Clipmarks | Australia Clips

Biofuels behind food price hikes: leaked World Bank report

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 21:30:58 GMT

clipped by: Smoke TNT
clipper's remarks: If only the government solved half as many problems as it causes. The only time the government is effective is when it gets out of the way.

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Jul 4

LONDON (AFP) - Biofuels have caused world food prices to increase by 75 percent, according to the findings of an unpublished World Bank report published in The Guardian newspaper on Friday.

The daily said the report was finished in April but was not published to avoid embarrassing the US government, which has claimed plant-derived fuels have pushed up prices by only three percent.

Biofuels, which supporters claim are a "greener" alternative to using fossil fuel and cut greenhouse gas emissions, and rising food prices will be on the agenda when G8 leaders meet in Japan next week for their annual summit.

"Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases," the report said.

Droughts in Australia have also not had a significant impact, it added. Instead, European and US drives for greater use of biofuels has had the biggest effect

Tags: global warming, scam, world hunger, government

American pride highest in the world

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:03:42 GMT

clipped by: jatfla
clipper's remarks: In honor of America's Birthday. To whom it may concern: Happy 4th of July!

Clip Source: www.washtimes.com

American pride highest in the world

Americans are the most patriotic people on the planet, according to researchers at the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center who quantified and compared the national sense of pride in 34 countries.

The United States is at the head of the list, followed by Venezuela, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, Canada, Chile, New Zealand, the Philippines and Israel rounding out the top 10.

The U.S. was ranked highest overall, particularly in pride in democracy, economy, political influence, science and the military.

Call to encourage climate-friendly farms

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:00:03 GMT

clipped by: pokkets

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Anna Salleh

News analysis Australian farmers could have a huge impact on greenhouse emissions and the government needs to start seriously encouraging them to sequester carbon in their soils, say some experts.

The comments come as the Garnaut Climate Change Review delivers a draft report, which acknowledges changing the way we farm can have a big impact on our greenhouse emissions.

Professor Peter Grace of the Queensland University of Technology, an expert on agriculture and greenhouse emissions, estimates that in an ideal situation, more than 900 Megatonnes of CO2 equivalents could be sequestered per annum through improved pasture management.

It's a very significant amount of carbon

even if only 10% of this amount was achieved it would result in a significant reduction in Australia's carbon emissions.

John Connor of the Climate Institute says the government should give some signal to encourage farmers to sequester carbon in its Green Paper on emissions trading, due out on 16 July.

Early Aussie Tattoos Match Rock Art

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:03:00 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Gave the photo a miss as Australian aborigines react adversely to pictures etc of the dead. Wouldn't be too impressed by a pic of a dead relative's arse.

Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

July 3, 2008 -- Body art was all the rage in early Australia, as it was in many other parts of the ancient world, and now a new study reports that elaborate and distinctive designs on the skin of indigenous Aussies repeated characters and motifs found on rock art and all sorts of portable objects, ranging from toys to pipes.

The study not only illustrates the link between body art, such as tattoos and intentional scarring, with cultural identity, but it also suggests that study of this imagery may help to unravel mysteries about where certain groups traveled in the past, what their values and rituals were, and how they related to other cultures.

"Distinctive design conventions can be considered markers of social interaction so, in a way (they are) a cultural signature of sorts that archaeologists can use to understand ways people were interacting in the past," author Liam Brady of Monash University's Center for Australian Indigenous Studies, told Discovery News.

Tags: a, little, history

shakin" downunder

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:52:17 GMT

clipped by: zadoz
clipper's remarks: check out your part of the world

Clip Source: www.ga.gov.au

Recent Earthquakes Measured by Geoscience Australia

43 earthquakes for the last 30 days (magnitude > 2.0)

red star

last 7 days (most recent: 03 July )

orange star

7 to 14 days

green star

14 to 30 days (oldest: 05 June)

grey triangle

historical earthquake greater than magnitude 6

Tags: earthquake

Carbon specks push back origins of life

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:28:45 GMT

clipped by: pokkets

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Anna Salleh

Tiny traces of carbon trapped inside the oldest diamonds ever found, suggest life started on Earth 700 million years earlier than previously thought, say Australian researchers.

Dr Alexander Nemchin and colleagues from Curtin University's Department of Applied Geology in Western Australia report their findings in this week's issue of Nature.

