shape of a chunk of valuable whale vomit. Otherwise known as ambergris, the strange and stinky stuff is thought to be produced in the bile ducts of sperm whales to help them deal with spiky objects in their gut and throat, such … Continued
World's oldest dog dies
An Australian farm hound, thought to be the oldest dog in the world, died peacefully in her sleep over the weekend, it’s been reported. Maggie, a kelpie, was aged 30, which is the equivalent of 133 in human years. Kelpies are Australian working dogs, bred from collies and dingos for the tough conditions faced on … Continued
New species of dancing spider found in Orange. And it's orange
Citizen scientists have discovered a new species of peacock spider in the Australian outback, near the central west New South Wales town of Orange, and to the delight of the amateur arachnid-fans that found it, the creature is colour-coordinated to suit its surrounds. It’s bright orange. Although small, typically 3mm–5mm across, peacock spiders are the … Continued
Breakthrough Starshot program to make stamp-sized solar-powered spaceships capable of interstellar travel
The most famous cosmologist in the known universe, Dr Stephen Hawking, together with a much-moneyed mob of investors headed by Russian tech billionaire Yuri Milner and including Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, have just launched an extraordinary plan to send tiny spaceships deeper into the universe than mankind has ever stretched before: operation Breakthrough Starshot. Powered … Continued
Inky the octopus pulls off great escape from NZ aquarium
In scenes that could have been lifted straight from Finding Nemo, an ingenious octopus has pulled off a daring escape from New Zealand’s National Aquarium. Inky, a rugby ball–sized octopus, managed to bust out of his tank under the cloak of darkness, before legging it across the floor, clambering down a 50-metre drainpipe and disappearing … Continued
World's longest snake caught in Panang, Malaysia
A new World Record for the longest snake ever caught may have just been set, with the reported discovery and capture of a gigantic reticulated python on a building site in Malaysia. Early estimates are claiming that the snake, spotted by workers during the construction of a flyover in Paya Terubong on the popular tourist … Continued
Wanted: volunteers to study penguins in Antarctica
Yesterday saw the launch of a new phase of Oxford University’s PenguinWatch, an ambitious project that began in 2014 and is aimed at recording the fortunes and monitoring the activities of Antarctica’s penguin colonies. However, for ‘PenguinWatch 2.0‘ to work properly, the British scientists need your help. By collaborating with a penguin census that has … Continued
Roar deal: Tigers officially extinct in Cambodia, but government plans to bring big cats back from the dead
Conservationists in Cambodia have conceded that tigers are ‘functionally extinct’ in the country. The kingdom’s forests were once patrolled by a healthy numbers of magnificent Indochinese tigers, but World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) this week reported that poaching has wiped the Cambodian population out completely, with the big cats and their prey species both … Continued
Crash test bunnies: Does animal testing still matter to you?
Few issues are capable of provoking such an impassioned, conflicted and confused response from people than the use of animals in scientific tests. Ask the average person in the street whether they agree with animal experimentation and a significant percentage will typically say no. Query whether they would take a medicine that has not been … Continued
New Alaskan butterfly with antifreeze in its blood tells tales about climate change
A newly identified Alaskan butterfly, which is thought to be a hybrid of two ancient species that possibly mated prior to the last ice age, could be a valuable messenger for scientists studying climate change, according to a leading lepidopterist (butterfly boffin). But that’s not its only trick. Butterflies are cold-blooded creatures (although they have … Continued
Russia revives combat dolphin programme
As relations between Eastern and Western superpowers continue to cool, Russia looks poised to restart a programme mothballed after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, which once saw dolphins and other intelligent marine mammals used for military missions. Accessing the government’s procurement website, Russian reporters revealed that an … Continued
The last unicorn
The skull of a mighty unicorn has just been discovered in Kazakhstan, which has forced scientists to rethink longheld theories about the survival of an extraordinary species, to look again at where it walked the Earth, and reassess how long it could have survived in some regions of the globe. The mythical sounding beast in … Continued
Japan has just slaughtered hundreds of pregnant minke whales
According to a report just released by the National Geographic’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU), Japanese whalers have recently slaughtered 333 minke whales, including more than 200 pregnant females, under the guise of scientific research. Four whaling ships returned to port on Wednesday, after a 115-day expedition to the Antarctic, and their bloody haul was documented … Continued
Plucky Pacific micronation punches shark poachers where it hurts most—Their ships
In midst of the world’s largest ocean, a desperate sea battle is being fought, with pirates, poachers and illegal fishing ships on one side, and on the other, Palau, a remote nation of 250 islands scattered like gorgeous green marbles across the great blue blanket of the western Pacific. And the action has recently become superheated, … Continued
Record-smashing seaside survey reveals surprises all along UK's coastline
The results from the biggest nature survey ever conducted along the coastline of Britain have just come in, and they contain some super surprises, with multiple species being ‘rediscovered’ or found for the first time in various regions where their presence had never been previously recorded. The interactive survey was conducted by the National Trust … Continued
Meet Brian, a newly discovered surfing spider from Australia
A species of spider just discovered in Queensland, Australia, has been observed surfing waves, swimming and diving underwater to catch its prey, which can include animals as big as frogs. The spider, which can grow to the size of an adult human’s palm, has been called Brian after the noted American theoretical physicist Brian Greene, … Continued
SeaWorld era of performing orcas is effectively dead and buried
American aquatic theme-park empire, SeaWorld, has just announced that it will stop breeding orcas in captivity with immediate effect, and will begin phasing out its killer whale theatrical shows. The move comes after several years of very high-profile negative coverage and controversy, including claims of mistreatment of orcas, which began in earnest following the death … Continued
NASA report reveals scorched Earth
Figures just released by NASA have revealed that the surface temperature on Planet Earth absolutely soared in February this year, as the world experienced the most dramatic and biggest month-on-month increase in global warming since records began. Information released by the space agency—which has been described by scientists such as Dr Jeff Masters and Bob … Continued
Discovery of skull provides missing link in the evolution of Earth's most ferocious cold-blooded killer
The remains of a horse-sized species of tyrannosaur have been discovered in Uzbekistan, revealing some long-sought-after pieces of a puzzle explaining how the most fearsome predator ever to stride across our planet came into being. Tyrannosaurus rex was the undisputed king of the Cretaceous Period. Fully grown, this terrific beast weighed in at seven tonnes, … Continued
Spatial Awareness—5 years of cosmic exploration and revelation
As a new joint Euro-Russian space mission blasts off on a mission to Mars, to discover whether the planet’s methane is being produced by windy alien microorganisms living just below the red crust, we take a trip through the last five brain-blowing years of space exploration. Over the last half-decade, our understanding of the cosmos … Continued
Ocean hum blamed on farting fish from twilight zone
The source of a baffling buzzing noise emanating from the midst of the Pacific Ocean, which has been driving scientists to distraction for years, may have finally been figured out: according to a team from the University of California, who dangled microphones 1000 metres into the depths, it’s probably being caused by farting fish. The … Continued
Gorillas sing for their supper
Gorillas hum and sing little tunes while eating certain foods, using a form of vocalisation that is completely distinct from the noises they make when engaged in any other activity, a new study has revealed. Zookeepers have long observed this humming habit in captive gorillas, and they say that the song becomes louder the more … Continued
New Guinea's rainforests are being destroyed with apparent impunity
It’s becoming hard to see the (rain) forests for the (felled) trees on the island of New Guinea at the moment. With a legal farce involving a renowned large-scale timber thief playing out in West Papua, a new report has also just revealed that an area of Papua New Guinea’s rainforests larger than Australia’s entire … Continued
