ENVIRONMENT

Researchers have found that large catfish are eating mice in a desert river in Western Australia's Pilbara region. Murdoch University researchers were surprised to find native spinifex hopping mice at varying stages of digestion in eight of the 18 lesser salmon catfish caught in the Ashburton River. Moreover, two of the fish had remains of rodents in their stomach.

Researchers in Western Australia have found that giant goldfish weighing up to 1.9 kilograms are threatening freshwater species in WA waterways. People are dumping unwanted pet goldfish in the waterways and they are reaching massive sizes. This is threatening the ecosystem.

Reports suggest that two-thirds of the people visiting Australia’s Great Barrier Reef are doing so for the last time. Most of the tourists want to see the reef before it dies from massive coral bleaching. The health of the reef is a sorry state with more and more tourists paying it a visit to experience it one last time.

Almost 24 native species in Queensland have been given the threatened status. The government is now gathering support for tougher vegetation clearing laws. It has come to the point where scientists should question why more and more species are being lost. Australia already has the alarming record of losing the most mammals.

In a world-first study, Australian researchers have calculated the proportion of our suntan that comes from beyond the Milky Way. This skin-tanning, natural radiation comes not from the sun but distant hungry black holes and stars and is known as intergalactic solarium. This alien radiation is also known as extra-galactic background light that that gives the tan. This alien light well beyond our galaxy helps beachgoers get that tanned bronze.

NASA thinks Venus may have looked like Earth once. It was a planet capable of life, with a shallow liquid-water ocean and habitable surface temperature for up to two billion years.

Earth’s past climate has always been a mystery to scientists but ancient ice may hold clues to the mysteries surrounding it. In fact, ancient ice is already helping researchers understand Earth’s past climate and experts are now focusing on a massive freezer in suburban Denver known as the National Ice Core Laboratory in Lakewood. The ice is transported to the Colorado lab from Greenland and Antarctica.

A new form of colour has been discovered in peacock spiders. The structural colour that male peacock spiders display has never been documented before. Such colouration is much less common than pigment colouration where natural substances provide the colour to plants and animals. It is common in beetles and peacocks.

New Townsville research centre has its focus on the endangered green turtles. Scientists opened the centre in Queensland to unravel the mysteries of green turtles and also put an end to their high mortality rates. Physiology of green turtles of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef plays a big role in protecting the reef’s ecosystem. However, little is known about their physiology.

Australian scientists have developed a highly-advanced test, known as eDNA, that may save the endangered largetooth sawfish. The researchers of Australia’s four extremely rare sawfish developed the test for an easier way to find estuaries the fish exist in. The new way will be able to successfully test large bodies of water for DNA of the sawfish and that will make key habitats easier to find.

Researchers have found that whales’ ultrasonic hearing has an ancient history. Their high-frequency hearing abilities arose earlier than anticipated. Morgan Churchill of New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury, New York, said that the high-frequency hearing of whales may have preceded the emergence of echolocation.

Experts have revealed that humpback whales save other species from ocean killers. Apart from their gigantic size, spectacular leaps and gentle behaviour, whales also have another amazing characteristic and that is concern for other animals.

Scientists may have found an answer to why one of the last known groups of woolly mammoths died and were wiped out from the face of Earth. As per a new study, Alaskan woolly mammoths could have died of thirst as water became scarce around five thousand years ago.

In almost three decades, Lake Pedder in Tasmania is set to overflow for the first time. In the last 24 hours heavy rains lashed the region and the lake’s water level has risen 20cm. With capacity now at 99 percent, the lake is set to overflow on Wednesday.

Frogs are remarkably diverse when it comes to sex and reproduction. Cornell University frog biologists have revealed in a new study that some frogs hide on land to reduce competition from other males who also want to fertilize those eggs. They have sex on land as they have smaller testes.

Researchers with the Ocean Exploration Trust are scratching their heads after Exploration Vessel Nautilus unearthed a purple-coloured orb underwater in the Channel Islands off the coast of California.

Researchers have revealed that all life as we see today descended from a microbe about four billion years ago. The microbe adapted itself to survive mineral-rich, oxygen-free and warm environments.

A new study suggests that rocks formed beneath the ocean floor via rapidly-spreading tectonic plates may be a massive free source of hydrogen gas previously overlooked. The finding by Duke University researchers in the US may prove to be a goldmine for scientists as they believe free hydrogen gas (H2) may be responsible for life on Earth.

Scientists have revealed that the gravitational pull between the moon and the sun does not only cause high and low tides on Earth. The tug can also cause a special type of earthquake on the San Andreas Fault. Scientists have come to this conclusion after analysing 81,000 low-frequency earthquakes along the San Andreas Fault.

Researchers from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Rome have revealed that an “extinct” volcano is coming back to life. They have warned that if it erupts, it will be as violent as the Mt Vesuvius one that wiped out Pompeii completely.

After a two metre crocodile was spotted sunbathing at the popular Barron River aquatic recreation area, swimmers have been urged not to take a plunge in Lake Placid.

A gap in the sun’s magnetic field is allowing heat from the star to escape into space. Discovered by NASA, the mysterious coronal hole may cause communications chaos on Earth.

Researchers recently discovered flowers of a new orchid species that resembles the devil’s head. A close look at the flowers’ heart revealed the demonic patterns. The devilish orchid is a Critically Endangered species in the International Union for Conservation (IUCN) Red List.

The creepy-looking fish found in the sands of Virginia Beach that prompted a surfing group to warn beachgoers is not a real threat to humans, said an East Coast Surfing Championships (ECSC) Facebook post. However, visitors are still advised to be cautious and be on the lookout of the strange-looking fish that was spotted near the shoreline.

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef may be contaminated, at least that’s what turtle herpes outbreak suggests. This has raised concerns for the health of the reef after it suffered massive coral bleaching brought about by human-induced climate change.

Latest research has revealed that dinosaurs were wiped out by a “one-two punch” of twin disasters. It was kind of a double whammy of bad luck as per the scientists. It was not a single catastrophe that killed of the massive beasts.

In a massive landslide this week, a 4,000-foot-high mountainside collapsed in Glacier Bay National Park. It spread debris for miles across the glacier below. The collapse comes as a powerful reminder of the instable mountains in this part of Alaska.

Researchers are baffled after discovering for the first time a ghostly fish that measures just 10 centimetres. It is for the first time that researchers have spotted this fish alive, more than two kilometres below the ocean’s surface.

University of Western Australia (UWA) researchers have given the Shark Shield a green signal, which comes as a relief to divers and surfers after the recent spate of shark attacks in Australia.