Human hair and unwanted wool could be turned into a vital component for lithium batteries, researchers say. Charles Sturt University researchers say synthetic graphite made from hair and wool offcuts could help meet growing demand for the mineral, which is used to make lithium-ion batteries.

This team went guerilla-style into the British Museum to create exact replicas of the Parthenon marbles. This archaeologist and his team had a simple plan — take 3D scans of the Parthenon marbles and recreate them for the British Museum so the originals could be returned to Greece. When the museum said no, they went in anyway, guerilla-style.

Dentist Discovers Human-Like Jawbone and Teeth in a Floor Tile at His Parents' Home. Scientists are planning to study the specimen, embedded in travertine from western Turkey, in hopes of dating and identifying it. He found the jawbone in a tile made of travertine, a type of limestone that typically forms near hot springs. This specific tile came from a quarry in the Denizli Basin of western Turkey. The travertine excavated there formed between 0.7 million and 1.8 million years ago, which suggests the mandible did not come from a person who died recently.

This outback property is home to 37 species found nowhere else in the world, many hiding in springs for millennia. Unique species of fish, snails, and crustaceans have existed on this isolated property in Western Queensland since the dinosaur age when it was deep under water as part of the Eromanga Sea.

Is autocorrect racist? The push to stamp out galling ethnic name bias on phones and computers. A new campaign — called I Am Not A Typo — is urging tech companies to fix ethnic bias in their algorithms to stop autocorrect mangling so many people's names.

Caravaggio masterpiece considered lost for centuries to be unveiled. The painting is one of only 60 known Caravaggio pieces in existence and is considered one of the most valuable old master artworks in the world.

Tasmanian devils off to the US. Tequila, Tabasco, Mouse and Mozza and four other Tasmanian devils will soon board a long haul flight to the US, where they'll settle into four zoos as part of Tasmania's ambassador program.

How To Avoid Being Eaten By A Black Bear. A recent study of fatal black bear attacks shows that hungry males are the ones to really worry about.

Elephants call each other by name, study finds. Researchers used artificial intelligence algorithm to analyse calls by two herds of African savanna elephants in Kenya.

Harvard removes human skin binding from book after more than 90 years. Harvard University has removed human skin from the binding of a book held for over 90 years at one of its libraries

Claude the hungry koala scales fences in broad daylight to sample young seedlings at a nursery. He's a repeat offender and has attracted mates to the free feed, costing the nursery thousands of damaged plants. The nursery owner hopes new fencing and a mass planting project nearby will deter the brazen koala from repeated daylight robbery.

Australian airports caught thousands of travellers with biosecurity risks in 2023, including holy water from the Ganges. A live toad, holy water from the Ganges and an aphrodisiac made from donkeys are among the more unusual items detected at Australian airports and mail centres. Context: there are a lot of diseases, viruses, and parasites that are common in Britain/Europe/Asia/North America that are not present at all in Australia, and Australia would very much like to keep it that way.

50,000 Year Old Neanderthal Bones Have Remains of Human Viruses, Scientists Find. (Smithsonian Magazine.) The preliminary analysis is a first step in testing the theory that infectious diseases played a role in Neanderthals' extinction.

A playlist about Kerr Avon, from the British Science Fiction TV show Blake's 7.

According to the Blake's 7 fan who put the playlist together, jukeboxjury, "State of Grace is Avon/Blake. Shiny Happy People is about how Avon views other people. Tear You Apart is Avon/Servalan. It's not a perfect match up storywise but the spirit is all there. Needing/Getting is another Blake/Avon for Seasons 3 and 4 after Blake has left. Portions For Foxes is also Avon/Blake - his cynical take on his attraction to Blake. My Tears Ricochet is about Gauda Prime. Everything else is basically Avon beating himself up and all the lies he tells himself."

Needs washed. The Yale Grammatical Diversity Project: English in North America. Who says this? Murray and Simon (2002) describe the rough boundaries as Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio, Northern West Virginia, and Central Indiana. Pockets of speakers may exist in places as far-spread as Kentucky and Illinois. This construction is also attested in Scots English, which might be its historical source.

