Sydney, Jan 11 : A small marine creature, found in the murky mysterious depths of the Kermadec Ridge in New Zealand, is causing a stir among scientists.

The amphipod, now kept in ethanol at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research's (NIWAR) collections, is believed to be a species never seen on dry land before.

Niamh Kilgallen of the institute said the amphipod had been collected by NIWAR scientists at the ridge, northeast of New Zealand, in 2002, but initially staff members had not believed it was a new species.

However, late last year staff at work reorganising and registering the 100,000 items held in the institute's collection took another look.

Sydney, Jan 10 : Australian detectives investigating the murder of 25-year-old Ranjodh Singh, an Indian seasonal work contractor in Griffith, have questioned and confiscated the passports of two men, who were allegedly attempting to leave the country.

According to reports, the two were seasonal workers employed by Singh and were detained at the Sydney Airport departure lounge on Monday, as they were about to board a flight to Nepal via Singapore.

The men were taken to Mascot police station and questioned about their relationship with Singh, but were later released after having their passports confiscated pending further investigations by Homicide Squad and Griffith detectives.

Sydney, Jan 10 - Two men were detained at Sydney airport for questioning over the murder of an Indian man whose partially burnt body was found a fortnight ago. They were let off but their passports have been seized, a media report said Sunday.

The two men were apparently employed by Ranjodh Singh, 25, whose partially burnt body was found beside Wilga road, Willbriggie, in southwest New South Wales, Dec 29.

The two men were stopped by the police at the Sydney Airport departure lounge on Monday as they were about to board a flight to Nepal via Singapore. Both were questioned about their relationship to Ranjodh Singh, Sydney Morning Herald reported Sunday.

Sydney, Jan 9 : Leading international security consultant Lloyd Bromfield has warned that Delhi Commonwealth Games is not safe as the city is not adequately prepared for a potential terror attack.

Bromfield, who has worked at the Sydney, Athens and Beijing Olympics Games, and who will work at the London Olympics in 2012, said that he is alarmed by New Delhi''s lack of preparation.

“The worst-case scenario could be a major bombing. It could be a Mumbai-style (attack), where you''ve got a team of Osamas running around with hand grenades and small arms. It could be anything,” The Age quoted Bromfield, as saying.

Sydney, Jan 9 : Cricket Australia (CA) has intensified their campaign to play day-night Test cricket, with preparations on to trial a coloured ball under lights in match conditions.

According to reports, a domestic game next month will be used to assess the feasibility of fundamentally changing the conditions for Test cricket.

CA chief executive James Sutherland has said that if the initial trials are successful, then some Sheffield Shield matches would be played under lights with coloured balls next season.

CA cricket operations manager Geoff Allardice said that they expect the arrangements for the trial match to be completed by the middle of next week.

Sydney, Jan 9 : Noted cricket columnist Peter Roebuck has said that the Australian team and skipper Ricky Ponting will be hard-pressed to recapture the Ashes on the basis of form shown at the SCG against Pakistan.

Roebuck said that the current England squad has the potential to beat any team, while at present Australians must be cast as outsiders.

Sydney, Jan 7 : Parramatta, a suburb in the west of Sydney, is set to hold a weeklong festival, known as Parramasala, in November, and will feature all things Indian.

The Australian Festival of South Asian Arts is part of the NSW Government’s plan to inject 500 million dollars into the state’s weak economy, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

Sydney, Jan 7 - Seaweeds have claimed huge tracts of the coastal shelf of Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and are endangering them, says a new study.

Part of a global effort to record and understand changes in coral reefs, the study has found that more than 40 percent of inshore reefs on the GBR are dominated by seaweeds (macroalgae).

"The GBR is widely regarded as the world's most intact large reef system - and that's the way we aim to keep it," says Dave Bellwood, professor at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University.

Sydney, Jan 7 -The magnetic field at the core of the Milky Way is at least 10 times stronger than the rest of our galaxy, according to a finding that can affect diverse fields from star formation theory to cosmology.

The evidence is significant because it gives astronomers a lower limit on the magnetic field, an important factor in calculating a whole range of astronomical data.