The team analysed carbon isotopes trapped inside the 4.2-billion year old diamonds that formed inside zircon crystals discovered last year in the Jack Hills region of Western Australian.

Associate Professor Ian Fitzsimons, who heads the department that Nemchin and colleagues belong to, says the ratio of carbon isotopes provides clues on whether the carbon came from a life form.

"When plants take in carbon from the atmosphere they much prefer carbon-12 and don't like carbon-13," says Fitzsimons.

"So the carbon in the plants has a different ratio and anything that eats the plants inherits that ratio."

New Aussie Cricket Captain

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 05:42:38 GMT

clipped by: Grant Morris

Clip Source: www.smh.com.au

Clarke appointed captain after Ponting succumbs to injury

Victorian batsman David Hussey will make his one-day international debut in Friday's match against the West Indies at Warner Park.

Hussey was informed of his inclusion in the Australian XI by Ricky Ponting, whom he will replace in the match. Ponting has been unable to train at full capacity since the last one-dayer in Grenada, during which he strained tendons in his wrist.

Michael Clarke will lead the tourists in Ponting's absence, and will become Australia's 18th one-day international captain. Clarke heads a side with six changes to that which defeated South Africa by 83 runs in Basseterre last year during the World Cup.

Clarke, became the youngest cricketer since Kim Hughes to lead Australia after captaining the side against New Zealand in a Twenty20 international last summer and was handed both the Test and one-day vice-captaincy for this tour following the retirement of Adam Gilchrist.

World's Most Patriotic Countries

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 03:35:39 GMT

clipped by: missjackson

Clip Source: www.forbes.com

No. 10: Israel

Parliamentary Democracy

Clip Source: www.forbes.com

No. 9: The Philippines

Republic

Clip Source: www.forbes.com

No. 8: New Zealand

Parliamentary Democracy

Clip Source: www.forbes.com

No. 7: Chile

Republic

Clip Source: www.forbes.com

No. 6: Canada

Constitutional Monarchy, Parliamentary Democracy, Federation

Clip Source: www.forbes.com

No. 5: Austria

Federal Republic

Clip Source: www.forbes.com

No. 4: South Africa

Republic

Clip Source: www.forbes.com

No. 3: Australia

Federal Parliamentary Democracy

Clip Source: www.forbes.com

No. 1 (Tie): United States

Constitution-Based Federal Republic

Clip Source: www.forbes.com

No. 1 (Tie): Venezuela

30 Most Incredible Abstract Satellite Images of Earth

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:03:45 GMT

clipped by: missjackson

Clip Source: www.environmentalgraffiti.com

By Tom Davie and Chris Ingham Brooke

400,000 images taken by the Landsat 7 satellite

A handful of the best were painstakingly chosen and then displayed at the Library of Congress in 2000.

Guinea-Bissau

Garden City, Kansas, USA

Akpatok Island, Canada

Aleutian Clouds, North America

Mayn River, Siberia, Russia

Bolivian Deforestation

Anti-Atlas Mountains, Morocco

Ocean Sands, Bahamas

Lake Carnegie, Australia

Chilean Volcanoes

Clip Source: www.environmentalgraffiti.com

Coahuila, Mexico

The Everglades, Florida, USA

Ganges River Delta, (Bangladesh & India)

Ghadamis River, Libya

Baffin Bay, Greenland

Konari, Iran

Iraqi Military emplacement

Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

Dasht-e Kavir, Iran

Lena River, Russia

Clip Source: www.environmentalgraffiti.com

MacDonnell Mountains, Australia

Malaspina Glacier, Alaska, USA

The Optimist, Kalahari Desert, Namibia

Parana River, Brazil

Richat Structure, Mauritiana

The Great Sandy Desert, Australia

The Great Sandy Scars, Australia

Terkezi Oasis, Chad

Volga Delta, Russia

Karman Vortices

Database Creation outsourcing

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:52:58 GMT

clipped by: pycobb
clipper's remarks: Outsourcing their work to reputed companies like Telegenisys Inc. through document scanning services proved to be the only way out. Converting the important documents into electronic data helps out in the long run so that the companies can get easy access to data and update them whenever necessary.

Clip Source: www.telegenisys.com

Document Scanning

Telegenisys Inc. is one of the leading companies offering Document Scanning and Sorting Services to clients from North America, Europe and Australia. Most top ranking banks, hospitals and other medium and large businesses in these countries prefer to outsource their workload through documentation services.

