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Australian scientists have discovered that stem cells found in the back of a patient's nose can produce the chemical which is missing in people with Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's disease occurs when the brain cells that produce the chemical dopamine stop working.  Without dopamine, nerve cells cannot function, leading to muscle problems. Researchers from Griffith University and the University of Queensland harvested adult stem cells from the noses of Parkinson's disease patients.  They found that once the nose cells were cultured and infused into animals with Parkinson's disease, the cells began to produce dopamine.  Professor Peter Silburn from the University of...

VARIOUS fringe leftist groups from around the country gathered in Melbourne a few years ago to sort out their differences and amalgamate into one big fringe leftist group. You can calculate the success of this exercise by noticing that no such large group was ever formed. I went along to one of the fringe-ins to hear the Socialists Against Brunch argue with the Maoist Golfers League and Communists Sans Underpants over the mega-party's police policy. Matters soon reached an impasse, as matters tend to do in a room full of dizzy leftist cranks. Representatives couldn't agree on whether the police...

American and Canadian troops have begun using the Excalibur shell in Afghanistan earlier this year. A year ago, American troops began using Excalibur in Iraq. This was just timely, because Islamic warriors tend to use civilians as human shields, and that means you have to be precise when you go after the bad guys with artillery. A typical situation has enemy gunmen holding out in one building of a walled compound or village. In nearby buildings, there are women and children. While killing the enemy is good, killing the civilians can be a very bad thing. Smart bombs should be...

The Christian Democrats are pushing for a halt to Muslim immigration because there has been no serious study of the effects of Muslims on Australia. They say the 10-year measure would give some breathing space to assess the situation. The party today officially introduced pastor Paul Green as its number-one candidate for the Senate at a media conference in Sydney. Mr Green says he believes Australian people are very concerned about Muslim immigration and would support an immediate moratorium. "If there was bird flu coming from a people's groups across the nation, would we not stop to assess the risk...

The incidents happened at 11.25am and 4.13pm at the corner of Lakes Way and Seal Rocks Rd. One car was targeted and eight others passed close to the beam. The lasers used by Hornet fighters as target designators are the most powerful laser beams used by the air force. The Defence department confessed to the mistake by press release yesterday without any prompting from the public. It said RAF and US Air Force specialists had advised they were not aware of any incidents of laser injuries to people on the ground, as a result of lasings from aircraft in incidents...

JOHN Howard has singled out Muslim migrants for refusing to embrace Australian values and urged them to fully integrate by treating women as equals and learning to speak English. The call for a shift in attitude among some Muslims infuriated community leaders last night, and comes as The Australian can reveal the Prime Minister's own Islamic advisers have already accused Mr Howard and senior ministers of fuelling hatred and mistrust by using "inflammatory and derogatory" language. Mr Howard said: "There is a section, a small section of the Islamic population, and I say a small section ... which is very...

President Bush must die. Or so says Nobel Peace Prize laureate Betty Williams, in explaining to a class of school children in Australia why she rejects non-violence and remarking how mystified she is that she ever won a prize awarded for promoting peace. "Right now, I would love to kill George Bush," she told the kiddies, causing them to break into spontaneous applause. And Williams is by no means a voice crying in the left-wing wilderness. Air America hostess Randi Rhodes, who apparently thinks that promoting the killing of the president is a real hoot, broadcast a "comedic skit" last...

RECREATIONAL hunters using rifles, crossbows and dogs will be allowed to kill feral animals in state forests and on public lands in a controversial trial next month. Licensed huntsmen will be allowed to hunt feral cats, dogs, deer, goats, pigs and foxes after the State Government approved the two-day trial in four public locations from February 4. However, a declaration published in the NSW Government Gazette on Friday reveals the four state forests have already been designated as the first official, full-scale hunting grounds. The proposed order allows hunting for five years in these areas, with hundreds more to follow...

Nationalists boast of their role on the beach The Patriotic Youth League's Luke Connors predicts more riots. WHITE nationalist groups involved in the Cronulla riots have predicted further racial violence, naming the Melbourne suburbs of Heidelberg, Preston, Reservoir and Springvale as potential "hot spots". The Patriotic Youth League, whose members handed out "Aussies Fighting Back" pamphlets at Cronulla, said it had been inundated with callers wanting to riot in Melbourne. "If it wasn't for the massive police presence there already, and the fact that it's mainly confined to a peninsula, we really could have had a Paris situation on our...

