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Science Goes Viral
How fungi and theatrical performance can tackle the problem of PFAS contamination
When scientists first discovered the chemistry of per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, PFAS, in the 1930s, they didn’t know we’d be struggling to remove them from the environment and human bodies nearly a century later.
Political Comment
State of destruction
David Lowe - 5
Tasmanians go to the polls next weekend, in an early election brought on by Liberal Premier Jeremy Rockcliff, whose party has fractured during its ten years in office but is currently warning voters not to elect a Labor minority government, which he's been calling a 'Coalition of Chaos'.
Byron Echo
Editorial – Giving it a tick and flick
The rezoning of high-value agricultural land for future housing – some on floodplains – is likely to be rushed through at Thursday’s Council meeting with last-minute tinkering – see page 1.
Political Comment
The case for natural parks
Between One Mile Beach and Big Rocky Island, just south of Nelson Bay, lies the stunning Samurai Beach, a part of the Tomaree National Park.
Science Goes Viral
COVID-19 pandemic has cut life expectancy globally
COVID-19 reversed earlier trends toward longer life expectancies. During the pandemic, life expectancies globally dropped by 1.6 years according to a new study published in the Lancet medical journal.
Byron Echo
Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: Reach Beyond
Mandy Nolan - 0
One in 12 people over 65 are living with dementia. Dementia is not a specific disease, but is a general term for the impaired ability to remember, think, or make decisions that interfere with doing everyday activities. It’s actually no longer called dementia, but Major Neurocognitive Disorder (MND).
Political Comment
What’s so controversial about vehicle efficiency?
David Lowe - 11
Thanks to years of political inaction, Australia is one of the few countries in the world not to have a New Vehicle Efficiency Standard. The European Union, New Zealand and China have one. Even the United States has a standard, which means new cars in Australia use 20 per cent more fuel and create 20 per cent more pollution than their American counterparts. With the Albanese Government about to introduce legislation to correct this situation, the Coalition is busily dusting off the 'war on utes/the weekend' rhetoric.
Byron Echo
Editorial – Emergency volunteerism
Two years ago this week, it’s fair to say the entire north coast was in shock and struggling to comprehend the extent of what just happened.
Articles & Columns
Jem Bendell to speak about living in the midst of climate collapse
The brutal reality is that we’re facing global biospheric collapse, with little or no prospect of reprieve. This is the existential consequence of a system hellbent on greed, overshoot and suicidal levels of greenhouse gas emissions.
Byron Echo
Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox – Free Assange: It’s Up to Us
'If war can be started by lies, then maybe peace can be started by truth.' ~ Julian Assange. It’s a simple profound statement said by someone who knows that as a journalist the truth doesn’t set you free. It gets you locked up in solitary confinement in Belmarsh Prison. The truth can cost your life. Assange knows that too well.
Science Goes Viral
CSIRO voyage gets up close to Antarctica’s climate challenges
The rapidly changing nature of Antarctica has been witnessed first-hand by Australia’s leading research ship on a record-breaking investigation of the icy continent.
Political Comment
Spies like them
David Lowe - 50
The Dunkley by-election is done and dusted, with Advance's fear campaign failing to fire, and Labor's primary vote actually increasing. The swing to the Liberals on preferences came from right wing voters not having anyone crazier to vote for this time, with UAP and One Nation out of the race. Meanwhile another question continues to be raised; which Australian politician was secretly working for a hostile foreign power, and when?
Byron Echo
Editorial – Grab the popcorn and bean bags
Both Mayor Michael Lyon and fellow councillor, Mark Swivel, offered an apology to the followers of the Save Wallum Facebook page last week.
Political Comment
Hijacking feminism, harming women
Surely the success of feminist activism is one of the most positive stories of our times. Just think of the limited options of our mothers, compared to young women today.
Byron Echo
Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: We Need to Talk about Birth
Birth is magical. It is powerful and wild and beautiful and scary and miraculous. Until it’s not. When things go to shit, it happens fast and when your baby dies, your life is changed forever, but not in the way you were expecting.
Political Comment
Doing it for Dunkley
David Lowe - 28
The eyes of Australia turn this week to the electorate of Dunkley in Victoria, historically the site of the Frankston riot and just down the road from where Harold Holt disappeared. Now it's the location of an all important federal by-election.
Byron Echo
Editorial – Prosecuting publishers
WikiLeaks founder and Australian citizen, Julian Assange, will soon face possibly his final court hearing in the UK High Court of Justice over whether he should be extradited to the US to face spying charges.
Byron Echo
Breaking bad promises
It’s so hard to introduce urgently-needed reforms in today’s fevered media climate that governments tiptoe around problems and hardly dare to act.
Articles & Columns
Wallum: councillors failed to listen to the community
Thank you, Councillors Lyon, Pugh and Coorey for explaining what went wrong with the Wallum development application (DA) process on Facebook. The community f*cked up because they failed to object?