Tags: outsourcing database creations services

Precious moments frozen in time

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:04:19 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: I'll try to follow up on the collection.

Clip Source: www.theage.com.au

Old Australia: The National Library is unable to establish the identity of two of the buildings in these photographs and hope the public can help. The photo above is of the Old Treasury Building in Spring Street. Photo: Andrew Taylor

IN THE 1870s, Beaufoy Merlin and Charles Baylis criss-crossed Victoria and NSW with a horse-drawn darkroom, lugging equipment that was ingenious but heavy, and working magic with chemicals such as mercury and magnesium that may ultimately have killed them.

They created an extraordinary record of life in Australia 130 years ago — streets of packed earth wide enough to turn a wagon and human figures, some sharp and some turned ghostly by movement that the slow shutter speeds of their cameras could not handle.

Tags: great, pics, history

band T-shirt

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:38:00 GMT

clipped by: zadoz
clipper's remarks: wearing offensive shirts for the popes visit to australia can attract a fine of $5000.....

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

Banned Shirts are Back in Stock!

Our anti-war t-shirts have sparked a lawsuit that seeks $40 BILLION in damages. Six states have outlawed these t-shirts that list 4,058 U.S. troops killed in Iraq.

Tags: t-shirts

How a Giant Solar Tower Could Power the Future

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:01:01 GMT

clipped by: A53GG4

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

How a Giant Solar Tower Could Power the Future

By Michael Schirber, Special to LiveScience

posted: 02 July 2008 10:11 am ET

Editor's Note: Each Wednesday LiveScience examines the viability of emerging energy technologies — the power of the future.

A new energy concept called a solar tower could generate enough electricity for 200,000 homes. Looking like a giant smokestack, it would release no noxious fumes — just sun-heated air.

Demonstrated more than 20 years ago, the basic design calls for solar collectors to warm the air near Earth's surface and then channel it up the tall central tower. Turbines placed at the bottom make electricity from the updraft.

A Solar Tower prototype operated from 1982 to 1989 in Manzanares, Spain. Credit: EnviroMission Ltd.

"It's a combination chimney, windmill, greenhouse," said Kim Forté of EnviroMission Limited in South Melbourne, Australia.

EnviroMission has designed a kilometer-high solar tower (0.62 miles)

Tags: solar power

Volunteer Opportunities For Free Travel

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 02:56:10 GMT

clipped by: missjackson

Clip Source: matador.org

1. WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms), Worldwide

Contact: WWOOF.

A First-Timer’s Guide to WWOOF-ing.

2. Turtle Teams, Worldwide

www.seaturtles.org and www.cccturtle.org.

Conservation Volunteers, Australia and New Zealand

- www.conservationvolunteers.com.au -

www.btcv.org.uk

Sudan Volunteer Programme, Sudan

– www.svp-uk.com

Appalachian Trail Conference, USA

- www.appalachiantrail.org

Trip Leader for HF Holidays, Europe

- www.hfholidays.co.uk -

Help Exchange, Worldwide

- www.helpx.net -

Peace Corps, Worldwide

- www.peacecorps.gov –

www.vso.org.uk

United Nations Volunteers, Worldwide

- www.unv.org

Kibbutz Volunteer, Israel

www.kibbutzvolunteer.com

Study shows 'being fat in today's world' invites social discrimination

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:10:34 GMT

clipped by: swampfoxz
clipper's remarks: Twenty participants-more than 25 percent-regularly tried to lose weight quickly by going without eating anything for periods-essentially "starving" themselves.

Clip Source: www.brainmysteries.com

Study shows 'being fat in today's world' invites social discrimination (6/27/2008)

Obese people feel "a culture of blame" against them, which they say has been made worse by media reports about the health risks of obesity, a new study from Australia found. The results will be presented Tuesday, June 17, at The Endocrine Society's 90th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.

Researchers at Monash University in Melbourne conducted one-hour personal interviews with 76 obese individuals (62 females, 14 males), ranging in age from 16 to 72 years. The aim of the study was to better address issues of concern to obese people, in an attempt to improve interventions for the increasing epidemic of obesity, said the lead author, Paul Komesaroff, MD, PhD, director of the university's Centre for Ethics in Medicine and Society.

The authors found that the messages from media and health care professionals to engage in healthy behaviors,

Tags: being fat