Racial violence has erupted for the second straight day in Sydney, with cars smashed and reports of shots fired just hours after Australian Prime Minister John Howard appealed for calm. Witnesses said "chaos" had broken out in a shopping centre at south Sydney's Cronulla beach late Monday, the scene of mob violence on Sunday, with vehicles damaged and police making arrests as gangs of men roamed the streets. "People are standing around in shock, just watching," said a reporter for local radio station 2GB. "Every window in some cars has been smashed. Roads have been blocked (by police)." One resident,...

GREAT BRITAIN'S STANDING as an ally of the U.S. is near the highest level it's been over the past decade, according to a Harris Interactive poll. Harris has asked Americans which countries are the greatest friends of the U.S. each year since 1993. Great Britain has polled higher than this year only once, in 2001. Among other findings of the telephone poll of 1, 217 adults: France has ticked up slightly over the past two years but it remains sharply lower than where it stood four years ago. Israel has moved gradually higher over the past decade, while Canada...

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian scientists have discovered pineapple molecules can act as powerful anti-cancer agents and said the research could lead to a new class of cancer-fighting drugs. Scientists at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR) said their work centred on two molecules from bromelaine, an extract derived from crushed pineapple stems that is used to tenderise meat, clarify beers and tan hides. One of the molecules, CCZ, stimulates the body's immune system to target and kill cancer cells, the other, CCS, blocks a protein called Ras, which is defective in 30 percent of all cancers. QIMR researcher Tracey...

"The Western Europeans just can't seem to wrap their heads around the concept that there is evil in the world, there are actually evil people that want to kill them, and that it is not America or the West's fault that these individuals wish them harm. Every single time there is a terrorist attack without fail the first words out of the mouths of the European political class is "We express our Solidarity" with the nation, and victims of the attack. They have used that word so much, and done so little to defeat terrorism, the word "SOLIDARITY" has practically...

Penalty handed down in Catch the Fire Ministries Free speech and freedom of religion have been guillotined in Victoria (well, in Australia actually! ) Penalty handed down in Catch the Fire Ministries religious vilification case Judge Higgins announced the 'remedy' or 'penalty' at a hearing in the Victorian and Civil and Administrative Tribunal at 10 am this morning (Wednesday 22 June 2005). Judge Higgins basically endorsed all the requests made by the Islamic Council of Victoria at the penalty hearing on 2-3 may with the exception of placing a link on the Catch the Fire Ministries website to the Islamic...

AN envelope found at the Indonesian embassy in Canberra today has tested positive for a biological agent. The embassy has been shut down and its 22 staff will remain in isolation for at least 48 hours after the envelope tested positive for an as-yet unidentified biological agent. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer condemned whoever had sent the package and said the incident would not help Corby's case. "Further analysis of the powder has tested positive as a biological agent so further testing will need to be carried out to find out what that substance actually is," Mr Downer told Parliament. "As...

The Rambo Granny of Melbourne, Australia Gun-toting granny Ava Estelle, 81, was so ticked-off when two thugs raped her 18-year-old granddaughter that she tracked the unsuspecting ex-cons down - - and shot off their testicles. The old lady spent a week hunting those men down -- and when she found them, she took revenge on them in her own special way, said Melbourne police investigator Evan Delp. Then she took a taxi to the nearest police station, laid the gun on the sergeant's desk and told him as calm as could be: 'Those bastards will never rape anybody again, by...

Accused drug trafficker Schapelle Corby will today learn if she will face the death penalty if a Bali court finds her guilty of the charge. Prosecutors will tell the Denpasar District Court what punishment the 27-year-old former Gold Coast beauty therapist should receive if convicted.

SYDNEY, (AFP) - Australian Cardinal George Pell reassured fellow Church traditionalists that the Vatican conclave that will meet this week to choose a successor to Pope John Paul II will pick another conservative. Pell, who arrived in Rome on Sunday to help choose the next pope, told ABC radio that the one certainty about the next pontiff is that he will hold to John Paul's staunch conservative line on theological issues. "I'm quite sure that the general line -- fidelity to basic Catholic teachings -- is absolutely unassailable," he said. "There will be debate and discussion on what is the...

Sunken Fires Menace Land and Climate January 15, 2002 Fires are burning in thousands of underground coal seams from Pennsylvania to Mongolia, releasing toxic gases, adding millions of tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and baking the earth until vegetation shrivels and the land sinks. Scientists and government agencies are starting to use heat-sensing satellites to map the fires and try new ways to extinguish them. But in many instances -- particularly in Asia -- they are so widespread and stubborn that miners simply work around the flames. There is geological evidence that grassland and forest fires, lightning...

