The forgotten political warrior whose letter to King George V helped Aboriginal kids back into schools. A woman whose great-grandmother refused to give up on better access to education says acknowledgement of her family's New South Wales south coast healing place has brought a sense of justice.

In 1926, a Yuin woman from Moruya on the NSW south coast sat down to pen a letter to the King. Jane Duren was writing to King George V asking for her grandchildren to be allowed to attend Batemans Bay Public School. That letter, signed and stamped, would be received by Buckingham Palace, endorsed by the Australian Governor-General, and end up as an important artefact of cultural change in the state's archives. "I beg to state that it is months and months since those children were at school and it is a shame to see them going about without education," she wrote. "Your Majesty, we have compulsory education. Why are they not compelled to attend school?" Up until the 1970s, an Indigenous student could be removed from a school if a non-Indigenous parent complained. Ms Duren thought that ridiculous — and she had written as much in previous letters — to the Minister of Education, the Child Welfare Department, her local Member of Parliament, and the Aborigines Protection Board, but with no outcome. This letter, however, would have a different fate. Buckingham Palace forwarded the letter to the Governor-General who endorsed the letter and sent it to the NSW state government, which in turn passed it onto the Aborigines Protection Board — about whom Ms Duren was complaining.

Inmates nurse injured wildlife to health in prison program. A regional Victorian prison program training inmates to rehabilitate injured native wildlife is giving more than just the animals a second chance.

The UK's second-biggest city is so broke they can no longer keep the lights on. Birmingham was once a powerhouse industrial city but now the UK's second city is a shell of its former self as rubbish lines the streets, the lights stay out and children grow up below the poverty line.

Once nicknamed "the workshop of the world", Birmingham was an industrial powerhouse in the 18th and 19th centuries. It's where William Murdoch invented the first gas lantern, a technology later used to light streets across the world. But today the UK's second-largest city can no longer afford to keep its own streets brightly lit. In September Birmingham City Council issued a 114 notice, effectively declaring it was bankrupt. To claw back $600 million over the next two years, the council has approved a range of unprecedented budget cuts that will see streetlights dimmed and rubbish collected only once a fortnight. The cuts will also see 25 of the city's libraries close, money for children's services slashed and a 100 per cent funding cut to the arts and culture sector by 2026.

Food scraps make up about a third of general waste bins. City of Sydney hopes maggots can help reduce this and turn it into fertiliser. A 12-month trial using Goterra's black soldier fly larvae system will begin with hopes it can be extended to all Sydney residents.

Using drones, aerial imagery, and 3D modelling to map and identify stingray feeding pits on the estuary floor, a study has found stingrays play a significant role in the health of estuarine ecosystems.

Baby moose rescued from Alaskan lake. Three people have rescued a baby moose from a sure demise after the animal became stuck between a lake float plane and dock.

Historic gathering in remote Western Australia calls for urgent protection of Indigenous languages. Aboriginal language experts say the survival and preservation of Indigenous languages needs to be treated as importantly as art and storytelling.

Voice of Baceprot are a devoutly Muslim all-female Indonesian thrash metal band hell-bent on shattering the genre's masculine image and misconceptions about Islam.

Beluga whales saved from bombing in Ukraine in "the most complex marine mammal rescue ever." Two beluga whales faced a gruelling journey across Ukraine's war-ravaged region of Kharkiv to reach their new home in Spain.

Manure and the cost of fertiliser are both problems for farmers — dung beetles offer a solution. The Australian Capital Territory government is encouraging farmers to use dung beetles to recycle the nutrients in cow dung into their pastures, with experts saying they improve soil quality and reduce fly numbers — and are cheaper than fertiliser.

Joro spiders (which have been expanding their range into Georgia and New York) are large and colourful but not dangerous to humans. Joro spiders have venom like all spiders, but they aren't deadly or even medically relevant to humans. At worst, a Joro bite might itch or cause an allergic reaction. "They're not dangerous. They're not aggressive. Even if you...go after the spider and harass it to such an extent that it would bite you, it wouldn't be an issue," said Professor Kronauer.

Joro spiders actually have a reputation for being shy. A University of Georgia research scientist, Andy Davis, told the New York Times last year he had experimented by blowing air on different spiders with a turkey baster. "They don't like that, and they freeze," he told the outlet. "You can time how long they stay in that position." Other species remained frozen for two minutes. The joro spiders he tested didn't move for an hour.

From plague to pest-free haven: The ambitious plan that prevented an environmental catastrophe. It's been 10 years since Macquarie Island was declared pest free. Scientists say the transformation of the World Heritage-listed area has been extraordinary, but new threats are on the horizon.

Beavers create habitat suitable for water voles in Scottish rainforest. Beavers' dams have created more places for water voles to hide from predators and hopefully flourish, say experts.

A Single Mutation Gave These Fish a Sense of Curiosity And Opened Up Their World.

