Australia - The Land Down Under

www.abc.net.au

Will survived 120 hospital visits and multiple surgeries, but now 'life is good' and he wants to become a doctor

Will Carland was the only child to ever live through a type of operation that saved his life. Now, the 18-year-old is walking in the footsteps of those who saved him.
www.abc.net.au www.abc.net.au


After 120 hospital visits, Will Carland sets sights on medical degree to 'give back' to those who saved his life​

From this, below...


1681026674396.png


TO THIS !!!!

1681026735712.png

This is Will,....... Will has recently turned 18 and is setting his sights on a career in medicine.
He is starting a biomedical science degree at the University of Queensland where he intends to transfer to medicine.

"The opportunity to just help people is what attracts me the most to this career.

"I enjoy helping people out, seeing where they've come from and where they're going.
"I'm looking forward to being a very poor uni student," he laughed.
 


Huh... I don't know what to add, other than birds can be pretty darned smart (see corvids for some examples)...

wildlife.org

Australian ‘firehawks’ use fire to catch prey - The Wildlife Society

For thousands of years, Australia’s Aboriginal people have sung stories about sacred “firehawks” — raptors that, according to lore, use fire to hunt and introduced fire to humans. Now, merging...
wildlife.org wildlife.org

Seriously smart birds. Horrible, horrible birds if you're a property owner, but man are they smart.
 
I recall vividly the fires in Northern Territory, being lit (on purpose) as a means of fire control (the bush didn't get too thick & become uncontrollable when it caught on fire; fires being lit & left alone, expected to burn themselves out). I even think I heard a guide mention birds using fire in their hunts (you could see the prey birds in the air near the fire fronts).

Birds carrying fire; both surprises and doesn't surprise me. If a [tour] guide mentioned it; I'd likely not have believed it...
 
guiverc said:
I recall vividly the fires in Northern Territory, being lit (on purpose) as a means of fire control (the bush didn't get too thick & become uncontrollable when it caught on fire; fires being lit & left alone, expected to burn themselves out).
Click to expand...

Yeah, wildfires are a 'natural' thing and the ecosystems often depend on them periodically. While counter-intuitive, they can be much worse if we prevent them, That was what came out of some massive fires in Yellowstone. They concluded that stopping all the fires for the previous 80 years was a major contributing factor. All sorts of material built up on the forest floors for many decades, resulting in quite the conflagration when it finally caught on fire and couldn't be controlled.

wizardfromoz said:
Should stick this one in Brian's Thread - bloody interesting.
Click to expand...

Probably, though I suppose it's a bit late now. I was too caught up in the 'arsonist birds' to worry too much about the 'Australia' bit. I considered it more a 'bird' thing.

Some birds are amazingly smart. They're known to create and use tools. Crows and ravens, and their associated families, are quite smart. They even have inter-generational knowledge.

There was a study at a university (see A Murder of Crows documentary) that sent a guy out in a mask and red hat. His job was to make the crows angry. It reached the point where they'd attack him and swoop on him. If they gave someone else the mask and hat, the birds would swoop on them. Then, the next generation of crows were hatched and learned the behavior from their parents. So, crows were somehow communicating it to other crows and then communicating it to their young.

Ravens will do things like antagonize a predator that has had a successful hunt. The predator then attacks them enough to stop paying attention to their kill. This allows another raven access to the food. They'll swap out and keep doing it until they've had their fill. Sometimes, they appear to be doing pretty much the same thing - but without the prey. It's believed that they do so simply for their own amusement.

Where I live, crows have been spotted 'sledding'. They'll find something slippery, move it to the top of a hill, hop on, and slide down on the snow. They'll pick up the bit of plastic (normally) and lug it back to the top of the hill, and then slide down it again.

We don't give birds enough credit, from what I see... Some of them are probably smarter than dogs.

Octopuses (not octopi in today's English) are also insanely smart - but they have no generational knowledge. They do not pass down their knowledge to their young.
 
KGIII said:
Some birds are amazingly smart. They're known to create and use tools.
Click to expand...
I've seen documentaries about this; and yeah agree some are smarter than dogs.

Smart though: I spend so much time watching cockies that my usual reaction to birds is they prefer acting stupid, silly or just act like galahs (using the term there how aussies use it; ie. acting stupid or silly; ie. acting like native galahs).
 
