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One step forward, two steps back

By That's life

It is commonly said that kangaroos can’t walk (or hop in their case) backwards.  Further to this, it also has led to the story that this was why the kangaroo and emu (who also has been accused with the inability to walk backwards) were chosen to represent the emblems for Australia’s coat of arms. The story continues, with the initial 1908 writing on the coat of arms being ‘Advance Australia’.  It is rumoured that this was the reason for choosing a kangaroo and emu – they were symbolic of our nation moving forwards, due to their inability to move backwards.

Well, I’ll let you determine the truth of both stories. For my bit of tinsey, winsey, highly scientific research into the area of ‘can kangaroos and emus walk backwards’ I set my daughters onto the task. They recently visited the zoo and diligently interviewed (more like an interrogation) the zoo keepers on their real life sightings. The conclusion was that kangaroos can’t move backwards, but emus can.

March 9, 2012
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Snake charming

By Animals

Ever heard of the ‘Snake charmer song’? I hadn’t heard it’s name, but when I played the melody, I remembered it from old black and white movies gone by.  Wiki gives you a brief history of the song and let’s you play it too.  Warning: You might end up like me, and find yourself annoyingly humming the melody over and over again in your head for the next few hours, so click here if you dare.

March 8, 2012
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Cunning elephants

By Animals

Well really, you can hardly blame Ed Elephant for researching on the web how best to plan an escape from prison.

A quick Google will inform you that not only is dynamite made from peanuts, but the inventor of this explosive was Alfred Nobel who applied for a patent in 1866 (I love old documents so had to add the link). He made his wealth from this invention, amongst various other inventions totalling an astonishing 355. On his death, he died extremely wealthy and this enabled him to set up the Nobel Peace prize (must be a way of offsetting the bad name one could get from creating something that can be both useful or extremely destructive when in the wrong hands). For a basic chemistry lesson on the derivation from peanut to dynamite, check out this link.

March 7, 2012
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Swim between the flags

By Animals

This photo was taken on a less than beautiful Melbourne day. Deceptively you would think it was cold and miserable, but in reality it was low 30’s, mild breeze and easy on the eyes due to the overcast of clouds (which later on that day spilled their guts – in a good kind of way – our garden was grateful).  I like this beach in Melbourne because we can take the dogs (24 hour dog beach, 7 days a week).  If you’d like to see what’s happening on the beach right now, check out the Zu’s live webcam by clicking here.

March 6, 2012
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Darwin 4 : Dinosaurs 0

By Dinosaurs

I’ve always had a soft spot for dinosaurs – cute, green giants is how I imagine them to be. I’m sure if I was around 200 million years ago I’d think otherwise.

This is another in the series of ‘Why dinosaurs became extinct’. The moral is, don’t mess with Darwin.  If you missed the first three, here they are: Dino take 1, Dino take 2, Dino take 3.

March 5, 2012
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How clever is an octopus?

By Animals

Oh yes it can. It would appear that the humble octopus has a few tricks up its sleeve, including the ability to open a jar. Check out this video on YouTube….and this isn’t the only video displaying the marvels of the octopus. Apparently there is an Australian species which likes to hide under a coconut shell for protection.

March 1, 2012
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And the winner is……

By Bill and Ben the little green alien men, Competitions

Congratulations to Bonita for being the first winner of the ‘Create a cartoon caption’ competition.  Your prize is in the mail! 

To see the fantastic submissions, click here to view them all. I must admit it was close, so I created a ‘Runners up’….and for those of you who I know are rather competitive, they are not listed in any particular order.

If you didn’t win this time, don’t worry, there’s always next time, and next time starts tomorrow! Yep, due to popular demand I’m having a competition every month.

February 29, 2012
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Fussy fish

By That's life

Current science believes that the Universe began about 13.7 billion years ago. The earth came to existence about 4.5 billion years ago, with the first basic forms of life starting a mere 3.8 billion years ago.  Our friends the humble fish appeared about 500 million years ago and mammals only 65 million years ago.  Here’s a visual timeline of evolution I found.

February 28, 2012
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