The annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon is farther than usual from Earth, making its apparent size in the sky smaller than Sun’s apparent size in the sky. Since both the Moon’s orbit around the Earth and the Earth’s orbit around the Sun are ellipses, the sizes of the Moon and the Sun as seen from Earth vary depending on the positions of the orbits.The eclipse, visible from Tuesday to Friday, could been seen across a 171- to 225-kilometer area that stretched across Australia, eastern Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and the Gilbert Islands; residents elsewhere in the region witnessed a partial eclipse.”It was my first time I had seen an annular eclipse. I thought it was spectacular. I was actually amazed at how beautiful it was,” stargazer Geoff Sims told AFP after taking photos of the celestial event from a remote spot in Western Australia.The spectacle came just months after Australia witnessed another memorable phenomenon, a total solar eclipse in November. … Read More
Australia hunts for cruise ship couple who fell overboard into shark-infested waters
A search is underway off Australia for a couple who fell overboard into shark-infested waters from a cruise ship returning to Sydney from a Pacific tour. The 30-year-old man and 27-year-old woman were reported missing from the Carnival Spirit liner after it docked at Circular Quay in Sydney on…
Climate shift killed Australia’s giant beasts: study
Gigantic animals which once roamed Australia were mostly extinct by the time humans arrived, according to a new study Tuesday which suggests climate change played the key role in their demise. For decades, debate has centred on what wiped out megafauna such as the rhinoceros-sized, wombat-like…
Wallenberg becomes first honorary Australian
Australian officials declared Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews during World War II, as the country’s first honorary citizen at a ceremony in Canberra on Monday. … Read More
Can’t afford Google Glass? Make your own like this guy did
Don’t want to wait another year for Google Glass to drop? Or perhaps you didn’t have $1,500 to spare when the Explorer edition kits were available for pre-order last year? Apparently neither did an Australian techie so he did the next best thing – made his own. Meet Flass, Google… … Read More
Academia does porn
If ever there was a sign of the mainstreaming of pornography, this is it: British publishing house Routledge is producing an academic journal about smut.No, this is not the plot of another hot-for-teacher flick — although here’s hoping this journal begets it’s own porn parody. (I can picture it now: An orgiastic “peer-review process” and dialogue along the lines of, “I’ll show you some intersextionality.) According to a recent call for papers, Porn Studies is “the first dedicated, international, peer-reviewed journal to critically explore those cultural products and services designated as pornographic and their cultural, economic, historical, institutional, legal and social contexts,” with an emphasis on “sexuality, gender, race, class, age and ability.”The journal’s editors, Feona Attwood and Clarissa Smith, are looking for papers that examine “specifically sexual and explicit media forms, their connections to wider media landscapes and their links to the broader spheres of (sex) work across historical periods and national contexts.” The journal won’t be published until spring of 2014 — because peer-review takes time, ya’ll — but select articles will be published online as they’re ready. From the first issue, you can expect discussions of everything from obscenity trials to Australian manga to “how we think of fantasy in relation to porn,” Smith told me by phone.Continue Reading… … Read More