Human hair and unwanted wool could be turned into a vital component for lithium batteries, researchers say. Charles Sturt University researchers say synthetic graphite made from hair and wool offcuts could help meet growing demand for the mineral, which is used to make lithium-ion batteries.

This team went guerilla-style into the British Museum to create exact replicas of the Parthenon marbles. This archaeologist and his team had a simple plan — take 3D scans of the Parthenon marbles and recreate them for the British Museum so the originals could be returned to Greece. When the museum said no, they went in anyway, guerilla-style.

Dentist Discovers Human-Like Jawbone and Teeth in a Floor Tile at His Parents' Home. Scientists are planning to study the specimen, embedded in travertine from western Turkey, in hopes of dating and identifying it. He found the jawbone in a tile made of travertine, a type of limestone that typically forms near hot springs. This specific tile came from a quarry in the Denizli Basin of western Turkey. The travertine excavated there formed between 0.7 million and 1.8 million years ago, which suggests the mandible did not come from a person who died recently.

This outback property is home to 37 species found nowhere else in the world, many hiding in springs for millennia. Unique species of fish, snails, and crustaceans have existed on this isolated property in Western Queensland since the dinosaur age when it was deep under water as part of the Eromanga Sea.

Is autocorrect racist? The push to stamp out galling ethnic name bias on phones and computers. A new campaign — called I Am Not A Typo — is urging tech companies to fix ethnic bias in their algorithms to stop autocorrect mangling so many people's names.

Caravaggio masterpiece considered lost for centuries to be unveiled. The painting is one of only 60 known Caravaggio pieces in existence and is considered one of the most valuable old master artworks in the world.

Tasmanian devils off to the US. Tequila, Tabasco, Mouse and Mozza and four other Tasmanian devils will soon board a long haul flight to the US, where they'll settle into four zoos as part of Tasmania's ambassador program.

How To Avoid Being Eaten By A Black Bear. A recent study of fatal black bear attacks shows that hungry males are the ones to really worry about.

Elephants call each other by name, study finds. Researchers used artificial intelligence algorithm to analyse calls by two herds of African savanna elephants in Kenya.

Harvard removes human skin binding from book after more than 90 years. Harvard University has removed human skin from the binding of a book held for over 90 years at one of its libraries

Claude the hungry koala scales fences in broad daylight to sample young seedlings at a nursery. He's a repeat offender and has attracted mates to the free feed, costing the nursery thousands of damaged plants. The nursery owner hopes new fencing and a mass planting project nearby will deter the brazen koala from repeated daylight robbery.

Australian airports caught thousands of travellers with biosecurity risks in 2023, including holy water from the Ganges. A live toad, holy water from the Ganges and an aphrodisiac made from donkeys are among the more unusual items detected at Australian airports and mail centres. Context: there are a lot of diseases, viruses, and parasites that are common in Britain/Europe/Asia/North America that are not present at all in Australia, and Australia would very much like to keep it that way.

50,000 Year Old Neanderthal Bones Have Remains of Human Viruses, Scientists Find. (Smithsonian Magazine.) The preliminary analysis is a first step in testing the theory that infectious diseases played a role in Neanderthals' extinction.

A playlist about Kerr Avon, from the British Science Fiction TV show Blake's 7.

According to the Blake's 7 fan who put the playlist together, jukeboxjury, "State of Grace is Avon/Blake. Shiny Happy People is about how Avon views other people. Tear You Apart is Avon/Servalan. It's not a perfect match up storywise but the spirit is all there. Needing/Getting is another Blake/Avon for Seasons 3 and 4 after Blake has left. Portions For Foxes is also Avon/Blake - his cynical take on his attraction to Blake. My Tears Ricochet is about Gauda Prime. Everything else is basically Avon beating himself up and all the lies he tells himself."

Needs washed. The Yale Grammatical Diversity Project: English in North America. Who says this? Murray and Simon (2002) describe the rough boundaries as Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio, Northern West Virginia, and Central Indiana. Pockets of speakers may exist in places as far-spread as Kentucky and Illinois. This construction is also attested in Scots English, which might be its historical source.

According to Murray and Simon (1999), the need/want + V-en construction displays sensitivity to no significant sociolinguistic factors other than race, and they say that "white [people] favour the construction significantly more than Black people" (pp. 149). Murray and Simon (2002) found that unlike white speakers, virtually no Black speakers accept like + V-en.

The jellyfish detective who discovered the Irukandji by stinging volunteers — including his 10-year-old son. A mysterious and excruciating illness was striking down beachgoers in North Queensland until the 1960s, when a doctor and a little boy went to extraordinary lengths to solve the mystery.

How Crossbows Can Tell Us Which Genes Trees Are Turning On...and Off. (Smithsonian Magazine.) What's a scientist to do, when you need to reach the highest leaves in the forest and a giant crane isn't an option? Learn to use a crossbow.

Gigantic marine reptile identified from fossil found by 11-year-old girl and father. A fossil jawbone found by a young girl and her father on a beach in England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating back to 202 million years ago.