Australia Archives - Teaching Kids News

Australia Votes “No” in Referendum

Kevin Goldmintz — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 21:44:30 +0000

Australians have voted no in a referendum designed to give Aboriginal people more of a say in government.

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Magpies Outsmart Researchers

Monique Conrod — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 09:14:00 +0000

Some magpies in Australia have taught researchers some lessons.

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“AUKUS” Agreement Brings Together Australia, Britain and the US

Joyce Grant — Sun, 19 Sep 2021 20:53:05 +0000

A new deal known as AUKUS partners Australia, Britain and the US.

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Huge Australian Steer Goes Viral (But Pssst … There’s A Bigger One In Canada!)

Joyce Grant — Mon, 10 Dec 2018 01:43:50 +0000

Knickers the steer has caught people's interest, around the world.
The 6'4" steer is so much bigger than the cattle he lives with that he has become an Internet sensation. Knickers lives in Australia and weighs 1,400 kilograms. An average bull weighs about 1,100 kgs.
Tyne Logan, at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) told reporter Jacqueline Lynch about an enormous Holstein Friesian steer he had seen. She went along to see for herself just how big Knickers is. On the ABC website, she says Knickers was "pretty intimidating when all of his 1,4000 kilograms first came lumbering through the gate towards me."

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Cave Drawings Suggest Art May Be Older Than We Thought

Joyce Grant — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 02:46:53 +0000

Some cave drawings in Indonesia are changing the way scientists think about early humans and art.
There are about a dozen drawings.
They are red and they are of an animal that looks like a “pig-deer” and some are tracings of people’s hands.

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Oldest Thing On Earth Is A 4.4-Billion-Year-Old Gem

Joyce Grant — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 02:19:17 +0000

Scientists have found the oldest known piece of our planet.

A blue zircon crystal, found on a sheep ranch in Australia, is about 4.4 billion years old.

The gem is about twice the width of a human hair.

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Heatwave In Australia Affects Major Tennis Tournament

Joyce Grant — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 00:06:41 +0000

How hot was it?

It was so hot, you could fry an egg on the tennis court at the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne.

And in fact, someone did.

Tennis player Novak Djokovic sent around a picture of an actual egg on a tennis court, frying in the heat. The picture quickly went viral, meaning that many people saw it.

If it was that hot for an egg, imagine people playing top-level tennis in that heat.

Some of the players took baths in ice water to offset the effects of the heat, as the temperature climbed to 43-degrees Celsius.

Canadian tennis player Eugenie Bouchard is emerging as a rising star, advancing to the fourth round of the tournament.

She is the first Canadian in 22 years to reach the quarter-finals in a major tennis tournament.

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Baby Superb Fairy-Wren Sings For Its Supper

Joyce Grant — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 03:46:05 +0000

If a baby Fairy-Wren wants food, he has to give the password first.

He’ll know it off by heart—because he learned it before he was hatched, while he was still inside his egg.

The Superb Fairy-Wren (its scientific name is Malurus cyaneus) is an Australia bird.

It teaches its babies a single note, even before the baby is hatched.

The mother wren sings the note over and over to her unhatched eggs.

The mother teaches the note to the father wren so he can sing it to the eggs, too.

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Air Canada Flight Makes A Detour To Locate A Stranded Yacht

Joyce Grant — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 00:02:32 +0000

Picture this. You’re on a plane, flying from Vancouver, B.C. to Sydney, Australia.

You’re flying over the Pacific Ocean. For the last 12 hours, your flight has been perfectly uneventful.

And then suddenly the captain’s voice comes over the plane’s speakers.

There is a boat in distress, the captain explains. And the plane is going to change course in order to help look for it.

That’s exactly what happened to 270 passengers on board Air Canada flight AC033 last Monday.

The captain was told there was a “vessel in distress” somewhere in the Tasman Sea, which is between Australia and New Zealand.

A yacht with one person aboard had left Sydney, Australia, about two weeks earlier. It had lost its mast, was very low on fuel and had been drifting.

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Scientists Discovers Corn Plants Make A Noise

Joyce Grant — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 01:00:17 +0000

Most people know that plants react to light.

For instance, if a houseplant is near a window it will start to grow towards the light.

But what about sound?

New research shows that plants not only react to sound, but even produce sounds themselves.

Dr. Monica Gagliano is a researcher at The University of Western Australia. One day she was working in her herb garden and she started to wonder if plants were sensitive to sounds. Since she’s a scientist, she decided to find out.

She and some other researchers discovered something amazing. They found out that the roots of corn seedlings (very young corn plants) make clicking sounds.

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