Ecos articles from September 1997

Ecos archives from September 1997

Healthy rivers study links hands across the water.
September 22, 1997... Science lessons at Huonville Primary School have become suspiciously interesting lately. Children are packing pH meters, turbidity tubes, magnifying glasses, biochemical oxygen demand bottles, nets and scoops, and heading down to the river,...

When woodlands ruled the Daintree. (age of Australia's tropical rainforests in question.)
September 22, 1997... North Queensland's tropical rainforests are celebrated as living links with Australia's ancient past. Their gnarled, moss-clad trees, and the humus-sweet smell of earth mingling with rotting leaves, are vivid reminders of when Australia was...

Fire and life at the Top. (Top End region, Northern Territory, Australia)
September 22, 1997... Fire is a burning issue in the Top End. Every dry season, between May and October, the countryside is ablaze, sparking public debate about the effects of fire on the environment. Much of the information fuelling this debate is anecdotal,...

Sharks; looking beyond the bite.
September 22, 1997... Quick! Before you read the next paragraph, can you name Australia-largest freshwater fish? The Murray cod perhaps? It's a lightweight compared to the freshwater sawfish (Pristis microdon). This astonishing creature, which inhabits Top...

Hermes and the housefly. (jumping genes)
September 22, 1997... In Homer's Odyssey, Hermes, son of Zeus, appears before Ulysses and his companions as a message-bearer from the Greek gods. In honour of this ancient tale, molecular biologists Dr Peter Atkinson of CSIRO's Division of Entomology, and Dr David...

The sheep that turned. (worm control)
September 22, 1997... Every August, at a place called Willalooka in South Australia's south-east, a mob of moleskinned graziers descends on the Pocock family farm, Panlatinga. Penned up for the occasion are 80 of Panlatinga's finest young Poll Merino rams. As...

For a deeper knowledge of the forest....
September 22, 1997... I'm standing high on the Great Escrapment, midway between Canberra and the coastal town of Batemans Bay. The terrain is steep and rugged, dissected by deep valleys. rivers and creeks. Above me tower messmates (Eucalyptus obliqua), mountain...

Bending lines with the mind. (using mathematics to recreate nature)
September 22, 1997... Mike Austin is a thinker. He's a cruncher of numbers, a bender of lines and a fitter of curves. He's one of those most enigmatic of creatures, a theoretical ecologist, and he's spent much of his career preoccupied with the intricacies of...

Fungi, fast food of the forest.
September 22, 1997... Ten years ago, while walking through Washington's Cascade Mountains, ecologist Dr Steven Cork watched a ground squirrel unearth and cat fungi. `That's interesting,' he thought. `Why would you want to eat that?' Cork was on sabbatical at...