Perth, Apr. 16 : A University of Western Australia bio-mechanist has said Proteas off spinner Johan Botha's action is similar to Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan.

According to Bruce Elliot, Botha has an action that looks "not quite as different as Murali but heading in that direction."

Sydney - An Australian previously jailed in Germany and Austria for expounding his view that there were no mass killings of Jews in World War II was convicted Thursday of contempt of court in Melbourne for continuing to publish anti-Semitic material on his website.

German-born former high school teacher Frederick Toben, 65, was the subject of a civil action by Jeremy Jones, a former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, for defying a court order to stop publishing claims that the Holocaust never happened.

Melbourne, Apr 16 : The modern women with successful careers and high stress levels to match may be damaging their chances of having children, a study has found.

According to the research, which involved international comparison of women in 37 different populations and cultures, career women are more likely to have androgynous figures which indicate higher levels of androgens, as opposed to oestrogen, which is vital for conceiving successfully.

While women with more shapely figures have higher levels of oestrogen, reports The Daily Telegraph.

Australia, Apr 16 : Analysing a batch of bacteria brought back by the shuttle Discovery crew last month, scientists could soon develop a vaccine against food poisoning from salmonella bacteria.

The researchers conducted a series of experiments aboard the International Space Station, and are now working to develop compounds for a salmonella vaccine

Sydney  - Three people are dead, two missing and dozen injured after an explosion on board an asylum-seekers' boat that was being towed to Christmas Island by Australian authorities Thursday.

The boat, which arrived off Australia's west coast from Indonesia, was carrying 49 people believed to be from Afghanistan.

Sydney  - Most of us know what stock we were bred from and can even name mums and dads going back generations.

An Australian animal shelter is now offering a genealogy service for dogs.

Lort Smith Animal Hospital in Melbourne is the first provider of DNA testing for dogs outside the United States.

There's been a scramble for the appropriately named BITSA test, which costs around 100 US dollars, is a mail-order service, and can establish breeding going back three generations. All the Lort Smith pet detectives need is a saliva sample.