Veronika Wild

  Image by ShakeOut.org   Did you know that the 20 th of October was also International Shake Out Day ? No, it’s not a new dance move or time to shake out your doona. It’s a huge earthquake drill organised by the US Geological Survey and its Fire and Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). We didn’t hear about this in Australia – most likely we were too busy dealing with floods, but more than 45 million people in 95 countries took part. No doubt people in earthquake -prone regions such as Japan, Turkey and New Zealand are well aware of the importance of this, but others like us think this is a low -risk event that won’t happen -until it does, just like yesterday’s hurricane in France or the earthquake that rocked Christchurch in 2011. Australia is certainly not immune to earthquakes – in fact it has more than other mid -plate locations such as the inland USA, but apart from the one in Newcastle in 1989 which killed 13 people and damaged 35,000 homes, they have for the m...

  -Image by Minke Wink from Pixabay Oops almost missed it. Did you know it was International Sloth Day today or yesterday depending on which side of the Dateline you are on? Slothness is not Laziness Sloths are endearing, slow moving creatures of the rainforests of Central and South America. They are not lazy as has been reported. They just move very slowly and are able to slow their metabolism right down. Until recently this has been an excellent survival strategy. They move so slowly that creatures which prey on them don’t know they are there. This has served them well for the last 35 million years or so. Their other trick to evade predators is that they attract green algae which afford them camouflage among the leaves. Though some species have evolved to be good swimmers, most rarely come down from the trees and spend most of their time hanging upside down from branches even when they give birth. Normally they are nocturnal and subsist on leaves, fruit and insects wi...