koalas

The She’ll Be Right Mate Syndrome: Australia’s Doomed Koalas

In a country expert in killing off mammal species at a rate exceeding that of others (to be fair, there are so many more to destroy, with more to come), Australians now face the prospect that the koala, one of its most singularly recognisable animals, has its days numbered. Divergent attitudes to such animal species, notably indigenous ones, has been[Read More...]

Killing Koalas: The Promise of Extinction Down Under

The British conservationist Gerald Durrell once remarked that the koala was “the most boring of animals”.  Its brain size, proportionally the smallest of any mammal, evolved to cope with its slow metabolism.  But the spectacle of these singed, toasted animals was a terrifyingly cruel one to behold.  As good stretches of Australia burned over the last bushfire season, the sheer[Read More...]

New Discovery Could Help Humans Win the War on Superbugs

Scientists are working on finding solutions to the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant superbugs. The latest weapon in their arsenal is Tasmanian devil milk.
The Tasmanian devil is a marsupial, which means it’s a mammal that is born very early in its development and spends a few months growing and suckling inside their mothers’ pouches, just like kangaroos and opossums. [1]