Australia

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Family Nabs Cheery Record: Most Christmas Lights

Aussies strung up 31 miles of wire to reclaim Guinness World Record

(Newser) - An Australian family has reclaimed their Guinness World Record by stringing up more than half a million Christmas lights around their suburban home. A Guinness World Records rep confirmed today that the Richards family of Canberra set the record for Christmas lights on a residential property with 502,165 twinkling...

Katy Perry's Album Is a Biohazard: Australia

No, not because of the music, sadly

(Newser) - Australia just declared Katy Perry's new album, Prism, a potential biohazard, news.com.au reports. And if you're thinking, "Yep, that's how I'd describe her music, too," well, sorry. It was actually some seed packets, not songs, that got the album designated as such....

New Fossil Find: 'Platypus-Zilla'

3-foot-long creature lived between 5M and 15M years ago: scientists

(Newser) - As if platypuses weren't weird enough already, scientists in Australia have come upon a fossilized tooth of what they're calling "platypus-zilla"—a creature some three feet long, or at least twice the size of your everyday platypus. "It probably would have looked like a platypus...

Employee Hurt During Sex Won't Get Workers' Comp

Case reached Australia's highest court

(Newser) - In the just-so-you-know department: Getting injured while having sex on a business trip does not qualify you for workers' comp benefits. Or at least that's how things roll in Australia, where a crazy case managed to reach the nation's highest court, reports Bloomberg . It started in 2007, when...

'Lost Rainforest' Yields Bizarre Species

And remote Australian rainforest could hold even more

(Newser) - A rainforest sits atop Australia's Cape Melville mountain range, surrounded by granite boulders—some as big as cars or houses—piled in walls as tall as 300 feet, making it quite challenging to explore. Researchers from Queensland's James Cook University had to travel there via helicopter; once in,...

Couple &#39;Win&#39; Vacation, End Up as Drug Mules
Couple 'Win' Vacation,
End Up as Drug Mules
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Oct 27, 2013 6:27 AM CDT

Couple 'Win' Vacation, End Up as Drug Mules

Canadian arrested in connection with bogus trip contest

(Newser) - If an all-expenses paid trip to Canada, including accommodations and new luggage, sounds too good to be true, well, hindsight is 20/20. An Australian couple thought they'd won a dream vacation when they were revealed as the "lucky" winners of a contest they'd entered online. It turns...

Australia Is Banning Tanning Beds

Country hopes to lower high skin cancer rates

(Newser) - Aussies may not be artificially bronzed for much longer, with the majority of Australian states introducing bans on tanning beds. Australia has some of world's highest rates of skin cancer, which accounts for 80% of all cancers diagnosed in the country, the Wall Street Journal reports. A recent study...

Scientists Find Gold in Eucalyptus Trees

Discovery could be used by miners searching for the metal

(Newser) - Money may not grow on trees, but gold might grow in them. Such is the fascinating conclusion of a group of Australian researchers who studied eucalyptus trees in two groves in the country's west and south. The specific locations were chosen because the scientists knew there was gold in...

Sydney Battles Worst Fires in 'Living Memory'

1 killed in New South Wales blazes

(Newser) - The Australian state of New South Wales is grappling with wildfires that have decimated homes and killed a man. Nearly 100 fires have taken hold, with 34 still out of control yesterday, firefighters said, per CNN . Hundreds of homes may have been destroyed already, they noted. Some 200 square miles...

Lost Stooges Movie Surfaces—in Guy's Shed

Thought to have been destroyed in 1967 fire

(Newser) - The Three Stooges are doing an encore, thanks to the reappearance of a long-lost film short. While cleaning out his Sydney-area shed, an Australian film collector, 78, found the negative of Hello, Pop! A US preservation company restored the 17-minute film, and it's screening in New York tonight, the...

Dozens of Asylum Seekers Drown off Indonesia

And many more still missing after boat headed to Australia sinks

(Newser) - At least 31 people have drowned after a boat carrying asylum seekers from Indonesia to Australia capsized on Friday, and dozens more are still missing, the ABC reports. The asylum seekers were from Lebanon, Pakistan, and Iraq, and were headed to Australia's Christmas Island when the boat was hit...

Protester Gatecrashes Aussie PM's Victory Party

He fashioned an entry wristband out of a Starburst wrapper

(Newser) - Tony Abbott was voted in as the new prime minister of Australia yesterday, but his big moment was upstaged by a protester who gatecrashed his party and jumped up on stage with the new PM and his family as they posed for photos, Sky News reports. The uninvited guest was...

Rhodes Scholar Wins Australia Election

Conservative Tony Abbott ousts Labor Party's Kevin Rudd as prime minister

(Newser) - Australia's conservative opposition swept to power today, ending six years of Labor Party rule and winning over a disenchanted public by promising to end a hated tax on carbon emissions, boost a flagging economy, and bring about political stability after years of Labor infighting. "I know that Labor...

Crocodile Traps Man on Island for 2 Weeks
Crocodile Traps Man on Island for 2 Weeks
in case you missed it
Sep 7, 2013 7:19 AM CDT

Crocodile Traps Man on Island for 2 Weeks

New Zealander says the 20-foot creature 'stalked' him

(Newser) - Talk about a vacation gone wrong: A New Zealand kayaker spent two weeks trapped on an island about 2.5 miles off Western Australia's far northern coast because he feared a 20-foot crocodile would eat him. The man, named only as Ryan, told his eventual rescuer that he was...

Ovary-less Woman's Pregnancy Hailed as a First

Frozen ovarian tissue grafted onto abdominal wall, produced 2 eggs

(Newser) - A world-first procedure offers new hope to women seeking to get pregnant after losing their ovaries. For the first time, ovarian tissue transplanted to a woman's abdomen has led to a successful pregnancy. A woman in Australia identified as Vali had both her ovaries removed while being treated for...

To Combat Big Cats, Aussies Deploy Bad Dogs

Australia's Northern Territory overrun with enormous felines

(Newser) - This just in: Australia's been taken over by enormous cats. Well, sort of: The country's Northern Territory is apparently overrun with feral cats that weigh up to 45 lbs; to smaller creatures, they're basically killing machines, Vice reports, alongside a pretty stunning image . It's posing a...

Surf's Down: Billabong Is Now Worth $0

Longtime Australia company has its worst year ever

(Newser) - Bust out the "wipeout" surfing analogies for Billabong: The Aussie surfwear brand had been valued at $3.5 billion as recently as 2007. Today? It is literally worthless. The 40-year-old company reported a net loss of $772 million for the fiscal year and wrote down the value of the...

Assange Sings, Dances, Dons Mullet in New Rap Video

Wikileaks founder spoofs '80s rock song in surreal cameo

(Newser) - Is it possible Julian Assange is suffering from a touch of cabin fever after being cooped up in an Ecuadorian embassy for over a year? The Wikileaks founder, who is running for a Senate seat in Australia's upcoming election, has appeared in a satirical rap video by online comedy...

Body Found After Croc Snatches Swimmer

Cops shoot 15-foot croc in Australian river

(Newser) - Police in Australia have recovered the body of a swimmer snatched from a river by a crocodile in front of horrified friends. The body of the 26-year-old was found near where he was last seen in the Mary River yesterday, and police shot a 16-foot saltwater croc believed to have...

3 Teens Charged in Oklahoma 'Boredom' Killing

2 face first-degree murder charges

(Newser) - Murder charges were filed today in the death of an Australian college student in Oklahoma, but police haven't changed the chilling motive: They say three teens decided to shoot 23-year-old Christopher Lane as he jogged along a road in Duncan because they were bored. Prosecutors charged 15-year-old James Francis...

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