Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia, descended from groups that existed in Australia and surrounding islands before British colonisation. The time of arrival of the first Indigenous Australians is a matter of debate among researchers; the earliest conclusively human remains found in Australia are those of Mungo Man LM3 and Mungo Lady, which have been dated to around 50,000 years BP. Recent archaeological evidence from the analysis of charcoal and artefacts revealing human use suggests a date as early as 65,000 BP. Luminescence dating has suggested habitation in Arnhem Land as far back as 60,000 years BP. Genetic research has inferred a date of habitation as early as 80,000 years BP. Other estimates have ranged up to 100,000 years and 125,000 years BP. Although there are a number of commonalities between Indigenous Aboriginal Australians, there is a great diversity among different Indigenous communities and societies in Australia, each with its own mixture of cultures and languages.
In present-day Australia these groups are further divided into local communities. At the time of initial European settlement, over 250 languages were spoken. Aboriginal people today speak English, with Aboriginal phrases and words being added to create Australian Aboriginal English; the population of Indigenous Australians at the time of permanent European settlement is contentious and has been estimated at between 318,000 and 1,000,000 with the distribution being similar to that of the current Australian population, the majority living in the south-east, centred along the Murray River. A population collapse principally from disease followed European settlement beginning with a smallpox epidemic spreading three years after the arrival of Europeans. Massacres and war by British settlers contributed to depopulation; the characterisation of this violence as genocide is controversial and disputed. Since 1995, the Australian Aboriginal Flag and the Torres Strait Islander Flag have been among the official flags of Australia.
The word aboriginal has been in the English language since at least the 16th century to mean, "first or earliest known, indigenous". It comes from the Latin word aborigines, derived from origo; the word was used in Australia to describe its indigenous peoples as early as 1789. It soon became employed as the common name to refer to all Indigenous Australians. While the term Indigenous Australians, has grown since the 1980s to be more inclusive of Torres Strait Islander people, many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples dislike it, feeling that it is too generic and removes their identity. Being more specific, for example naming the language group, is considered best practice and most respectful. Terms that are considered disrespectful include Aborigine and ATSI The broad term Aboriginal Australians includes many regional groups that identify under names from local Indigenous languages; these include: Murrawarri people -- see Murawari language. Anindilyakwa on Groote Eylandt off Arnhem Land.
These larger groups may be further subdivided. It is estimated that before the arrival of British settlers, the population of Indigenous Australians was 318,000–750,000 across the continent; the Torres Strait Islanders possess a heritage and cultural history distinct from Aboriginal traditions. The eastern Torres Strait Islanders in particular are related to the Papuan peoples of New Guinea, speak a Papuan language. Accordingly, they are not included under the designation "Aboriginal Australians"; this has been another factor in the promotion of the more inclusive term "Indigenous Australians". Six percent of Indigenous Australians identify themselves as Torres Strait Islanders. A further 4% of Indigenous Australians identify themselves as having both Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal heritage; the Torres Strait Islands comprise over 100 islands which were annexed by Queensland in 1879. Many Indigenous organisations incorporate the phrase "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander" to highlight the distinctiveness and importance of Torres Strait Islanders in Australia's Indigenous population.
Eddie Mabo was from "Mer" or Murray Island in the Torres Strait, which the famous Mabo decision of 1992 involved. The term "black" has been used to refer to Indigenous Australians since European settlement. While related to skin colour, the term is used today to indicate Aboriginal he
Nuclear fallout
Nuclear fallout, or fallout, is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave have passed. It refers to the radioactive dust and ash created when a nuclear weapon explodes; the amount and spread of fallout is a product of the size of the weapon and the altitude at which it is detonated. Fallout may fall as black rain; this radioactive dust consisting of fission products mixed with bystanding atoms that are neutron activated by exposure, is a dangerous kind of radioactive contamination. Half of the survivors of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were killed by radiation poisoning caused by radioactive fallout. Fallout comes in two varieties; the first is a small amount of carcinogenic material with a long half-life. The second, depending on the height of detonation, is a huge quantity of radioactive dust and sand with a short half-life. All nuclear explosions produce fission products, un-fissioned nuclear material, weapon residues vaporized by the heat of the fireball.
These materials are limited to the original mass of the device, but include radioisotopes with long lives. When the nuclear fireball does not reach the ground, this is the only fallout produced, its amount can be estimated from the fission-fusion weight of the weapon. A modern W89 warhead weighs 324 pounds; the fission bomb dropped on Hiroshima weighed 9,700 pounds. After the detonation of a weapon at or above the fallout-free altitude, fission products, un-fissioned nuclear material, weapon residues vaporized by the heat of the fireball condense into a suspension of particles 10 nm to 20 µm in diameter; this size of particulate matter, lifted to the stratosphere, may take months or years to settle, may do so anywhere in the world. Its radioactive characteristics increase the statistical cancer risk. Elevated atmospheric radioactivity remains measurable after the widespread nuclear testing of the 1950s. During detonations of devices at ground level, below the fallout-free altitude, or in shallow water, heat vaporizes large amounts of earth or water, drawn up into the radioactive cloud.
