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A contagious cancer, spread by biting, has decimated the population of Tasmanian devils since 1996. Researchers have now identified a second contagious cancer in eight devils, making them question how rare contagious cancer is, according to a new study. In addition to attempting to breed devils identified as immune to the disease, scientists started working on a vaccine against Devil Facial Tumor Disease earlier this year -- which they said will not be thrown off by the discovery of a second form of the cancer. The cancer, which researchers believe is spread by common biting behavior, causes tumors and lesions...

Temperatures have plummeted to more than 10 degrees below average in places, while Sydney has had its coldest July weather in 44 years now has fallen in parts of Australia where such falls are so rare the weather bureau does not have the tools to measure it as temperatures plunged to more than 10 degrees below average. Antarctic air pushed up through central New South Wales and on to Queensland – known as the Sunshine State – over the past week bringing on a winter cold front not seen in some parts since the mid-1980s. In Queensland, snow fell in...

Tasmanian devils must evolve to be less aggressive if they are to avoid becoming extinct, suggests new research. The study sheds new light on an infectious cancer threatening to wipe out the species' wild population, which only exists on the Australian island of Tasmania. The tumours caused by the devastating disease, known as devil facial tumour disease (DFTD), interfere with feeding and affected animals often starve to death. Rodrigo Hamede and his team at the University of Tasmania investigated the connection between the infection of DFTD, which is spread when one animal bites another, and the number of bites that...

HOBARTIANS could be excused for thinking winter had come early today, waking up to a snow-capped Mt Wellington. At 8am, the temperature at the summit was a chilly minus 1.8 degrees, with the apparent temperature a teeth-rattling minus 13.2.

THE ABC is trying to destroy Tony Abbott. Its bias — actually unlawful — has never been so ruthless. Even the ABC’s hand-picked reviewer had to admit this week that the ABC’s coverage of the Abbott Government’s first Budget was marred by anti-Liberal bias — and she hadn’t even looked hard. Colleen Ryan, a former Fairfax editor, had been asked by the ABC to check its reporting of the Budget in the week after it was delivered. This Budget was the country’s first and best hope of reining in Labor’s massive deficits. If it wasn’t a make-or-break moment for the...

Long-Lost Records Confirm Rising Sea LevelHobart - Jan 22, 2003 The discovery of 160 year old records in the archives of the Royal Society, London, has given scientists further evidence that Australian sea levels are rising with an estimate of 16 centimeters since 1890. Observations taken at Tasmania's Port Arthur convict settlement 160 years ago by an amateur meteorologist have been compared with data from a modern tide gauge. "There is a rate of sea level rise of about 1mm a year, consistent with other Australian observations," says Dr David Pugh, from the UK's Southampton Oceanography Centre. "This is...

Internationally renowned Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe, whose work was shaped by his love of the Australian landscape, has died aged 85. The Launceston-born composer passed away at Wolper Jewish Hospital in Sydney after a long illness. Sculthorpe's best-known achievement was his capacity to bring to Australians a sense of their land and history in the music of one of their own. His many remarkable compositions were strongly influenced by Asian, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music, and centred around his deep love for Australia and its landscape.

Explanation: This clear night skyscape captures the colorful glow of aurora australis, the southern lights, just outside the port city of Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, planet Earth. As if staring into the dreamlike scene, the Tasmanian Earth Resources Satellite Station poses in the center, illuminated by nearby city lights. Used to receive data from spacebased Earth observing instruments, including NASA's MODIS and SeaWiFS, the station was decommissioned in 2011 and dismantled only recently, shortly after the picture was taken on April 30. Still shining in southern skies though, the central bulge of our Milky Way galaxy and two bright satellite galaxies...

Scientists in Australia are working to classify a new species of giant jellyfish that washed up on a beach in Tasmania. A family found the 1.5m (5ft) jellyfish on a beach south of Hobart last month.

HIV and Aids support groups in Tasmania are concerned about an increase in infection rates. The average number of Tasmanians being diagnosed with HIV has more than doubled over the past four years to 13. Shaun Staunton from the Council on AIDS, Hepatitis and Related Diseases says up until 2008 the average was five cases a year. "So for example last year there were 15 people diagnosed so there has been quite a big jump in the last four years or so." Mr Staunton says men as young as 18 are contracting HIV and he's worried they don't understand how...

