Edited by Martin Cadwell, Friday 1 August 2025 at 08:53
[ 3.27 minute read at 0.2k words per minute ]
Australian scientists have discovered a new stick insect. It is 40 centimetres long (15 ¾ inches long). I love how some people use the decimal system for a fraction in the imperial system. The article on the Deutsche Welle site gives 15.75 inches as its length. It seems that the article was written by someone who knows how to use a calculator (40 divided by 2.54 = 15.748031).
In case you still don't really know how big these stick insects are: I am 6 foot one (1.85m) and normally proportioned. 40cm is from the inside of my elbow to the end of my little finger.
I spent some time in the Tipperary countryside in Eire. No street lights on the lanes and things that wriggle in the bushes and hedges. It was a magical time that frightened the life out of me. I think that the remoteness from electronic noise allowed my imagination to run unchecked in my head. I simply wasn't used to that kind of silence. A diesel train labouring up a slight incline, a mile away, as it approached the town of Dundrum, grew so loud that I started to be convinced that it was instead on the lane on which I stood. The creature in the hedge that had followed me along the lane was not worried though. The rustling continued unabated. I didn't look to see what it was, because I was too scared to make that discovery. I only felt safe when I stood near a huge dying bonfire in a field another half a mile on (0.5 miles) Realistically, it was probably 0.38 miles. How far is that?
While reading the article about the Australia's heaviest stick insect discovered in the remote high altitudes of Australia, I thought if I got scared of the dark while exploring there, I would want to light a fire. I don't think I would have been found alive or sane, if I picked up a stick insect to use as kindling. When a twig starts wriggling and you are already scared in the dark, you are in deep trouble.
More...
Also on the Deutsche Welle pages there is an article outlining how Australia intends to implement a world-first national youth social media ban. Apparently one poll got 77% support for it.
'Marilyn Campbell, a professor in the School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education at the Queensland University of Technology who writes on cyberbullying' seems to believe that one of the many features of the modern world is how important it is, if you are young, malleable, and impressionable, to discover which hand you write with. Are you right-handed, left-handed, ambidextrous, or just curious? Social media helps young people and people with autism realise this, she says. (DW, 2025)
I suspect that the imagination plays a big part in that, so, I really don't think social media is necessary for that. Just saying.... In a tug of war between digital content and imagination, I am pretty sure imagination wins 'hands' down.
Of course, there is concern of the mental harm that social media platforms have on young people. I am not going to elaborate on that, because I have my own ideas on social harm and how mental health is impacted on by many aspects of the modern world. I will just say that if you put your finger on a ball of mercury, it will coalesce somewhere else, and be just as toxic there. You have to lower the temperature enough to solidify it (freeze it) so it can be picked up with your fingers and thrown into deep space.
Of course, sending children on an overnight hike in the high altitude Australian wilderness for some fresh air and camp fires might be good for them; at least for the ones that come back still able to speak and can be recognised.
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Please don't imagine that I have referenced the Deutsche Welle pages properly (below).
References
DW 2025, Deutsche Welle, Will Australia's youth social media ban work?, 'Can a 'nice, simple solution' solve a complex crisis?'
Stick insects and social media in punch-up
[ 3.27 minute read at 0.2k words per minute ]
Australian scientists have discovered a new stick insect. It is 40 centimetres long (15 ¾ inches long). I love how some people use the decimal system for a fraction in the imperial system. The article on the Deutsche Welle site gives 15.75 inches as its length. It seems that the article was written by someone who knows how to use a calculator (40 divided by 2.54 = 15.748031).
In case you still don't really know how big these stick insects are: I am 6 foot one (1.85m) and normally proportioned. 40cm is from the inside of my elbow to the end of my little finger.
https://www.dw.com/en/australias-heaviest-new-stick-insect-discovered/a-73488463
I spent some time in the Tipperary countryside in Eire. No street lights on the lanes and things that wriggle in the bushes and hedges. It was a magical time that frightened the life out of me. I think that the remoteness from electronic noise allowed my imagination to run unchecked in my head. I simply wasn't used to that kind of silence. A diesel train labouring up a slight incline, a mile away, as it approached the town of Dundrum, grew so loud that I started to be convinced that it was instead on the lane on which I stood. The creature in the hedge that had followed me along the lane was not worried though. The rustling continued unabated. I didn't look to see what it was, because I was too scared to make that discovery. I only felt safe when I stood near a huge dying bonfire in a field another half a mile on (0.5 miles) Realistically, it was probably 0.38 miles. How far is that?
While reading the article about the Australia's heaviest stick insect discovered in the remote high altitudes of Australia, I thought if I got scared of the dark while exploring there, I would want to light a fire. I don't think I would have been found alive or sane, if I picked up a stick insect to use as kindling. When a twig starts wriggling and you are already scared in the dark, you are in deep trouble.
More...
Also on the Deutsche Welle pages there is an article outlining how Australia intends to implement a world-first national youth social media ban. Apparently one poll got 77% support for it.
https://www.dw.com/en/australia-youth-social-media-ban-mental-health-will-it-work/a-73230182
'Marilyn Campbell, a professor in the School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education at the Queensland University of Technology who writes on cyberbullying' seems to believe that one of the many features of the modern world is how important it is, if you are young, malleable, and impressionable, to discover which hand you write with. Are you right-handed, left-handed, ambidextrous, or just curious? Social media helps young people and people with autism realise this, she says. (DW, 2025)
I suspect that the imagination plays a big part in that, so, I really don't think social media is necessary for that. Just saying.... In a tug of war between digital content and imagination, I am pretty sure imagination wins 'hands' down.
Of course, there is concern of the mental harm that social media platforms have on young people. I am not going to elaborate on that, because I have my own ideas on social harm and how mental health is impacted on by many aspects of the modern world. I will just say that if you put your finger on a ball of mercury, it will coalesce somewhere else, and be just as toxic there. You have to lower the temperature enough to solidify it (freeze it) so it can be picked up with your fingers and thrown into deep space.
Of course, sending children on an overnight hike in the high altitude Australian wilderness for some fresh air and camp fires might be good for them; at least for the ones that come back still able to speak and can be recognised.
-
Please don't imagine that I have referenced the Deutsche Welle pages properly (below).
References
DW 2025, Deutsche Welle, Will Australia's youth social media ban work?, 'Can a 'nice, simple solution' solve a complex crisis?'
https://www.dw.com/en/australia-youth-social-media-ban-mental-health-will-it-work/a-73230182