Australian public university based in Queensland, known for ecological and marine research including Great Barrier Reef studies, wildlife and bushfire science.
Drone surveys at nine Queensland beaches logged 2,696 scalloped hammerhead sightings in 20,911 flights, with groups of up to an estimated 100. The authors say the sites may be important juvenile habitat but could not confirm that they are nursery grounds.
Reality
Researcher David Schoeman warns a record El Niño could flip parts of the Great Barrier Reef to seaweed after six bleaching events in ten years. Warming now brings bleaching even in cooler La Niña years, he says, so corals get less time to recover between events.
Reality
University of the Sunshine Coast researchers found 17 plant species in DNA from 24 greater glider droppings, acacia and casuarina among them. Habitat plans may need a longer tree list, though detection in droppings does not show how much gliders rely on each plant.
Reality
University of the Sunshine Coast modelling found fire runs more than 80 times faster in dry eucalypt forest than in green firebreaks watered 2 mm a day. The model covers one shire, and the warning time it points to has yet to be shown in a real fire with real water.
Reality
University of the Sunshine Coast researchers call it the first detailed description of kleptoparasitism in any cetacean. The evidence is one identifiable animal across 20 logged encounters in four years, and no one has measured the energy saving.
Perspective Coverage
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The depressions are 8 meters wide and 2 meters deep, and they cover more seafloor than the wreck itself. CSIRO's Ben Arthur said the same pock marks once led RV Investigator onto a wreck it had almost given up finding.
Reality