FROM begging in the slums of India to becoming a successful Hobart businessman, Saroo Brierley's life has taken some unexpected twists. Last week it came the full circle when he returned to India and was reunited with the family from whom he was separated 25 years ago. Mr Brierley, at the age of five, was begging at a train station in west India with his older brother. He became lost and boarded a train home. The train was going in the wrong direction. He fell asleep and woke up 10 hours later on the other side of the country. For...

Archaeologists have confirmed an Aboriginal site in the path of a major Tasmanian highway contains the oldest evidence of human habitation in the southern hemisphere. About 3 million Indigenous artefacts were discovered at the Jordan River levee north of Hobart. The State Government commissioned archaeologists to examine the site after the Aboriginal community raised concerns that construction of the Brighton bypass could damage it. The site's archaeological director, Rob Paton, says the final report on the dig confirms some artefacts are about 40,000 years old. "They're stone artefacts, they're used for day to day living, cutting and sharpening. It's that...

TEACHERS are overhearing Tasmanian primary students boasting about having oral sex. Roz Madsen from the Australian Education Union (AEU) said teachers "felt helpless" at how to deal with the problem, The Mercury reported. "The students are talking about what they have done on the weekend, sexual experiences that they are having," she said. "It seems to be happening at earlier ages."

Researchers believe they have identified the source of fatal tumours that threaten to wipe out the wild population of Tasmanian devils. Writing in Science, an international team of scientists suggest cells that protect nerves are the likely origin of devil facial tumour disease (DFTD). The disease is a transmissible cancer that is spread by physical contact, and quickly kills the animals. DFTD has caused the devil population to collapse by 60% in the past decade. "To look more closely at the tumours' origin, we sequenced the genes that are expressed in this devil cancer and compared them with other genes...

The Tasmanian devil, the spaniel-size marsupial found on the Australian island of Tasmania, has been hurtling toward extinction in recent years, the victim of a bizarre and mysterious facial cancer that spreads like a plague. Now Australian scientists say they have discovered how the cancer originated. The finding, being reported Friday in the journal Science, sheds light on how cancer cells can sometimes liberate themselves from the hosts where they first emerged. On a more practical level, it also opens the door to devising vaccines that could save the Tasmanian devils. “It’s a great paper,” said Katherine Belov, a geneticist...

Workers at McCain's vegetable factory in north west Tasmania are asking the company to be more respectful in its negotiations about their redundancies. Workers say they have received little detail nearly 10 days after McCain announced it would close the Smithton plant. The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union is writing to the company to seek more information about exactly how many workers will lose their jobs when the factory closes next year.

TASMANIAN police are tackling a "new generation" of street drugs, which are being made in a bid to circumvent existing laws. Police said there had been a dramatic shift in the past year towards a new type of party drug with the street name of Israeli's. The drugs are sold in capsule form and contain derivatives of methcathinone, a psychoative stimulant, the Department of Police and Emergency Management's annual report says. The report says the drugs have been produced "in an attempt to circumvent existing legislation". Southern Drug Investigation Services chief Ian Lindsay said police became aware of the drug...

An oddity among oddities, this newly discovered carnivorous sea squirt traps fish and other prey in its funnel-like front section, scientists announced today. Most of the 2,000 or so known sea squirt species are filter feeders that strain plankton from seawater. Tethered to the seafloor 13,143 feet (4,006 meters) underwater, the 20-inch (50-centimeter) sea squirt, or ascidian, is one of the deepest-dwelling animals ever found in Australia. The new species is one of many new deep-sea creatures discovered on a recent expedition that used a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) near southern Tasmania, Australia. The joint U.S.-Australian endeavor explored the Tasman...

A PASSENGER told tonight how a Qantas flight attendant ignored serious stab wounds to his head to repeatedly tackle a 'would-be hijacker' until he could be subdued. Derek Findlay described today's dramatic hijack bid by a man in a suit and armed with wooden stakes, who attacked two flight attendants and tried to crash a Melbourne to Launceston domestic flight. Mr Findlay, 30, was among passengers who wrestled the attacker to the cabin floor after he ran towards the cockpit, lunging at the male purser and female flight attendant. As well as sticks, the man was also brandishing an aerosol...

Australia's iconic Tasmanian devils have started having sex at a younger age since the advent of a deadly disease which threatens to wipe out the species. Data collected before and after the cancer-causing disease appeared showed a 16-fold increase in early sexual behaviour. Scientists fear the disease, which causes facial tumours, could lead to the marsupial carnivore's extinction within 20 to 25 years. "We have found that devils are compensating for the disease by breeding early -- there is a 16-fold increase in the number breeding at the age of one year," The Tasmanian devil is restricted to the island...