15:24 AEDT Sun Apr 3 2005 A Perth unit block has been ripped apart by a gas explosion so strong it shattered windows and blew doors off other buildings within a 50-metre radius. Two people have been taken to hospital, and their conditions were unknown, said a spokesman for Western Australia's Fire and Emergency Services Authority. The blast had all but destroyed the block of eight units in Raymond Street at suburban Yokine about 6.25am (WST) on Sunday, he said. "It's like a war zone. It's really quite incredible," the spokesman said. "The central units where the explosion originated from...

Marsupials not colour-blind after all Catriona Purcell ABC Science Online Monday, 28 March 2005 This little creature, called a quokka, is helping to overturn long-standing beliefs about marsupial vision (Image: Catherine Arrese/Nature) Australian marsupials can see in full colour, new research has found, making them the only other mammals apart from primates to do so. A team led by Dr Catherine Arrese from the University of Western Australia in Perth reports its findings in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a journal of the UK's Royal Society. Most people think marsupials lack colour vision, says Arrese, but her team's...

NORTH Korea has crossed two red lines. It has admitted, for the first time, that it possesses nuclear weapons and intends to keep building them. Moreover, the unravelling of the Pakistan-based A.Q. Khan network has apparently proved that North Korea sold enriched uranium that ended up in Libya. Alexander Downer's spokesman says that Australia "places a lot of faith" in the six-party talks that North Korea has just walked out of. Let's hope that's just diplomatic pablum. It's time to face facts. The US cannot live with a nuclear-armed North Korea that is not only a menace to its neighbours,...

Abortion, Embryo Research and Divorce Need to Be Fought by All Christians Says Archbishop  Society is Immoral Because Christian Churches are Not Unified on Life and Family Issues Australian Catholic Archbishop Barry Hickey has called on his Christian counterparts in Australia to come on side on issues of morality so that society may hear a united Christian voice on the myriad of moral dilemmas facing society. "A big part of society's problem has been the failure of Christian churches to speak with one voice on the crucial moral issues about human life," said the Archbishop in his New Year's message....

Johannesburg - A South African company has been slapped with a hefty fine for contravening national laws on weapons of mass destruction by exporting chemicals to Iran and Australia. African Amines based in Newcastle received a R100 000 fine after being found guilty on two counts of illegally exporting the chemical Dimethylamine, said national prosecutions authority spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi. Dimethylamine or DMA is used in a variety of substances including as a raw substance for rocket fuel and pesticides. Nkosi said, however, that the 120 tons of DMA shipped to Iran in March last year, as well as some 11...

A leader of Australia's Roman Catholic church has barred a group of liberal followers from using a church venue to hold a conference at which a gay rights activist was to speak. Cardinal George Pell, who has refused to give communion to gays and once called homosexuality "a greater health hazard than smoking," said it would be unsuitable for the liberal Australian Reforming Catholics group to meet on church property. It was not immediately clear what the gay activist planned to speak about. Pell also forbade liberal Bishop Pat Power from celebrating Mass at the event, which has been moved...

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A top U.S. envoy piled pressure on Australia's opposition leader on Monday to reverse a promise to withdraw Australian troops from Iraq if he wins a close-run election expected within months. U.S. Ambassador to Australia, Tom Schieffer, stopped short of naming Labor leader Mark Latham, having previously been rebuked for interfering in Australian domestic politics, but said now was not the time to pull away from an important bilateral alliance. His comments come after a barrage of criticism from top U.S. officials of Latham's vow to bring the 850 Australian troops in and around Iraq home by...

Pregnant women in Australia who are planning caesarean births are trying to delay their operations until July 1 to cash in on the government's new A$3,000 (US$2,068) "baby bonus" beginning in the new fiscal year. Several hospitals are completely booked for scheduled caesarean sections on the first two days of next month because pregnant women delayed the planned births until the new payment kicks in, Sydney's "The Daily Telegraph" newspaper said. Other mothers who give birth before June 30 will receive just A$700, missing the new "baby bonus'. The government announced the bonus 11 May as part of a big-spending...

Australia's opposition Labor Party has backed away from its promise to withdraw the country's troops from Iraq by Christmas if it wins the next election. The party has been stung by criticism from President Bush and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. Australia's Labor opposition has been forced to clarify its Iraq policy after two weeks of sustained pressure from the White House. It all began earlier this month when President Bush said that an Australian pullout from Iraq would be "disastrous." That rebuke prompted a senior Labor Party figure in Canberra to accuse the Bush administration of interfering in...

