Swinburne campus closure hits staff, students Victorian TAFE funding cuts have caused Swinburne University of Technology to shut its Lilydale campus. More than 1000 TAFE students will be affected by the closure, which will also result in 240 staff members losing their jobs.  Courses in hospitality, leisure, recreation and tourism will no longer be offered, and classes in low demand will also be dumped from July 1 next year.  Vice-chancellor Linda Kristjanson said the university is confronting a reduction in the number of viable TAFE courses as well as a decline in demands for higher education at Lilydale which has led the university to cease offering TAFE and higher education courses … [Read more...]

The cane toad terminator Sydney University scientist, Professor Rick Shine, has found a powerful weapon to eradicate cane toads by using their own toxin against them.  Together with a small team and assistance from the Australian Research Council, Shine has cracked a  20 million-year-old biochemical code essential to the cane toad’s breeding cycle: We discovered that cane toad tadpoles are cannibals.  If a female cane toad comes and lays her eggs in the pond that you’re in, and you’re a cane toad tadpole, this is really bad news. You’re about to have 30,000 competitors, [and] you’re much less likely to survive. So the tadpoles detect those eggs have been laid, and they … [Read more...]