According to Murray and Simon (1999), the need/want + V-en construction displays sensitivity to no significant sociolinguistic factors other than race, and they say that "white [people] favour the construction significantly more than Black people" (pp. 149). Murray and Simon (2002) found that unlike white speakers, virtually no Black speakers accept like + V-en.

The jellyfish detective who discovered the Irukandji by stinging volunteers — including his 10-year-old son. A mysterious and excruciating illness was striking down beachgoers in North Queensland until the 1960s, when a doctor and a little boy went to extraordinary lengths to solve the mystery.

How Crossbows Can Tell Us Which Genes Trees Are Turning On...and Off. (Smithsonian Magazine.) What's a scientist to do, when you need to reach the highest leaves in the forest and a giant crane isn't an option? Learn to use a crossbow.

Gigantic marine reptile identified from fossil found by 11-year-old girl and father. A fossil jawbone found by a young girl and her father on a beach in England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating back to 202 million years ago.

Study finds magpies who are bullied are more likely to be smarter than their bullies. The research tested the intelligence of the animals, and found birds who were frequently picked on had become smarter to avoid their bullies. (This is about the Australian magpie, Gymnorhina tibicen, which is not related to the European magpie, Pica pica. Basically when the British got to Australia, they went "this random bird is black and white, so we'll call it a magpie.")

Australian lab-grown meat with "perfect" texture hits the shelves in Singapore. The first product from an Australian cell-cultured meat company has gone on sale in Singapore, where the Japanese quail cell parfait can be found in high-end restaurants.

A shark vomited up a human arm. It led to an unusual criminal case seen at the New South Wales Supreme Court. For two centuries, the Supreme Court of NSW has heard countless cases. Here are some of the most historically significant or strange ones. (Note for people outside Australia, in Australia there are three levels of courts; each state has it's own Supreme Court, then beyond that there is the High Court for all of Australia. This is because the Supreme Courts existed and were named before Federation happened in 1901.)

Spiders and frogs return to cotton farms as industry cleans up its act. Once devoid of insect life, Australian cotton paddocks are now teeming with spiders and other animals as the cotton industry moves further away from pesticide use.

Classically trained Indigenous chef says native Australian ingredients key to creating uniquely Australian cuisine. Indigenous chef Jack Brown is trained in traditional French cuisine, but he's on a mission to get more native Australian ingredients into everyday cooking.

Transporting billions of tonnes of freight generates huge emissions. What if it was moved by rail not road? About 4 billion tonnes of goods are delivered across Australia each year, mostly by road, but one train can carry the same freight as 54 trucks. So why doesn't more freight go by rail?

This 130,000 Year Old Decorative Bear Bone May Be the Oldest Known Neanderthal Art. Researchers say the carved artifact was not a utilitarian item and instead served a symbolic purpose.

The sex worker who fought debanking and got his EFTPOS (Electronic Funds Transfer At Point Of Sale) machine back. Sex workers can now fight debanking in some parts of Australia, but others are left hiding their jobs and battling financial discrimination.

Once extinct in central Australia, this little kangaroo-looking marsupial is now thriving in a remote desert safe haven. The number of brush-tailed bettongs and burrowing bettongs surveyed at Newhaven Wildlife Sanctuary in central Australia has nearly doubled since last year.

Extinct mountain jewel plant returned to wild in secret location. (BBC) A plant picked for its beautiful flowers then wiped out in the UK mainland makes a return.

More than a dozen locations bear this racist term and relic of colonial oppression. It's time to change the place names. There is a small sign in Western Victoria — one of 15 locations around the country, from creeks and waterholes to bores and mountains — that is a racist slur in plain sight.

Regional property owners turning unusable land into money through solar energy leases. With upheavals in the agriculture industry making some farms unviable, a landowner in South Australia is encouraging others to consider repurposing their properties for renewable energy projects.

