NASA spots slowest known magnetar and other top stories.

• NASA spots slowest known magnetar

  Washington: Astronomers have found evidence of a magnetar - magnetised neutron star - that spins much slower than the slowest of its kind known until now, which spin around once every 10 seconds. The magnetar 1E 1613 - at the centre of RCW 103, the remains of a supernova explosion located about 9,000 light years from Earth - rotates once every 24,000 seconds (6.67 hours), the researchers found. "The source exhibits properties of a highly magnetised neutron star, or magnetar, yet its deduced spin..

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• Green sea turtles thrive in Raine Island recovery project off far north Queensland

  

  Green sea turtles thrive in Raine Island recovery project off far north Queensland Posted September 10, 2016 14:43:25 A project to raise the height of a remote island off far north Queensland to help save the world's most important nesting site for thousands of green sea turtles has saved eggs and hatchlings, researchers say.Raine Island, about 620 kilometres north-east of Cairns and inaccessible to the public, is the nesting ground for about 60,000 green turtles ever..

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• From Darwin to dino discoverer

  The seven dinosaur footprints found at Broome’s Cable Beach, which have made headlines around the world, were discovered by former Darwin resident Bindi Lee Porth.The 37-year-old, who moved from Darwin to Broome about two years ago, was down at the beach celebrating her daughter Summerlee Smith’s 20th birthday when she made the discovery.“I was sea shell colleting with my daughter and I was walking through the rocks,” Ms Porth said.“I put my right foot down and just felt this amazing surge of en..

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• Liberal MP says Canada will ratify Paris climate agreement by end of year

  

  The U.S. and China officially ratified the Paris agreement to curb climate-warming emissions last Saturday, putting pressure on other countries like Canada to follow suit. Liberal MP Jonathan Wilkinson, parliamentary secretary to the minister of environment and climate change, says Canada will ratify the pact by the end of the year. "We're very committed to ratification," Wilkinson told On The Coast guest host Gloria Macarenko. "We said we'd ratify this year and we're committed to ratifying thi..

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• Is human hair as distinctive as human DNA?

  

  DNA is a staple of crime scene investigations, particularly those seen on TV, because it is far and away the most accurate method we have of matching evidence to a specific individual.But not all crime scenes have clear DNA markers, so in 2009 the US National Research Council issued a call for new research and reforms to repair deficiencies in forensic science methods.In response, a research team lead by Glendon Parker at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California published a stud..

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• Wilderness shrinks by a tenth in just 20 years

  

  New findings from a global ecosystem study show "staggering" declines affecting the last bastions of undisturbed nature, it is claimed. In the last 20 years, wilderness regions amounting to an area twice the size of Alaska have vanished, the research reveals. The Amazon basin and central Africa have been hardest hit. 'Wilderness' is defined as a biologically and ecologically intact landscape free of any significant human disturbance. Lead researcher Dr James Watson, from the University of Que..

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