Free Republic

Enlarge ImageGreen gold. A complex geological process produced this sample of nickel sulfide. Credit: Marco Fiorentini, Science Those spare nickels in your pocket might not be there without the help of ancient volcanoes that blasted sulfur dioxide into the sky billions of years ago. The discovery solves a mystery that has dogged researchers for decades, says geochemist Edward Ripley of Indiana University, Bloomington, who was not affiliated with the study. The nickel in ore deposits is actually nickel sulfide, a compound that is rich in sulfur. The sulfur is "critically important," says geochemist Douglas Rumble of the Carnegie Institution...

Its Tuesday in Australia where Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull survived a vote of confidence as Liberal Party caucus met just 24 hours after Turnbull backed down on part of an energy policy he announced last week. Turnbull abandoned a plan setting targets for carbon emissions opposed by many caucus members. The Liberal Party has also been reeling from defeats in recent by-elections for lower house seats in Parliament. Mr. Turnbull was able to survive a challenge from Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton winning 48-35 in the caucus meeting. A win for Turnbull but a narrow one in the context of...

Facing a serious threat to his leadership of the Liberal Party in Australia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has scrapped his plans to set emissions targets in his signature energy policy.  The emissions targets have generated large-scale opposition in his party and rather than test his strength in a parliamentary vote, Turnbull has dropped the policy altogether. BBC: Down in the polls and desperate to hold on to his position, Malcolm Turnbull knows a leadership challenge could be near. After all, it's only three years since he launched his own "spill" to oust former prime minister Tony Abbott. Once a leader looks...

Here's what you need to know: * The PM has abandoned the emissions reduction target section of his National Energy Guarantee * Cabinet ministers have openly admitted this morning they were facing an outbreak of disunity within the party over energy * It's been suggested the Coalition's Longman by-election loss sparked a push for Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to challenge Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's leadership * The PM says Mr Dutton has given him "his absolute support" and Cabinet ministers maintain Mr Turnbull has the confidence of the party

On 18 July, 2018, on the Sunshine Coast of Eastern Australia, in the town of Mudjimba, police raided a house and found some 3D printed plastic guns, some printed false identification, and a small amount of drugs. From news.com.au: "They are all polymer and all they needed was a pin and a spring-type assembly pushed into it to make it work. For all intents and purposes they would look like a gun." Police allege that three 3D-printed handguns, along with weapon parts, a knuckle duster, false licences and drugs, were found at a house at Mudjimba on Wednesday. The...

UNSW scientists have shown -- for the first time -- that a series of high-profile burial sites in the Pacific, Mediterranean and northern Scotland were likely related to catastrophic tsunamis... Honorary Professor James Goff from the PANGEA Research Centre at UNSW Sydney, who co-authored the paper, says the research provides new insights into past human-environment interactions and a new perspective on past catastrophic events... The researchers looked at coastal mass burial sites in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu as well as in Orkney and Shetland. The mass graves cover a long timeframe of human history -- they are from about...

Child sexual abuse revealed in confession would have to be reported to police and could be used as evidence if the Coalition wins Victoria's state election, the Opposition's most senior Catholic MP has announced. The Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse last year recommended that states introduce laws to make it a criminal offence to fail to disclose abuse revealed in the confessional. The Andrews Government has not ruled it out, but said it wanted to first examine a uniform national approach. Nationals Leader Peter Walsh told the ABC a Coalition Victorian government would change the law...

Four homemade submachine guns found during a drug raid in Waterloo, Australia. Imager from twitter.com/7newssydney: When extreme restrictions are placed on the acquisition of legal firearms, one of the easiest repeaters to make at home or in small workshops is the submachine gun. The four homemade submachine guns shown above were discovered with a number of other firearms, drugs, and 2.75 million Australian dollars, about two million in U.S. dollars. From facebook.com/nswpoliceforce: Acting on information received, Strike Force Raptor, assisted by the Drug and Firearms Squad, executed a search warrant a storage facility at Waterloo in the early hours...

Christian philosopher Cornel West has hit out at Donald Trump in a Q&A panel that focused on freedom of speech and the "right to offend", labelling the US President a "gangster". The panel, which also included Liberal senator Eric Abetz, WA Labor MP Anne Aly, free speech advocate Lindsay Shepherd and "people's panellist" Jeremy Bell, was asked whether Australia was in danger of being "infected" after describing Mr Trump as a symptom rather than the cause of the current situation in the US. Dr West said America was experiencing a decline and that wealth inequality was increasing, and warned the...