Byron Echo
Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: Growing Mould Together
I love the smell of mould in the morning. Actually I don’t. It drives me nuts. Some days I’m obsessed that it’s all I can smell. It’s the smell of living in the Northern Rivers. The humidity and rain of our summer has created the perfect conditions for mould. Mould on shoes. Mould in my bread bin. Mould in the dark of my cupboards. Mould in the cracks in my bathroom. Mould behind the sink. Mould in me
Political Comment
Last chance for Julian Assange?
David Lowe - 2
This week the Australian journalist Julian Assange will find out whether he will be extradited from the United Kingdom to the USA, where he faces 175 years in solitary confinement for his role in revealing the truth about war crimes and the inner workings of empire, or conducting 'espionage', as America calls it.
Editorial
Once known as the rainbow region
The most poignant moment from Thursday’s boisterous and unruly Council meeting was listening to elderly Mullum resident, Peter McGill.
National News
Have we already exceeded 1.5°C of warming?
A study published in Nature Climate Change has suggested we have seriously underestimated global warming, with the Earth already well over 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
Political Comment
Frogs, fertility, toads and drugs
My mother inculcated me with a love of science, which somehow survived a run of sadistic chemistry teachers who staggeringly discouraged creative experiments in the lab. Like making LSD, and smallish explosive devices.
Letters
Managing free speech and truth as defined by many different voices
Will Liley - 6
I hesitated to add my voice to the chorus about the Gaza conflict, especially to the controversy over The Echo’s publication of a half-page advertisement by the Australian Jewish Association. But to be clear: well done The Echo for doing so...
Byron Echo
Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: My Motherhood Statement
I don’t mind having my ideas shredded. But criticism rarely stays there. It becomes personal. I usually don’t engage. I just let people fight it out with themselves. But I came across this one comment, on a thoughtful post I’d written, that enraged me. The writer accused me of making ‘motherhood statements’. That statement was like acid. I couldn’t let it go.
Science Goes Viral
Most migratory fish on the brink says global analysis
At least 2 in 5 migratory animal species prioritised for conservation are in decline and almost all significant migratory fish are threatened with extinction, says a new report.
Byron Echo
Look Ahead: co-designing a brighter future
At Living Lab Northern Rivers we are looking at a co-design process where we’ll connect the best technical experts with the local community.
Political Comment
Raging against renewables in Canberra
David Lowe - 31
Parliament returned to Canberra last week to be greeted by the Rally Against Reckless Renewables on the front lawn; a protest against net zero policies, wind turbines, the United Nations, COVID vaccinations, China and chemtrails, amongst other things.
Editorial
Editorial – Untethering from developers
There’s no doubt that social and affordable housing in NSW is in need of life support. Thankfully, the NSW government put out a media release last week to say the entire system will be rebuilt. But how?
Political Comment
Stereotypes and labels are so 2023
As the first ever female Young Liberal State President, I drew gasps from the Liberal Women’s Council by telling them I was a ‘feminist’.
Articles & Columns
It was once clear water, running over clean sand and pebbles…
There is serious pesticide pollution in the Richmond River estuary. But the problems of the Richmond River start well upstream. And they started long ago...
Byron Echo
Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: To Hall and Back
Mandy Nolan - 4
The February flood sent 2.7 metres of water through Corndale Hall. This water of biblical proportions reached to the roof. It wrenched the modest little building from its footings and set it free. It collided with a power pole and was broken into pieces. Such a violent and unexpected death for such a magical place.
Science Goes Viral
What parents just don’t get about video games
New research reveals a generational disconnect over online games, with 94% of young people expressing positive feelings about the activity, yet only 15% of parents identifying benefits for their child.
Political Comment
The price of political influence
David Lowe - 7
Despite promises of reform when the Albanese Government was elected, Australia’s political donation laws remain unchanged, which is why it took until last week to find out who was donating in the last financial year, via the AEC's Transparency Register.
Byron Echo
Is our drinking water supply threatened by Dunoon Dam?
Most people don’t know that the proposal for Dunoon Dam has never been part of Rous County Council’s 40-year, adopted, strategic plan to increase water supply, resilience and security, known as Future Water Plan 2060.
Byron Echo
Editorial – Young people listen up!
Hello, impressionable young person. ICYMI, the world as we inhabit it isn’t in great shape.
Byron Echo
Suffolk Park Tennis travels to grass courts
A group of eight adult Suffolk Park tennis players headed south of the border for a grass court tennis tournament in the small town of Tatura - north of Melbourne.
Byron Echo
Film fundraiser for Save Wallum
Our Generation Media together with the Brunswick Picture House will be hosting a special fundraiser screening of the award-winning documentary, Luku Ngärra: The Law of the Land in support of Save Wallum.
Byron Echo
Bangalow and Byron Bay third-grader cricketers qualify for 2023/24 grand final
Bangalow Cricket Club has played its way into the third-grade grand final after beating minor premiers Lennox Head in the semi-final played at Megan Crescent Oval last Saturday.
Byron Echo
Karate students win medals on the Gold Coast
Students of the Byron Bay JWK Karate dojo competed at the first AMAC Gold Coast tournament of the year on March 10 with medal-winning success.