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If you're a shark, what could you possibly have to fear? You're the ultimate predator, the top of the marine food chain. You can swim around without a care in the world... unless another, even bigger shark is feeling hungry. More »
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Australia faces serious ecological threats posed by feral animals and out-of-control wildfires. Non-native species gone wild have contributed to both problems, and one biologist is suggesting that Australia fight fire with fire by introducing more non-native species. More »
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To attract females, male great bowerbirds of Australia build huge, elaborate structures called bowers. They're impressive structures, complete with courtyard and triumphal arch. But the males also use forced perspective to make themselves look more impressive to prospective mates. More »
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Every evening, your average wombat deposits 80 to 100 dry, cube-like droppings around its territory. This nocturnal marsupial unloads four to eight of these 2-centimeter wide feces every time it pauses to excrete. More »
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You may know that marine cone snails are some of the most comically toxic creatures on the planet. But have you ever seen one of these mollusks feed? Even though there's no way one of these tiny creatures would be able to devour the human body, watching them chow down makes one prefer the neurotoxins. More »
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Check out these screen shots from BBC's forthcoming wildlife documentary series, Great Barrier Reef. More »
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Star Wars burlesque exists in this scattered places on this big blue marble we live on, but this video reel by the Jaded Vanities burlesque troupe makes an excellent case for this form of interpretative dancing gaining national arts funding. And yes, that case is predicated mostly on Sand Person erotica. More »
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Encounter at Raven's Gate — which is alternatively titled Incident At Raven's Gate — is a 1988 small town alien invasion family melodrama directed by Dutch-born Australian filmmaker Rolf de Heer. The film opens in media res with astrophysicist and Miami Vice villain Dr. Hemmings (Terry Camilleri) going driveabout across the Australian Outback tracking an alien spacecraft. More »
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In Australia, the local fauna is so casually badass that a day on the greens can quickly turn into the plot of Shark Night 3D. More »
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With hackers, DIYers and the military using them for years, domestic police forces the world over are apparently itching to get some surveillance drones of their own. Now Australian authorities have discussed using drones alongside a new license plate recognition system, autonomously tracking vehicles of interest. More »
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If you ever visit Eastern Australia, there's a rare chance you may encounter the Min Min light, a spectral luminescence that trails the viewer and is often mistaken for a UFO. But what causes this bizarre flickering pursuer? More »
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What happens when a group of hungry sharks discover a meaty hunk of whale carcass ripening in the sun? They chow down on it like a floating, all-you can-eat buffet. More »
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Characterizing a new animal species can be a tricky process, but in dolphins it can be especially difficult. Now, scientists in Melbourne, Australia have managed to formally classify what will be just the fourth formal description of a new dolphin species in over 100 years. More »
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Frogs in northern Australia have to find a way to survive months of cold, dry climate. Their solution? Hang around outside just long enough to trap condensation, which they use to hydrate themselves. By any standard, this is pretty ingenious. More »
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This pleasant-looking fellow is diprotodon optatum, a giant marsupial that lived in Australia for millions of years. We've now discovered the first complete skeleton of this marsupial, proving the only things more bizarre than Australian animals are ancient Australian animals. More »
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This beautiful video took over a year to put together in 2009 and 2010, and it's made up of over 30 hours of exposure. Shot from the southern coast of Australia, it provides an awe-inspiring view of the southern constellations. More »
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The world's first "vertical street" will soon be built in Melbourne, Australia. More »
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The marsupials and monotremes that are now found primarily in Australia represent a sort of evolutionary middle ground, mixing together their mammalian features with those of reptiles or amphibians. One ancient marsupial represents a particularly weird case of convergent evolution. More »
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Countless animal and plant species teeter on the brink of extinction, but the DNA of their ancestors may point the way to survival. Paleobiologists are scouring fossil DNA to determine why species once thrived...and how they can do so again. More »
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In this video captured yesterday in Toowoomba, Australia, the city's East Creek rises dramatically after 6 inches of rain falls in 30 minutes. The waters easily carry away parked cars. Watch this jarring footage taken from a nearby office building. More »