Good Samaritans joined by green sea turtle for unexpected outback road trip. After spotting a request for help on social media, Emily and Callum helped Squirt the turtle make the 600-kilometre (372.8 miles) journey from Port Hedland to Broome.

The world's oldest culture is embracing high-tech vertical farming. Vertical farms grow plants quickly, using less water and land than traditional farming. One newcomer to the industry hopes it can put native herbs into supermarkets.

"One deadly menu": The food mission to bring First Nations cuisine to all of Australia. At her local supermarket, Evelyn Billy looked around and saw food from all cultures — except hers. (Aboriginal Australian people use "Deadly" to mean excellent/amazing/really good.)

Kado is one of only three speakers of Ngalia. He designed an app to pass down his knowledge to the next generation. The remote town of Leonora, more than 800 kilometres from Perth, is an unlikely technology hub, but its only school has been chosen to launch a new app aimed at preserving language and culture.

Meet the echidnapus: Fossils discovered in museum drawer may point to Australian age of monotremes. The "echidnapus" is one of the newly described ancient monotremes from a fossil hotspot in NSW that could give us more clues about an era when egg-laying mammals diversified.

Palaeontologists have named three new monotreme species, including an "echidnapus", which shares platypus and echidna characteristics.

Palaeontology while using a power wheelchair. Eleanor Beidatsch recently graduated with first-class honours in geoscience at the University of New England (UNE). Eleanor has spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) type 1 and has never had use of her legs. Her arm movement is also limited. "I cannot move myself around at all," she said. "When I'm in the wheelchair I can move, thanks to the wonders of technology." The disease, which affects her respiration as well as her mobility, was generally considered fatal by doctors when Eleanor was born. "I'm more of a lab rat than a field mouse," she said. "Palaeontology is very physical, but only if you're out digging. [Information about fossils] essentially then gets put online, that is then accessible for people to do lab work, and you don't need to be able bodied [for that]."

Art world mourns death of superstar Aboriginal artist Destiny Deacon. Tributes are flowing from friends and the art world for a trailblazing contemporary Aboriginal Australian artist.

Deacon was born on 1 January 1957 in Maryborough, Queensland and is of the K'ua K'ua/Kuku of Far North Queensland (Kuku Yalanji) and Erub/Mer (Torres Strait Islander) peoples.

Cameras reveal wombat burrows can be safe havens after fire and waterholes after rain (The Conversation.) And here is a cartoon about it: A wombat burrow is the food court of nature – and so much more. It is like an Airbnb combined with an Aldi. (First Dog on the Moon).

More Than 1000 Fossils, Including Rare Dinosaurs, Given to Brazil's National Museum Following Fire. (Smithsonian Magazine.) The massive donation was made by Burkhard Pohl, a Swiss-German collector, as the museum works to replenish its collections after a devastating blaze in September 2018.

"We felt it was the right thing to do to help rebuild a comprehensive collection of Brazilian fossils,' Pohl tells the Art Newspaper's Gabriella Angeleti. "We hope that this initiative will inspire other collectors to follow suit and join this important effort. I strongly believe that a collection is a living organism that must constantly evolve—a collection locked away in a basement is a dead collection."

After Brain Injuries, Doctors and Families Should Take More Time With Life Support Decisions, Research Finds. (Smithsonian Magazine.) A small study suggests some severe traumatic brain injury patients can later recover a level of independence or return to their pre-injury lives.

"The team used the model to compare 160 similar patients for whom life support was either withdrawn or continued. Their analysis found that many patients who had life support withdrawn would have likely died anyway. But 42 percent of those who continued on life support and survived ended up regaining some independence up to 12 months after injury. The findings suggest a "cyclical, self-fulfilling prophecy" may be at play in trauma centers, according to a statement from Mass General Brigham. Doctors assume that patients with traumatic brain injuries will not recover or will fare poorly, which leads to the withdrawal of life support. This, in turn, results in patients' deaths, which prompts even more decisions to withdraw life support, according to the statement."