Logan and Albert Conservation Association

2010 SPOTLIGHT ON WILDLIFE IN SCENIC RIM  - series of community workshops sponsored by SRRC

To help celebrate the 2010 United Nations International year of Biodiversity , the Logan and Albert Conservation Association will be hosting a series of free public workshops entitled 'Spotlight on Wildlife in the Scenic Rim'. The workshops have been funded through a Community Environment Assistance Grant from the Scenic Rim Regional Council.

The first 2010 WORKSHOP will be held in Canungra where there is a significant colony of bats and where recently there was a crisis to save the babies after a storm devestated their usual bat family nursery habitat. The workshop will help us all to become more aware of the signifigant contributions this family of flying marsupials makes to our shared environment and how we can all live safely and harmoniously together.

The Canungra workshop will include guest speakers Louise Saunders from Bat Care Brisbane Inc, Janet Gamble from the wildlife section of the RSPCA and local zoologist Ronda Green.

The world we share with other species of nature - all co-existing on the one plant and sharing the same biosphere - has many life skills to share with us - if we can only see and understand. Tom McKeag who teaches bio-inspired design at the California College of the Arts and University of California, Berkeley has nominated his 2009 Tommy Awards.

He has also decided to give the awards to the creatures that inspired the innovation, rather than the human inventors. This is an amazing new non-destructive application of technology and a whole new world for design.

The penguin, in the strictest biomechanical sense, doesn't really swim underwater, but rather flies. That is, the creature gets both lift and thrust from the action of its flapping, planar wings. It has inspired the latest development in robots highlighted by the German engineering firm Festo AG at the Hanover Messe Trade Exhibition in April.

The Aquapenguin  mimics the hydrodynamic body features of the bird and is made with soft material and glass fibre rods, a motor and 3D sonar device by Evologics of Berlin. These allow the bot to swim with great flexibility and avoid collisions with obstacles or other swimmers, important in situations demanding a high degree of flexibility and autonomy. Festo has already developed a commercial product, an industrial arm with a gripper end, based on this technology.

UN Secretary General Welcome Message for the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity from CBD on Vimeo.

The United Nations declared 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity. At the Johannesburg Summit 2002 the international community set itself the goal of making a "substantial reduction in the rate of loss of biological diversity" by 2010 but this is not happening. In fact biologists talk about sixth extinction wave and they estimate that the rate of species extinction is about 1,000 times higher than the natural background rate, mostly because of human activities: habitat loss, exploitation and climate change.

Janine Benyus shares nature's designs

Transcript of a TED TALK

It is a thrill to be here at a conference that's devoted to "Inspired by Nature" -- you can imagine. And I'm also thrilled to be in the foreplay section. Did you notice this section is foreplay? Because I get to talk about one of my favorite critters, which is the Western Grebe. You haven't lived until you've seen these guys do their courtship dance.

Professor Jonathan Hill, the head of the school of Veterinary Science at the University of Queensland, says once a Hendra virus quarantine has been lifted, any concern about any of the horses on property where Hendra virus had been is misplaced. It is indeed uncessary misfortune to have sound horses devalued as a result of exposure. When people who contact or walk into infectious diseases and don't get the disease, we know that they are not infected. Professor Jonathan Hill says the horses are not damaged goods just because they have been on a stud which had horses that had Hendra virus. In fact you could say that they have been tested to be 100 per cent certain of being clear, which puts them in a unique spot.

Professor Hill says such misconceptions stem from a lack of knowledge about Hendra virus, which need to be addressed with research.

CSIRO scientist Dr Deborah Middleton works in the field of Transforming Animal Biosecurity - Livestock Industries and she is the theme leader for this reseach.The research results are published online in the very scientific journal plospathogens or it is available from links as part of the media release. ABC news reported on this 31 October 2009.

The CSIRO is claiming a breakthrough in the battle against the deadly Hendra virus.

A scientific team from the CSIRO and the United States has developed a serum which gives a good level of protection to ferrets exposed to the similar Nipah virus.

They demonstrated that administering human monoclonal antibodies after exposure to Nipah virus protected the animals.

The CSIRO's Dr Deborah Middleton, who led the experiments at Geelong's maximum biosecurity facility, says the findings are extremely encouraging. "Our research clearly suggests that an effective treatment for Hendra virus infections in humans should be possible, given the very strong cross-reactive activity this antibody has against Hendra virus," she said.

"As Hendra and Nipah viruses cause severe disease in humans, a successful application of this antibody as a post-exposure therapy will likely require early intervention."