Hunt continues for meteorite in regional Victoria
It caused what's been described as a sonic boom that rattled houses across the state and is now believed to be the size of a football, weighing about a kilo and a half.
ABC News Radio's Sarah Morice spoke with Monash University planetary geologist Rachel Kirby who is searching in Victoria's west.
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ABC News
13 minutes ago
- ABC News
New $90 million research facility opens at CSIRO to house specimens collected over 150 years
Millions of irreplaceable biodiversity specimens have been re-homed at a new CSIRO facility that the agency says will support research to better understand and manage Australia's natural environment. Named 'Diversity', the $90 million National Research Collections building in Canberra features temperature-controlled vaults that are bushfire and pest-resistant while designed to preserve 13 million specimens for future generations. Among the specimens, which have been collected over 150 years, are 55,000 birds, 17,000 orchids, 2.4 million moths and seven million beetles. Dr Clare Holleley, who is the director of vertebrate collections, says the facility serves as a "time machine for Australia's biodiversity". "It's taken snapshots of specimens over time, and when we put all of those little snapshots together, it puts together a picture of how Australia's biodiversity is changing. "We can learn from those trends and potentially predict what is going to happen in the future." The collections include 99 per cent of Australia's native birds, as well as exotic bird species, skeletons, mammals, reptiles stored in ethanol, eggs and frozen tissue. Relocating the specimens took about a year. The official opening of the facility coincides with National Science Week, described by CSIRO chief executive Doug Hilton as an "exciting" moment. Dr Hilton described the facility as "cutting-edge", featuring new genomics laboratories and digitisation facilities that will allow scientists to extract and share more information from research specimens. "If we can't understand how things are changing over time, it's very hard to conserve things for the future," he said. "What we have here is a facility that holds specimens in a highly secure way and allows us to digitise and automate digitisation in a way that is just the envy of the world." While there was celebration at the opening of the building, concern remains about the potential of job cuts at the agency, with the Community and Public Sector Union warning that hundreds of jobs could be axed this year. In responding to those concerns, Dr Hilton said: "Our science has to adapt". "There are programs of research that we may have to stop in order for us to be able to do new programs of research to tackle those big problems like productivity, sustainability and our sovereign science capacity." He said the agency would be reviewing its whole portfolio of science next month and then would need to make "hard choices", but wouldn't say how many jobs could be affected. The new National Research Collections building was jointly funded by the CSIRO and the Department of Education through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. While the building won't be open to the public, the collections will be accessible to researchers, governments, and citizen scientists worldwide.
ABC News
43 minutes ago
- ABC News
What can we learn from New Zealand's experience with potato mop-top virus?
For the first time, potato mop-top virus has been detected in Australia. Spread by a soil-borne fungus vector that can cling to machinery and other materials, it's so far unclear how the disease made it onto a farm in north-west Tasmania. An incident management team has been created to trace and contain the virus, amid concerns for the state's $300 million potato industry. Seven years ago, one of Australia's closest neighbours was dealing with a detection of the same virus. So what can Tasmania learn from the experience across the ditch? Potato mop-top virus was first recorded in a single potato tuber taken from the storage facility of a processing factory in Canterbury, New Zealand in September 2018. Before then, the disease had never been seen in New Zealand. In Tasmania, the virus has only been detected on one farm and risk mitigation measures have been put in place to try and contain it. But in New Zealand, it wasn't clear exactly which paddock the diseased tuber had come from, so a range of sites were tested and it soon became clear the virus was in several paddocks in Canterbury. Iain Kirkwood, an agronomist and biosecurity manager from industry group Potatoes New Zealand, said an international committee of experts was set up to look at response options in New Zealand. "They very quickly came to the conclusion that we cannot eradicate it, because it's a soil-borne organism which causes a powdery scab, and that can stay in the soil for years and years," Dr Kirkwood said. According to the advisory group, eradication had not been achieved in many other international regions where the virus had been recorded either. The New Zealand response moved from "eradication" to "management". Dr Kirkwood said an entire department of the Ministry for Primary Industries looks at tracking and tracing how various incursions get into the country, but, despite a lot of time and money, it couldn't determine how potato mop-top virus arrived in New Zealand. Potato mop-top virus is also found in the United States. Professor Alexander Karasev from the University of Idaho said it might be difficult to trace how the virus entered Tasmania. "In the US, we suspect that the main route of transmission of the virus is with soil … that might be potted for ornamental [plants] which may not even be related to potatoes," Professor Karasev said. Potato mop-top virus can cause significant yield and quality reductions in potatoes. Dr Kirkwood said there hadn't been any reports of yield impacts in New Zealand. He said the virus was discovered in one seed paddock, and that seed line had to be destroyed and the grower compensated. But he said overall, there hadn't been a major impact on New Zealand's potato industry so far. "We're monitoring it through the processors — they report to us if they see mop-top in their lines — and they're recording it every so often," Dr Kirkwood said. "But it's not causing any significant economic impact either on the growers or the processors right now." The international expert advisory group did give New Zealand a warning, though. "We're hopefully monitoring it sufficiently and that it's not going to creep up upon and cause some major issues, but it's one that you do have to pay attention to." Dr Kirkwood said the most important thing New Zealand did was an early survey, testing about 200 lines of potatoes, including seed potatoes, throughout the whole country, to get a good picture of where and how widespread the virus was. "It's very difficult to carry out a response if you're not certain as to where the disease actually is, so I would encourage Tasmania to do some form of survey," he said. Dr Kirkwood also said it would be important for Biosecurity Tasmania to work with the local industry. "The local industry knows the industry better than anyone else — far better than Biosecurity Tasmania does — so I would encourage them to work closely with the growers and the grower organisations."
News.com.au
3 hours ago
- News.com.au
Scientists find surprising sex reversal in Australian birds
Scientists have documented a surprising rate of sex reversal in wild Australian birds, a phenomenon that could be explained by rising pollution or other environmental triggers. A study of five common Australian species, including kookaburras, magpies and lorikeets, found around six percent of birds had the chromosomes of one sex but the reproductive organs of another. The findings indicated a surprisingly high number of birds had reversed their sex after birth, said researchers from the University of the Sunshine Coast. "This indicates that sex determination in wild birds is more fluid than we thought, and can persist into adulthood," said study co-author Dominique Potvin. The study performed DNA tests on almost 500 birds. The overwhelming majority of sex reversals involved genetically female birds growing male gonads. "We also discovered a genetically male kookaburra who was reproductively active with large follicles and a distended oviduct, indicating recent egg production," said Potvin. Sex reversal is well known in certain species of reptile and fish but is thought to be rare in wild birds and mammals. Scientists have documented how pollutants and even warm temperatures can trigger sex reversal in frogs. The cause of sex reversal in wild birds was not clear, the University of the Sunshine Coast study said. But it could be due to environmental factors, such as hormone-disrupting chemicals building up in wild areas. "Understanding how and why sex reversal occurs is vital for conservation and for improving the accuracy of bird research," added Potvin. The study was published this week in peer-reviewed journal Biology Letters. sft/tc