We live in an area with many flocks of crows. The previous owner of our house used to chase the crows away every day. As @KGIII taught us above, with crows, each generation teaches the next.

A few months ago, my partner and I were out front. We looked around, and all of our neighbors' lawns were covered with crows. Our front lawn was completely empty. It was obvious that the crows were avoiding our lawn.

We moved into this house 17 years ago.
 
www.abc.net.au

Jessica Watson mustered mental and physical strength to sail the world alone. Then she faced something even bigger

Jessica Watson faced life-threatening storms and a collision with a tanker as "the girl in the pink boat" who sailed the world solo, but nothing would be as hard as the tragedy she would face 11 years after her record-breaking voyage.
www.abc.net.au www.abc.net.au


Jessica Watson shares how lessons learnt at sea helped her navigate the waves of grief over losing partner​


1681697429838.png

1681697454365.png

Jessica became the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world.(Getty Images: Mark Kolbe)
www.abc.net.au

Jessica Watson mustered mental and physical strength to sail the world alone. Then she faced something even bigger

Jessica Watson faced life-threatening storms and a collision with a tanker as "the girl in the pink boat" who sailed the world solo, but nothing would be as hard as the tragedy she would face 11 years after her record-breaking voyage.
www.abc.net.au www.abc.net.au
 
www.abc.net.au

How farmers are trying to save a $500,000 black market bird from extinction

Fewer than 8,000 glossy black-cockatoos remain in the wild across Australia. In response, a group of farmers are planting trees in their thousands to bring back the species' habitat.
www.abc.net.au www.abc.net.au



Following bush fires, land clearing and poaching, the glossy black-cockatoo is fighting for survival​

1681974947780.png

The glossy black-cockatoo is listed as vulnerable in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. (Supplied: Rebecca Van Dyk)

A glossy black cockatoo nibbles on a she-oak nut in a tree.

Woodland species in the NSW central west have been severely depleted.(NSW Office of Environment and Heritage: Charles Dove)
A black bird with yellow and orange feathers around its neck and chest sits in a tree, eating seeds

The birds are extremely vulnerable to environmental changes
 
www.abc.net.au

ABC My Photo

We're on the lookout for the best photos from around Australia each week. Show us what the world looks like where you are by using #ABCmyphoto on Instagram, or uploading your photos and you could be featured across the ABC.
www.abc.net.au www.abc.net.au
 
www.abc.net.au

ABC My Photo

We're on the lookout for the best photos from around Australia each week. Show us what the world looks like where you are by using #ABCmyphoto on Instagram, or uploading your photos and you could be featured across the ABC.
www.abc.net.au www.abc.net.au
 
Many kewl songs I heard in my youth were from Australians. (scratch head)

Pardon me if I sound intolerant or misinformed about the following.

Liked many stuff by Men at Work, "It's a Mistake!" LOL those guitars keep banging my head. Great song. However, the one for MTV sucked hard, I'm sorry I don't agree with it. "Look at that! Oh that ain't working..." That part was funny but please try to watch your language.

"Don't Dream It's Over" by Crowded House, liked the organ treatment of that song. Very powerful music. If it weren't for that one and a few others imported into Western Hemisphere, I might have been less tolerant with American rock. :O

Oh and how could I ever forget... but it's her! "Come on baby do the locomotion!" ROFLMAO. I got peed-off at a DJ many years later making fun of her saying she was "too old". Also keep hearing cheap comments about her. Come on remember your manners people.

This was Kylie Minogue right? It could have been part of a tongue-twister.

I love baseball, but not necessarily the people involved in it. Saying that, so very glad Liam Hendriks recovered from cancer. The Chicago White Sox need his arse on the field right now! I first saw this guy with Toronto circa 2015 with Jose Bautista, Josh Donaldson, Marco Estrada, Russel Martin, Robert Osuna, Marcus Stroman etc. Great team back then, although the one they have now is not too bad. A few years later Hendriks was with the Oakland Athletics, wound up being the first Australian pitcher in MLB history to start a game in the playoffs! Too bad he was quickly knocked around by Aaron Judge and the New York Yankees, desired a different result. (Yankees have 27 championships but it might as well be zero, ugh, give someone else a chance to win. Meanwhile Seattle have never reached the World Series.) How about that crazy game last year in Iowa, U.S.A. between Yankees and White Sox? Near the end of it Hendriks came in and again he gave up a home run to Judge. But Tim Anderson covered it all. The way White Sox celebrated made me facepalm.