The newly-reported specimen was obtained from an amber deposit in the Angbamo area in Myanmar’s Kachin province.The fossil is a 1.6-inch (4.75 cm) long postcranial skeleton made up of 97 vertebrae; the snake’s head is missing. It dates from the Late Cretaceous epoch, approximately 99 million years ago.“This snake, named Xiaophis myanmarensis, is linked to ancient snakes from Argentina, Africa, India and Australia,” said University of Alberta’s Professor Michael Caldwell.“It is an important — and until now, missing — component of understanding snake evolution from southern continents, that is Gondwana, in the mid-Mesozoic.” “At 99 million years old, it dates...

Police in Melbourne have been slammed for making no arrests after residents of the city’s north-west suburbs were terrorised by gangs of African youths who bragged “police can’t touch us” and branded frightened families “racist”. Despite its sending dozens of armed officers in riot gear to Taylors Hill as more than 100 teenagers gathered “for war”, and telling residents to “stay inside and lock their doors” as rival gangs ran amok, police claimed there had been “no threat to community safety”. According to The Age, there was a heavy police presence at the scene for several hours, including cavalry officers...

Today is the first anniversary of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia that began when left-wing protestors attacked a white nationalist rally. In the end, a white nationalist ran his car into a group of leftists killing one and injuring others. That man faces criminal charges from the State of Virginia and federal hate crimes charges that could include the death penalty... The leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, Gerard Batten, has called out the chief of London's Metropolitan Police for launching a hate crimes investigation of former British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson..... The Associated Press reported Saturday that 29-year...

An Australian teacher and fossil enthusiast stumbled upon the finding of a lifetime when he uncovered a set of fossilized 3-inch teeth from an extinct shark, known as the great jagged narrow-toothed shark or Carcharocles angustidens. Phillip Mullaly said that he couldn't believe what he saw, as he walked along Jan Juc, a beach town and well-known fossil site along Victoria’s Surf Coast in Australia. “I was walking along the beach looking for fossils, turned and saw this shining glint in a boulder and saw a quarter of the tooth exposed," Mullaly said in a statement. "I was immediately excited,...

What happened to famed US pilot Amelia Earhart? A startling theory suggests Australian soldiers stumbled on the answer decades ago. In the autumn of 1945, a troop of young Australian soldiers was trudging through the muddy rainforests of New Britain, an island in the east of what is now Papua New Guinea. In that part of the world autumn is much like winter, spring and summer — it rains a lot and it’s hot and humid. The Australians of D Company, 11th Battalion, were doing reconnaissance in the mountains not far from the town of Rabaul on April 17. They...

An investigation by Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe concluded this week that high-profile astrophysicist and atheist Lawrence Krauss violated the university’s sexual harassment policy by grabbing a woman’s breast at a conference in Australia in late 2016. (Krauss is a prominent member of the skeptics movement, which disputes the existence of a god or supernatural powers.)

Queensland, Australia, (CNA/EWTN News).- Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, Australia encouraged members of parliament to look beyond the “worn-out ideologies and tricky language” behind a bill to legalization abortion in Queensland. “When you talk about abortion you’re talking about two lives - the mother and the child - and both lives matter,” Archbishop Coleridge said, in comments reported by diocesan newspaper The Catholic Leader. “To speak of a woman’s rights is important, but what of the rights of unborn children, or do they have no real human status?” The archbishop responded to a Queensland proposal that would legalize abortion on...

A study has revealed people's like or dislike for Vegemite is in their DNA. Whether people love or hate the yeast-based spread is reportedly down to their parents, according to a new study by DNAFit - one of the UK's top genetic research centres - who have discovered your genes determine whether or not you enjoy the opinion-dividing snack. DNAFit asked 260 adults to taste a 2g serving of Marmite, the British equivalent of Vegemite, before filling out a questionnaire noting their reaction to it, and after analysing the DNA of each participant, researchers discovered the make up of 15...

A government relations manager lost her job in June after she criticized her state lawmakers for not expanding abortion access. Angela Williamson, 39, used to work as the public policy and government relations manager for Cricket Australia, the governing body for the sport in Australia. But she was fired in June after her employer said her abortion advocacy and criticism of the government on Twitter interfered with her duties as its government relations manager, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. An abortion activist, Williamson recently criticized the Tasmanian government as “irresponsible, gutless & reckless” on Twitter because lawmakers rejected a proposal...

Summary: "If there was a Social Justice Warrior Olympic Games, Australia could probably compete at a very high level, thanks to the presence of a mindless hoard of snowflakes who can't handle a civil or rational debate and have lost the ability for critical reasoned thinking."

Popular U.S. comedian and host of the top rating 'The Daily Show' Trevor Noah has come under fire for a comedy routine where he called Aboriginal women unattractive. Footage of his stand-up show, from 2013, emerged ahead of his Australian tour, which starts in Melbourne next month. 'All women of every race can be beautiful,' Noah tells an audience in the footage which emerged online overnight. 'And I know some of you are sitting there now going, 'Oh Trevor, yeah, but I've never seen a beautiful Aborigine', he jokes.