The top American uniformed officer delivered the American military's thanks to one of its most steadfast allies here today. Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, thanked his counterpart, Army Gen. Peter Cosgrove, chief of the Australian Defense Force, for his nation's help in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the global war on terrorism. Myers is finishing a trip through the Asia-Pacific region with a stop in Australia. He met here with Cosgrove and Defense Minister Robert Hill, and earlier in the day with Australian Prime Minister John Howard in Sydney. Myers met with...

Two men and a baby... Tony Wood and Lee Matthews playing with baby Alexander. ============================================= An extraordinary documentary about how two gay men flew to America and hired a surrogate mother to have a son is set to rekindle the debate about what constitutes an Australian family.================================== In the US they call it the "gayby boom". In Australia, where laws vary, it is still the centre of emotional and ethical controversy. Tony Wood, 40, and Lee Matthews, 34, are an upper-middle-class professional couple who decided five years ago they wanted to be parents. The men each donated their sperm to...

Bush seeks Australian troops for Iraq conflict, says Howard Prime Minister John Howard says US President George W Bush has asked Australia to participate in a "coalition of the willing" to disarm Iraq. Howard, who is one of President Bush's staunchest supporters, says the Australian government will meet early tomorrow to consider the request. Australia already has 2,000 military personnel in the Middle East preparing for war but the government has not yet formally announced if it will take part in strikes aimed at disarming Saddam Hussein. "When Cabinet has taken a decision that decision will be immediately communicated to...

Hey girls, just don't do it March 1 2003 Chastity might be great protection against pregnancy and disease but critics claim America's "no-sex revolution" is leaving teenagers dangerously at risk, reports Caroline Overington. Here is a little quiz. What is the best way to avoid pregnancy? What is the best way to avoid contracting a sexually transmitted disease? If you are between 20 and 50, chances are you answered both questions by saying: "Use a condom." That is the lesson that Australians have been taught, in school and via magazine advertising and billboards, for more than 30 years. If you...

BMJ 2003;326:242 ( 1 February ) News roundup Social costs of smoking are triple those of illicit drugs Christopher Zinn Sydney The financial impact of tobacco and alcohol far outweigh the impact of illicit drugs, with smoking costing the community almost three times as much as any other category of drug, according to a study on the social costs of drug use in Australia. The report, produced for the federal government’s national drug strategy, estimates that tobacco accounted for 61.2% of the costs to society of drugs, or $A21bn (£7.6bn; $12.4bn; €11.5bn). For the first time the cost calculations included...

Hundreds of Australian Women to Take Part in Naked Rain Dance (Sydney) -- Mired in a drought, some Australians are taking matters into their own hands in dealing with the situation. Hundreds of women from southern Australia will try to bring about precipitation by performing a naked rain dance in the outback in early March. Organizer Lynne Healy said all the families in and around the Mallee region are invited to the festivities, which will feature food and entertainment. She said the women will discreetly board buses and go to a secret location to perform the rain dance in the...

Handguns to be banned, buyback likely By Stephen Gibbs November 6 2002 Most semi-automatic handguns and all large-calibre revolvers will be banned from all but military, law enforcement and security purposes. The move, announced last night after an Australasian Police Ministers Council meeting in Darwin, could result in a national handgun buyback scheme. The council also agreed to accelerate uniform national standards for registering and tracking firearms and to develop a system for staggered access to sporting handgun shooters based on training, experience and event participation. A list of handguns to be banned is yet to be formalised but it...

Britons were today told to get out of Indonesia after new information about the terrorist threat following the Bali bombs. ...The alert mirrors advice given by Australia today telling its citizens to leave following what it called " disturbing new information".

PM JOINS OUR CAUSE By MALCOLM FARR Chief Political Reporter 13apr02 PRIME Minister John Howard yesterday demanded "total respect" from French authorities for all 45,000 Australian war dead in their country. The Prime Minister wheeled the Government into action and expressed his personal concern at French proposals to bulldoze Diggers' graves for an airport at the Somme. The Government launched its own bid to get 10,000 protest letters from shocked Daily Telegraph readers to the Transport Ministry and the Ministry of Veterans Affairs in Paris. The Government's actions followed a snub from the French Embassy in Canberra which on Thursday...