Vly News - Professional news Platform

With his love of science fiction and photography, it seems that Ian Inverarity has always been destined to become involved with astrophotography. Key points: A mechanical engineer from Adelaide has won this year’s David Malin astrophotography award Amateur astrophotography is booming as a hobby as technology becomes more advanced and affordable This year’s competition entered the smartphone category for the first time Mechanical engineers have been capturing the wonders of the night sky for several years now, traveling to regional South Australia in search of the perfect shot. He said the addictive pursuit took him to Gawler, north of Adelaide, about once a month. And many nights and hours in darkness have paid off, with his photo of an old gum tree at Gawler shrouded in mist before the Milky Way picks up this year’s David Malin astrophotography award in New South Wales. “It’s relatively unusual. Out of the seven years or so I’ve been going there, I’ve only encountered fog at night,” I

Forced to spend their days slamming their tiny skulls into the sides of trees in search of buried pieces, woodpeckers should have developed a trick or two to avoid brain damage. So you would think. A new study of woodpecker biomechanics has cast doubt on speculation that the chisel-headed little bird avoided turning its brains to mush through a fancy shock-absorbing adaptation. On the other hand, his brain may be too small to care. “By analyzing high-speed video of three woodpecker species, we found that woodpeckers do not absorb the shock of impact with trees,” said Sam Van Wassenbergh, a biomechanics researcher from the University of Antwerp in Belgium. Anyone who’s ever seen, or even just heard of, machine gun fire from the woodpecker’s signature beat will appreciate the physics involved. Snapping their heads back and forth at an astonishing 20 times per second, members of some species can experience forces of up to 1400 g. Compare that to the paltry 90 to 100 grams that can cause