Sydney, Jan 7 - A surgeon in Australia's far north said Thursday that tourist-packed Darwin had the highest rate of broken jaws in the world.

Royal Darwin Hospital surgeon Mahiban Thomas said he received a "rude shock" when he arrived five years ago in the Northern Territory capital.

The hospital treats 350 broken jaws a year, putting the rate at 17 per 10,000 population, "which is well above anywhere else in the world," he said.

The injuries are mostly sustained outside pubs and clubs in the city centre Thursday and Friday nights.

Sydney, Jan 6 : Curiosity to know about other people's lives and self-expression drive millions of people to online networking sites like the Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

Research on social network sites has focused largely on user personality traits, benefits to individuals such as information sharing, issues of privacy and the like.

Sydney, Jan 6 - Scientists have programmed computers to read human expressions and to tell whether one is in pain.

"Each facial expression is made up of many different components - a twitch of the mouth here, a widening of the eyes there - some lasting only a fraction of a second," said Simon Lucey of Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

"Our computer program looks at these components, matches them against a list drawn up by expert psychologists and decides what expression just flitted across a face," said Lucey, a computer scientist.

Sydney, Jan 6 - An anti-whaling protest ship was taking on water after colliding with a security vessel of the Japanese whaling fleet in the Antarctic, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's leader said Wednesday.

Paul Watson said five of the six crew members aboard the high-speed trimaran were rescued and taken aboard an accompanying protest ship, the Bob Barker.

The captain stayed with the $1.5-million Ady Gil in the hope of saving it from sinking.

Sydney, Jan 5 - Here is a bit of shocking revelation for competent female workers. The next time you try negotiating your salary, just remember you may be inviting hostility at the workplace, possibly also a backlash.

"Best practice negotiation strategies which work for men frequently backfire for female employees and can damage their relationships with employers," said Carol Kulik, professor of human resource management at the University of South Australia (USA).

Sydney, Jan 5 - Conservationists led by a scientist of Indian origin have restored large tracts of acid-ravaged coastal wetlands in Australia for the first time.

Mangrove and wetlands are returning, birdlife is flocking to the area and fish abound in

creeks that once ran so acid that nothing could survive in them.

The acid crisis at East Trinity near Cairns in Queensland began in the 1970s, when developers drained and cleared 800 hectares of tidal wetland to grow sugarcane.

Sydney, Jan 4 - Children who start reading late are not disadvantaged, says a new study.

Sebastian Suggate, who completed his doctorate in psychology at Otago University, conducted three studies, which showed no difference between the reading abilities of five and seven year olds by the time they reach their last year at primary school at age 11.

Sydney, Jan 4 : Coastal vegetation can slow down wind waves but it cannot stop a Tsunami, warns a team of international scientists.

The team also warns against planting alien tree species along exposed coastlines, that would only destroy local ecosystems and displace people.

In the wake of the Indian Ocean Tsunami that struck in December 2004, many conservation organisations and some scientists claimed that coastal vegetation could reduce the damage caused by Tsunamis.

Sydney, Jan 4 : The tiny seed-sized brain of the honey bee is such an evolutionary marvel that it can estimate the exact energy expenditure while foraging for pollen.

"To make honey, bees must gather more nectar from flowers than the energy spent collecting it, so in order to forage efficiently they need to know how much energy each foraging trip costs them," said Andrew Barron, study author and senior lecturer at Macquarie University.

Sydney, Jan 4 - A study led by a scientist of Indian-origin has decoded the tricky art of landing by honey bees, a finding that can have huge implications in making better robot planes.

An automatic landing system for an aircraft is expensive and complex. And it is just one of many systems that is required to make a truly robotic aircraft. But a bee can take off, find targets, fly through tunnels, navigate home and land without any of that complexity.

Sydney, Jan 3 : Prime Minister Kevin Rudd welcomed the Pakistani and Australian team for a lunch at the Kirribilli House ahead of the Test match at the Sydney Cricket Ground, and asked jokingly for the birth certificate of Pak teen sensation Mohammad Aamer after his five wicket haul against Australia.

The Prime Minister took the unusual step of welcoming an international side inside his Sydney home for the first time in recent memory.