Sydney - Police on Monday lowered the death toll from last month's forest fires north of Melbourne from 210 to 173.

The February 7 blazes were Australia's biggest natural disaster, destroying over 1,800 houses, leaving 7,500 people homeless and blackening 450,000 hectares of forest.

Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe said the tally had always been provisional and that the downward revision was a "good news story" because fewer people were now believed to have died.

Sydney, March 29 : An electricity company in Australia is planning to install a new electronic control box in homes, which would allow it to switch off individual appliances, such as air conditioners and plasma TVs, to ration power use.

According to a report carried out in news. com. au, the new device, made by Australian firm ETSA, would go in the meter box and remotely read meters, turn power on and off, report outages - and, if the customer agreed, ration power to an individual home.

Sydney - Sydney Harbour lost a little of its twinkle Saturday as Earth Hour enthusiasts snuffed out lights to show their concern about the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change.

Earth Hour is a grassroots, Australian initiative now into its third year that asks people around the world to switch off lights for 60 minutes to pressure governments to act on slowing global warming.

The Opera House and Sydney's iconic Harbour Bridge clicked off at 8:30pm (0930 GMT), signalling the official start of Earth Hour.

Sydney, March 27 : Analyzing the venom of a platypus may help scientists design new pain killers in the future.

According to a report by ABC News, molecular biologist Camilla Whittington has been granted a Fulbright Scholarship to analyse the components of the venom, which can cause severe pain.

"Once we know which one causes pain, then people can start to work to understand how it does that and then develop novel pain killers," said Whittington, a PhD student at the University of Sydney.

Venom from snakes have already yielded treatments for heart and blood problems, but very little is known about venom from mammals.

The platypus is one of only five mammals that produce venom.

Sydney  - It's easy to poke fun at Earth Hour, an Australian initiative now into its third year in which people around the world are asked to switch off their lights for 60 minutes to show their concern about global warming.

The poster boy for this year's switch-off is British business tycoon and space tourism pioneer Richard Branson, a powerboat racer and sponsor of a fuel-hungry Formula One team and an individual with a giant-sized environmental footprint.

Sydney  - Australian Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon was fighting to keep his job Thursday after admitting he failed to declare trips to China paid for by family friend and prominent local businesswoman Helen Liu.

"This was a mistake, and for that, I apologize," the embattled minister said after being carpeted in Canberra by Education Minister Julia Gillard, who is standing in for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd while he tours abroad.