Indigenous rangers have been working with WA’s department of food and agriculture to eradicate an exotic plant.
Ornamental rubber vine, which first escaped from a garden, is threatening the purple-crowned fairy wren’s habitat.
This story first appeared in Science Network WA on 24 September 2014 [read this story]. The Kimberley Echo republished it on 4 December 2014.
Gold refineries may soon be able to quit using toxic cyanide to process ore.
This chemical is dangerous to work with and without careful disposal, bad for the environment.
Instead, a scientists says they can try an organic chemical that is one of life’s “building blocks” – the amino acid glycine.
It is cheaper than cyanide and can be re-used.
Glycine can also be used to extract copper.
First published in Science Network WA [read this story]. Republished in The Kalgoorlie Miner on 1 November 2014.
HOPES of using a parasite as a new biological control for cane toads have been dashed, as it has proven fatal to one of the Kimberley’s tree frog species.
Click on this image to read the story
University of Sydney herpetologist Rick Shine says lungworm infected and killed splendid tree frogs during laboratory trials.
“Not only did the parasite infect the frog and find its way to the lungs but it killed the frog very quickly,” Professor Shine says.
“[This happened] much more quickly than it affected the cane toads.”
This story first appeared in Science Network WA [read this story]. The Kimberley Echo republished it on 9 October 2014. I am planning another story about how the parasite passes from toad to frog which I will post when available.
Recent research shows sand dunes in the Mid-West could easily engulf roads and buildings.
Guardian News 4 July 2014 p 35
The strange phenomenon begins when a dune become separated from the beach, and begins to travel inland as prevailing winds blow it along.
It may end up many kilometres from the coast before it runs out of sand.
In the meantime it engulfs anything lying in its path.
Science Network WA [read this story]
The wild radish, a troublesome pest in wheat crops, is developing resistance to many herbicides.
Agricultural scientist Grant Thompson’s solution to the problem involves even more herbicides.
In a series of trials, he has found spaying one herbicide on the seedlings and another chemical on the plants a few weeks later keeps their seeds out of the crop.
This story first appeared in Science Network WA [click here to read]. The Midwest Times republished it later – the date on this image is wrong.
While most of the easy-to-find iron ore has been pegged out in the Kimberley, scientists say there should be plenty more in the Yilgarn goldfields.
The Kalgoorlie Miner 3 May 2014 p 21
In the dim and distant past the region was largely submerged under shallow seas, where layers of iron oxide and silica formed banded ironstone. Later, tremendously hot washes of water and carbon dioxide rose up from the bowls of the earth, turning it into what we call iron ore.
Most of this is now buried under layers of soil and other sediment, but outcrops here and there have similar chemical signatures that scientists can now detect with hand-held devices or even from satellites.
Science Network [read this story] This Kalgoorlie Miner also republished this story.
TEXT BY GEOFF VIVIAN
Scientists have been seriously examining an old prospectors’ trick.
COURTESY AARON STEWART, CSIRO.
Termites and ants can be used to detect base metals and gold to a depth of 1.4 metres.
What was part of Goldfields folklore since the 1920s is now scientific fact.
Science Network [read this story]
An edited version of the story apeared in The Kalgoorlie Miner on 22/3/14
TEXT BY GEOFF VIVIAN
From Truckin’ Life February 2014
The most direct route from the Kimberley to central Australia is the Tanami Track.
About 800 kilometres of this important arterial road is gravel and dirt.
A Kimberley shire has a radical proposal to make it a toll way, charging road trains up to $2,000 to use it, so funds would be available to seal the road.
I explained how this would then open up a major trade route to south-eastern Australia.
The CSIRO is looking seriously at sequestering carbon dioxide below the Bass Straight seabed, near the oilfields.
The oilfields themselves are in the same aquifer that provides bore water to farmers around Lakes Entrance.
The La Trobe aquifer is a sloping system of porous rock that contains fresh water in its upper levels, salt water further down and petroleum still lower
It is thought that fifty years of oil extraction have been partly responsible for the drop in groundwater levels, and injecting liquid carbon dioxide will help.
Science Network [read this story]
The Koori Mail
Text by GEOFF VIVIAN
Police, the WA government and Aboriginal community organisations agree that night patrols are an essential service.
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Teams of trained Aboriginal workers drive through the streets of Perth and regional towns at night, stopping to speak to stranded countrymen who are often intoxicated or otherwise distressed.
They then offer them a lift home, or to emergency accommodation
In July 2013 the WA Aboriginal affairs minister ordered a review of the service, with a view to extending it.
Meanwhile the Commonwealth Attorney General, who part-funded the service in Broome and Perth, decided to cut funding for the patrols by 37 and 20 per cent respectively.