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Australia's latest sitcom features the members of a gay science fiction club, dealing with being yourself in a harsh world — and wrangling over which Star Trek captain is the coolest. It's being described as a queer Big Bang Theory. More »
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In this short animated film by Nathaniel Lindsay, Ducked and Covered, a monotone narrator dispenses vaguely helpful advice about getting over doomsday. It's like a high school health documentary but about marauding gangs instead of peer pressure. More »
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One hundred and sixty thousand citizens of Sydney, Australia had their faces photographed in order to make one set of composite faces for the city. See the faces of the city's neighborhoods below. More »
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Of all the continents, the human settlement of Oceania remains the most mysterious. We know that ancient humans walked across the now sunken continent of Sahul to reach Australia, and now some ancient trees reveal when they did it. More »
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The ancient world was home to many accomplished astronomers, included the Greeks, Mayans, Polynesians, and maybe Stonehenge's mysterious builders. But perhaps more than 10,000 years before these cultures looked to the sky, Australian Aborigines were the world's first stargazers. More »
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Speed demons have been tearing down Lemon Tree Passage Road near Newcastle, Australia to summon a motorcycling apparition. The motorcyclist was killed by a speeder in 2007, and police are plenty miffed about these high-speed seances. More »
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Researchers have discovered 650-to-640 million-year-old sponge fossils at Australia's Flinders Ranges. These fossils predate the oldest known animal fossils by 90 million years and antecede the blossoming of life during the Cambrian Explosion ~524 million years ago. More »
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This is concept art for the Embassy of Drowned Nations, an artificial island on Fort Denison in Sydney, Australia. The facility would be used to temporarily house those who've been displaced by rising sea levels. More »
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Australian horror film Prey is coming out on DVD next week, retitled for Americans as The Outback. Because zombies and situational lesbians just scream "steakhouse." In any case, this chainsaw-slashing zombie attack scene is actually quite good. More »
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Charlton Heston's ape overlords may have spoken English, but telling those damn dirty apes to get their stinking paws off of you can be said in any tongue. Here are Planet of the Apes comic covers from around the globe. More »
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Around this time every year, red-collared lorikeets fall from the heavens on to Australia's Northern Territory. What's causing these loopy birds to fly under the influence? Experts suspect the birds are consuming a toxic mystery plant. More »
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This is perhaps the oldest painting on the continent of Australia. It depicts the Genyornis, a giant bird that went extinct 40,000 years ago. And it's one of the only snapshots we have of the ancient creature. More »
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This two-headed bobtail lizard from Perth, Australia has two brains, and it consequently has trouble moving its hindlegs. But that's not its biggest problem - no, the lizard's larger head wants to devour its smaller one. Talk about self-loathing. More »
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In one corner, we have some hungry pinniped thunder from down the under. In the other, there's eight arms of ink-spewing squishiness. Who wins this battle? Don't bet on the cephalopod. More »
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Australia has an overpopulation problem with the cane toad, an alien species that sugar farmers introduced 75 years ago to control pests. Researchers have discovered a new weapon to use against the toads: cat food, which lures carnivorous meat ants. More »
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A 54 square-mile iceberg that broke free of an Antarctic ice shelf ten years ago is headed straight for Australia, and similarly large icebergs have been sighted off the coast of New Zealand. Are we heading for ice disaster? More »
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Earlier today, a giant dust storm swept over all of eastern Australia, the worst the area has seen in 70 years. The storm also brought hail and strong winds. And it's a menacing cloud even when seen from space. More »
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The inter-webs are buzzing with reports that countless people in Australia are claiming aliens abducted them and took them to some kind of medical facility over the Blue Mountains. More »
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By this point, the idea of anyone other than Hugh Jackman as Wolverine seems like box office suicide, but he wasn't the first choice to play X-Men's breakout star. Learn about the also-rans and almost-weres. More »
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Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann is tinkering with the idea of filming a classic futuristic tale, he told io9. We caught up with Baz at his Australia premiere, and he admitted he'd thought about switching from movies set in the past to creating stories set in the future. Baz thinks the future has gotten a bit old-fashioned, but he's got some ideas for spicing it up. More »
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