dogz 

People with COVID-19 have a special scent that specially trained dogs can pick up. Even asymptomatic virus carriers can give off the smell. The task of the dog handler is to ensure that the animal reacts precisely to the smell and clearly warns about infected people. The practice has already been widely adopted in some airports across the world.

Coronavirus-sniffing pups, trained to detect infected people, were employed by Massachusetts police to scour schools before they open back up for students, the New York Post reported on Thursday.

“They love to work,” Bristol County Sheriff’s spokesman Jonathan Darling told CBS News. “And then when they’re not working, they just want to give you kisses and we love it.”

covid ch

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet could reintroduce some COVID-19 restrictions today after the state recorded 38,625 new cases and 11 deaths.

• Today's number of deaths is the highest in the state since October 9
• The Premier is holding a NSW economic recovery meeting today
• Another 129 patients have been admitted to hospital for treatment

The Premier is expected to speak later today after he holds a NSW economic recovery meeting — formerly the crisis cabinet meeting.

planet crap

The Prime Minister is probably telling the truth when he says we have no choice but to “ride the wave of COVID-19”(“Nation must ‘ride the wave’ of COVID”, January 6). We did have a choice but it was flung away. Pity the people whose ambulances will take an hour to come; who will wait outside hospitals or in ED so long their care is compromised or they die; who are in hospital without enough doctors or nurses, whose operations won’t be done.

co2

Northern beaches residents have been worried about how their beloved beach would fare when large swells and high tides hit the controversial Collaroy seawall. They were concerned the sand directly in front of the seawall would be washed away, eroding their beach, and, on Tuesday, that’s exactly what happened.

The erosion event at Collaroy Beach is far from an isolated occurrence. Other beaches along the eastern coastline have also experienced heavy erosion and scientists fear climate change will only make these events more frequent and more intense.

Patrick Allan has continued an almost 100-year-old family tradition of living in Collaroy, spending years surfing the waves, but he’s planning on leaving the small seaside suburb. The building of the seawall was the final nail in the coffin.

 global warming is real

Hello, black holes fanatics… Gus Leonisky here — the mad pseudo-professor/failed engineer who brought you the SeaGlider, now working on the 5,000 tonnes cargo ship carbon fibre version, running at 33 knots (maximum for sleek displacement hulls). As the world becomes smarter (don’t laugh) the size of “containers” for this caper is reduced to 3 metres long, 1 metre wide and 2 metre high. These, also made of carbon fibre, will be called “minitainers” or iTainers for short. 

liar

This is an extract from the ninth Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year message of the former Labor MP, science minister and national president of the ALP.

The year 2020 was bad enough, but the cumulative effect of  another Covid year, with the prospect of a third coming up, was debilitating, and shook many comfortable assumptions we might have had about an ambitious commitment to improve the state of the world.

Loss of face-to-face contact, increasing reliance on digital communication, the grave threats to education, especially universities, the arts and creativity generally, the ABC, were all profoundly disturbing.

covid

Good evening and thanks for reading our live coverage. 

If you’re just joining us, here’s a quick recap of the day’s events. 

polar

Utqiagvik, Alaska: After two days in the thick snow on America’s most northerly tip, there were still no signs of polar bears. The beasts, residents said, had moved to Russia.

“It wasn’t always like this,” said Herman Ahsoak, a whaling captain from Utqiagvik, Alaska, who was acting as a guide.

“Back in the late 1990s there were 127 here. I had never seen so many in my life. We had a dedicated patrol team to keep watch and protect the town.

“But when the sea ice really started to retreat, we stopped seeing them so often. I’m sure there is still a healthy population, but they have mostly moved on from here.”

In this part of America, where the average annual temperature has risen by 4.8C in the past 50 years, one of the most visible signs of global warming is the exodus of polar bears.

wheatshop

Gus Leonisky has no proof yet he will postulate that dark energy and dark matter were PRESENT BEFORE THE BIG BANG. This is a big statement. I challenge mathematicians and physicists to come up with an interpretation of this pseudo-reality. 

The medium so stated — dark energy and dark matter — is absorbing the newly created Big Bang like a bit of blotting paper, until there could be a point of "saturation"...

As well, the so-called moment of Inflation could have been instigated by the new Big Bang being slowed down by the dark thingies — that could be the remnants of an estinguished universe having reached complete entropy...

Happy New Year...

AND YES WE REMEMBER... John Howard was the master of fudge, who taught Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison how to lie, pork and maintain a straight poker face with two jokers in hand...

gaddafiblair

Controversial former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II this week, sparking outrage from Brits who argued he should be in prison for his involvement in the Iraq War instead.

Blair was knighted in the New Year Honours 2022 list, alongside Covid-19 response officials Chris Whitty and Jonathan Van-Tam. Blair received the Most Noble Order of the Garter – one of the most prestigious royal honors and the highest order of knighthood – and will now be able to use the title ‘Sir’.

In a statement, the former prime minister said it was “an immense honour” to be knighted.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL

This show would be the first of its kind in the world (spherical pyrotechnics). It's worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OrBtvheMMw

Meanwhile, we cannot go pass the Sydney Fireworks 2022... At 9.00 PM, the show started with about 15 minutes of fireworks designed by Blak Douglas, Aboriginal artist (https://blakdouglas.com.au/), followed by an impeccable entertaining night from the ABC TV till the 00:00 fireworks on 01/01/2022, which were spectacular and better than the previous ones — a feat of high precision.

Celebrating 90 years of the ABC and of the Sydney Harbour Bridge... Many more 90 years to come for the ABC should the ScoMo government stop trying to destroy the ABC...

abbott's piracy

If you think you know the sound of horror, try the unmistakable thump of a bloody pirate demon’s wooden leg coming down the stairs accompanied by the scratch of a hook hand gouging the railing for balance.

Yes, it really is worse than fingernails on a blackboard.

(For younger readers, blackboards were devices used in structured educational situations last century. Chalk was applied to them and … oh, never mind.)

on the fairway

Dominic Perrottet’s COVID “change in approach” will be sceptically received and many will see this contradiction of earlier advice as a belated attempt to manage a situation that has the appearance of being out of control (“One in 10 may catch first wave, Chant says”, December 30).

Recent news reports, based on analysis of high-resolution photographs, conclude that Saudi Arabia has purchased from China the technology necessary to manufacture solid-fuel ballistic missiles.

This news comes at a time when the US is seeking to ratchet the pressure up on Iran in an effort to compel it to eliminate its own indigenous ballistic missile production capability, which America and its allies have labeled a threat to regional and global security.

functional silos .....

Canberra’s conduct towards the Timorese was so grave that Australia continues to be regarded, within international legal circles as a cheat.

Upon our return to Cambridge in early 2014 from The Hague after the truly shameful experience of watching and listening to Australia’s solicitor-general and some of his team scornfully defend Australian misconduct at Dili our Bar Leader, Sir Elihu Lauterpacht QC, doyen of international law, former ad hoc Judge of the International Court, 84 years old and on his last brief, sought reassurance from me that I too had seen Australia’s Professor James Crawford, SC, momentarily lower his head as the Solicitor-General spoke. Eli admired James and watched intently as James sat with the Australian team.