Way back before that I remembered Dave Nielsen, that red-haired big catcher that was often injured, sadly. I was glad to discover he was manager of Team Australia in the World Baseball Classic a short time ago.

Almost forgot :rolleyes: Graheme Lloyd? I didn't spell his name correctly... Lloydie! He was awesome in 1996. I still can't believe Yankees traded Bob Wickman to Milwaukee to get Lloyd. (They sacrificed a bit of their starting pitching. But Mariano Rivera wasn't "ready" back then.) Too mad MLB don't work like that any longer, even though there are left-handed batters that have difficulties with left-handed pitchers and therefore could get sat down for a game. The guy isn't going to be sat down if he makes many millions LOL.

I like the pictures of the young kangaroos all over this topic. (thumbs up)

EDIT REASON: Got Hendriks' first name wrong! I should suffer for it! Go stand somewhere in the middle of the plateau way east of Perth or in the water with those hammerheads or something else...
 
Last edited:
www.9news.com.au

Victorian gold prospector's 'highly-venomous' encounter after spotting black nugget

www.9news.com.au www.9news.com.au


'Never seen a spider like that': Victorian gold prospector's 'highly-venomous' encounter after spotting black nugget​


https%3A%2F%2Fprod.static9.net.au%2Ffs%2F906b9b4f-d476-4b16-aed5-259b1af05497


https%3A%2F%2Fprod.static9.net.au%2Ffs%2Fdb4f6631-6524-4632-9c8e-3ce29187c944

"I was going for a walk outside my mining partner's place and I saw a lizard on the ground," Bogusis said.
"I thought 'oh geez, that lizard is going to get squished. He looks cold and miserable'.
"So I picked him up and tried to find a place to put him and these three teachers stop me.
"One told me 'that's an orange-bellied salamander. They are quite toxic'.
"I just dead-eyed them and, I can't believe to this day I said this, but I said, 'Oh, it will be fine, I'm Australian'."
 
sphen said:
The Men at Work albums Business as Usual and Cargo are in my collection. They date back to the early 1980s. I replaced the vinyl records with CDs over the years and still enjoy the music.
Click to expand...
I had CD's which evolved into low-quality MP3 files played back from an inexpensive Chinese portable speaker, because using a DVD player to play CD's has become clunky. I first heard "It's a Mistake" from a cassette owned by a neighbor, he had recorded the song from the radio LOL. Years later I went to the library to get the "Cargo" album on vinyl.
 
An Australian Icon Celebrates 100 Years
VEGEMITE has been made in Port Melbourne, Australia since 1923.
The Fred Walker Company initiated an ingenious plan; to have the Aussie public officially name their spread. A national competition was launched, offering an attractive 50-pound prize pool for finalists. Unfortunately, the name of the winning contestant was not recorded, but the winning name of the spread – VEGEMITE – was chosen by Fred Walker’s daughter out of hundreds of entries. In 1923, VEGEMITE graced the shelves of grocers Australia-wide. “Delicious on sandwiches and toast, and improving the flavours of soups, stews and gravies,” was how the spread was first described and marketed.
The reality was that at the time, Marmite (a thick, dark English spread), already dominated the Australian market and Australians were reluctant to even try Fred Walker’s locally-made product.
Poor sales of VEGEMITE resulted in its name being changed in 1928 to ‘Parwill’. Walker was determined to emulate the success of Marmite and the logic behind the re-branding strategy was simple; “If Marmite…then Parwill.”
Walker’s innovative method of marketing was, however, unsuccessful. Parwill failed to gain momentum across the country. It would take Fred Walker 14 years of perseverance and a change back to the original VEGEMITE brand for Australians to embrace what would later become an Australian icon.
@Australia This is Australia #vegemite
Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame and Outback Heritage Centre
 
 
Condobloke said:
Click to expand...

I can't say I like re-living that advert, though I do remember it (radio mostly I think).
I fear I heard it too often to fully appreciate it.

Putting the vegemite next to the salt & pepper, asking if someone wanted 'tea, coffee or bonox'? etc.. Oh the repitition of advertizing...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Members online

Total: 246 (members: 2, guests: 244)

Latest posts

Top