Pleased to share that applications for the Leanne Armand Travel Award are now open. This award honours the late Professor Leanne Armand, and is targeted at training the next generation of micropalaeontologists. The award is open to students, ECRs, and MCRs, and consists of a $3000 travel stipend […]

The “best” thing about genAI (the quotes are doing heavy work here) is that it’s really lowered the bar on getting into hand-made art. Literally anything you make is better than ai. There’s never been a better time to throw away your fear and start learning that craft you’ve always wanted to learn.

"A 30-year property super-cycle that has made Australian homes among the most expensive in the world may finally be coming to an end" I hope so, even though I will be in negative equity. I'll survive (hopefully). House prices need to fall another 50% to be considered "affordable". Keep it […]

Uni HR: book your flights directly, we'll reimburse you when you start. Uni relocation expenses procedure: book your flights directly, we'll reimburse you when you start. Uni Finance: we see you booked your flights outside the system, here are a bunch of extra hoops to jump through to be […]

Giant clams love light. As a general rule, the more light they can get for their symbiotic algae, the better. Some species will even continue to photosynthesize in air for hours exposed by the tide, since their photosynthesis provides them some oxygen. Which makes the "devil clam" (Tridacna […]

Ugh, this is so sad. First H5N1 mass mortality recorded in Australia. The WA Dept of Primary Industries advises what to do if you see unwell birds: Avoid. Record. Report to 1800 675 888 (all states) […]

I think if universities were required to pay interest on reimbursements, they'd get processed a lot quicker...

Curious if any WA Dept of Main Roads decision makers have cycled the bike route diversion in place while the freo traffic bridge gets updated. It's shocking, so poorly signed and quite dangerous. A test ride by the people making the decisions should be a prerequisite 🙃 #BikeToot #BikeFreo […]

Heard through the grapevine that the busted up Queenslander on the floodplain in Brisbane which we were renting for $450/week in 2020 sold for 1.35 million last month💀 This is a property which flooded in 2011 (and likely 2022), although the house is at least high-set. It does at least look like […]

All eyes on the Australian Federal Court this week as Uncle Pabai Pabai and Uncle Paul Kabai appeal the 2021 finding that the Australian Government does not have a duty of care to protect Torres Strait Islanders from climate change impacts. Torres Strait Islanders are at great risk of cultural […]

🌊 In September 2023, seismometers around the world detected a mysterious signal repeating every 92 seconds for nine straight days. The source: a standing wave trapped inside a Greenland fjord. Here is what happened. A glacier in East Greenland had been thinning for years, no longer supporting […]

Most of my afternoon today was spent in #QGIS with one of my Masters students Dee Patel. We're preparing my long-term bird monitoring data around Christchurch, NZ, for analysis. Today we gridded up my four standard bike transects into 1 km sections, surrounded […] [Original post on mastodon.nz]

Would any tooters be interested in participating in an art exchange? It would be give some art/craft, get some art/craft. Could be absolutely anything creative. I'm thinking painting, print making, spoon carving, weaving, knitting, crochet, whatever. Your giftee and gifter would be randomly […]

It's AusAlert Day! Disappointingly doesn't come with air-raid sirens, like national alert day does in Germany...

UWA committing one of my pet peeves this morning - press releases which don't name the people doing the work! I'm selfishly motivated on this one, as I would like to know who's involved in the project from UWA, since I know a lot of the other contributors […]

It's pretty good to live in a biodiversity hot spot. WA has the best flowers. Not pictured, the male splendid fairy wren we saw in full blue fancy plumage! #SilentSunday #WesternAustralia #GlobalBiodiversityHotspot

OpenAI: our model is SOOO advanced that it is what hacked Hugging Face while trying to escape (https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-model-evaluation-security-incident/) Also OpenAI: we are IPOing soon. Please buy our stock.

I had a minute to read through the proposed changes to the National Competitive Grants Program (https://www.arc.gov.au/system/files/2026-07/ncgp-policy-review_finalreport-20262207_0.pdf). I think there are some positive things here. I like the emphasis on ECR support, and the splitting of the […]

The Australian Academy of Science is petitioning the government to... fund science! Australia spends just 1.69% of GDP on research and development - way behind the OECD average of 2.7%, and way behind what Australia - an incredibly lucky and wealthy nation - can afford. You can send a letter […]

Good news - soft plastics recycling is back, albeit in a limited way (and not in WA, NT, or Tas). https://spsa.au/collection-locations/

Locations for Collections

There are now over 700 collection points across Australia, across five States and Territories. This provides soft plastics collection access to almost 70% of Australians. Collection sites include s…

spsa.au

In case you missed it, 3 new species of Australian cave cricket have been described! https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/flora-fauna/2026/07/endemic-cave-cricket-species-discovered/

Endemic cave cricket species discovered

Ever seen a cave cricket? Australia now has three new species of these spindly, spider‑like creatures.

australiangeographic.com.au

I keep reminding myself that cute building sketches should not be confined to holidays - especially if you live in a place as picturesque as #Leiden (but I also firmly believe that you can find interesting views pretty much everywhere). Here is a first […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

I have to pay increasing attention to what my phone does to pictures it takes. For example, my new Motorola phone includes a super zoom feature that actually uses generative AI to fill in details as it crops in! I turned it off, but others might not notice and upload such digitally created […]

I'm still spending down my Euros, which means I get the fun experience of being like 'jesus christ, $7 for a flat white, outrageous', and then looking at my bank notification and seeing EUR4.40 and going 'oh, not bad actually.' At this point I have no idea what anything is worth in any currency.

In retrospect, glad I took my more expensive MTB on the plane if this is how it would have gone getting shipped. Not sure WTF FedEx did with my poor touring bike, fingers crossed it's not as bad as it looks. People talk shit about baggage handlers and bikes […] [Original post on fediscience.org]

It's kinda nice going from worrying about the ADF to worrying about our home grown far right idiots. Pauline making pals with Tommy Robinson? Hopefully that'll be the nail in the coffin for PHON.

WaterCorp has revamped their website and educational materials. This is quite cool, you can input your address, and it shows you the breakdown of where your water comes from. So in Freo (and presumably most of Perth), we use 38% desal, 34% groundwater, 22% surface water from dams, and 6% from […]

Through luck and circumstance I havent had a computer in a university IT ecosystem since 2018. Things have not gotten better. Moving to a software centre is great, no need to badger IT for installations. This only works if there are useful software in the software centre though...