The Latest Breaking News from Flinders University

Scientists say new 3D mapping of West Arnhem flood plain could be a 'game changer'

Scientists say they've discovered huge sandstone escarpments buried under a Northern Territory flood plain, using a technique they say could be a "game changer" for archaeology.

ABC News · May 4, 2023

Remarkable new tech has revealed the ancient landscape of Arnhem Land that greeted Australia’s First Peoples

Many visitors to Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory are struck by the magnificent cliffs, stunning bird life and extraordinary rock art. Some may know this landscape includes the earliest evidence of human occupation in what is now Australia, at Madjedbebe, where signs of habitation have been dated to 65,000…

The Conversation · May 4, 2023

Palaeontologists uncover mystery of marsupial lion bones in Wellington Caves excavation

Researchers delving into Wellington Caves in western NSW say bone fracture patterns indicate that many of them had fallen through a hole in the cave ceiling and remained buried there, waiting to be discovered.

ABC News · May 4, 2023

Our mysterious night parrot has terrible vision – but we discovered it might be able to hear like an owl

One bird bucks the stereotype of Australia’s raucous parrots – the mysterious and critically endangered night parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis). Rather than flying around in noisy flocks or eating fruit in trees, the night parrot roosts all day in a clump of sharp spinifex grass. When darkness falls, it scurries about…

The Conversation · Mar 21, 2023

Giant eagle Dynatoaetus gaffae was Australia's biggest raptor, researchers say

Flinders University palaeontologists say the "humungous" raptor had a wingspan of three metres, making it about twice the size of today's wedge-tail eagle.

ABC News · Mar 16, 2023

Australia's extinct giant eagle was big enough to snatch koalas from trees

The year is 1959. Speleologists descend a 17-metre shaft to explore the depths of Mairs Cave in the southern Flinders Ranges. Some 55 metres into the main chamber, they find fossils scattered throughout a boulder pile. Among these fossils are a claw and part of a wing bone that appear…

The Conversation · Mar 16, 2023

Flinders University scientists use biology from insects to build robots with a brain

Scientists at an Adelaide university reverse-engineer the biology of insects to create a robot that can understand vision it is capturing from a camera.

ABC News · Mar 12, 2023

Mysterious creature in ancient Norse manuscript may have been record of strange whale behaviour

What texts described ‘is simply whale behaviour we had not observed but ancient people had’

The Independent UK · Mar 1, 2023

Move over, honeybees: Aussie native bees steal the show with unique social and foraging behaviours

Australian native bees have evolved complex social structures and foraging behaviours that help biologists answer longstanding questions, such as the origins of social behaviour, and the drivers of increased biodiversity.

The Conversation · Mar 1, 2023

Ancient texts shed new light on mysterious whale behaviour that ‘captured imagination’

An unusual feeding technique only recently observed by scientists was documented nearly 2,000 years ago, a study suggests

The Guardian - AU · Feb 28, 2023