This material becomes radioactive when it combines with fission products or other radiocontaminants, or when it is neutron-activated. The table below summarizes the abilities of common isotopes to form fallout; some radiation taints large amounts of land and drinking water causing formal mutations throughout animal and human life. A surface burst generates large amounts of particulate matter, composed of particles from less than 100 nm to several millimeters in diameter—in addition to fine particles that contribute to worldwide fallout; the larger particles spill out of the stem and cascade down the outside of the fireball in a downdraft as the cloud rises, so fallout begins to arrive near ground zero within an hour. More than half the total bomb debris lands on the ground within about 24 hours as local fallout. Chemical properties of the elements in the fallout control the rate at which they are deposited on the ground. Less volatile elements deposit first. Severe local fallout contamination can extend far beyond the blast and thermal effects in the case of high yield surface detonations.
The ground track of fallout from an explosion depends on the weather from the time of detonation onwards. In stronger winds, fallout travels faster but takes the same time to descend, so although it covers a larger path, it is more spread out or diluted. Thus, the width of the fallout pattern for any given dose rate is reduced where the downwind distance is increased by higher winds; the total amount of activity deposited up to any given time is the same irrespective of the wind pattern, so overall casualty figures from fallout are independent of winds. But thunderstorms can bring down activity as rain allows fallout to drop more particularly if the mushroom cloud is low enough to be below, or mixed with, the thunderstorm. Whenever individuals remain in a radiologically contaminated area, such contamination leads to an immediate external radiation exposure as well as a possible internal hazard from inhalation and ingestion of radiocontaminants, such as the rather short-lived iodine-131, accumulated in the thyroid.
There are two main considerations for the location of an explosion: surface composition. A nuclear weapon detonated in the air, called an air burst, produces less fallout than a comparable explosion near the ground. A nuclear explosion in which the fireball touches the ground pulls soil and other materials into the cloud and neutron activates it before it falls back to the ground. An air burst produces a small amount of the radioactive heavy metal components of the device itself. In case of water surface bursts, the particles tend to be rather lighter and smaller, producing less local fallout but extending over a greater area; the particles contain sea salts with some water. Fallout from a seawater burst is difficult to remove once it has soaked into porous surfaces because the fission products are present as metallic ions that chemically bond to many surfaces. Water and detergent washing removes less than 50% of this chemically bonded activity from concrete or steel. Complete decontamination requires acidic treatment.
After the Crossroads underwater test, it was found that wet fallout must be immediate
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is the oldest in Victoria. Melbourne's main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb north of the Melbourne central business district, with several other campuses located across Victoria. Melbourne is a sandstone university and a member of the Group of Eight, Universitas 21 and the Association of Pacific Rim Universities. Since 1872 various residential colleges have become affiliated with the university. There are 10 colleges located on the main campus and in nearby suburbs offering academic and cultural programs alongside accommodation for Melbourne students and faculty. Melbourne comprises 11 separate academic units and is associated with numerous institutes and research centres, including the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research and the Grattan Institute.
Amongst Melbourne's 15 graduate schools the Melbourne Business School, the Melbourne Law School and the Melbourne Medical School are well regarded. Times Higher Education ranked Melbourne 32nd globally in 2017-2018, while the Academic Ranking of World Universities places Melbourne 38th in the world, in the QS World University Rankings 2019 Melbourne ranks 39th globally and ranked sixth in the world according to the 2019 QS Graduate Employability Rankings. Four Australian prime ministers and five governors-general have graduated from the University of Melbourne. Ten Nobel laureates have been the most of any Australian university; the University of Melbourne was established by Hugh Childers, the Auditor-General and Finance Minister, in his first Budget Speech on 4 November 1852, who set aside a sum of £10,000 for the establishment of a university. The university was established by Act of Incorporation on 22 January 1853, with power to confer degrees in arts, medicine and music; the act provided for an annual endowment of £9,000, while a special grant of £20,000 was made for buildings that year.
The foundation stone was laid on 3 July 1854, on the same day the foundation stone for the State Library Classes commenced in 1855 with three professors and sixteen students. The original buildings were opened by the Lieutenant Governor of the Colony of Victoria, Sir Charles Hotham, on 3 October 1855; the first chancellor, Redmond Barry, held the position until his death in 1880. The inauguration of the university was made possible by the wealth resulting from Victoria's gold rush; the institution was designed to be a "civilising influence" at a time of rapid settlement and commercial growth. In 1881, the admission of women was a seen as victory over the more conservative ruling council; the university's 150th anniversary was celebrated in 2003. The Melbourne School of Land and Environment was disestablished on the first of January, 2015, its agriculture and food systems department moved alongside veterinary science to form the Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, while other areas of study, including horticulture, forestry and resource management, moved to the Faculty of Science in two new departments.
As of May 2009 the university "suspended" the Bachelor of Music Theatre and Puppetry courses at the college and there were fears they may not return under the new curriculum. A 2005 heads of agreement over the merger of the VCA and the university stated that the management of academic programs at the VCA would ensure that "the VCA continues to exercise high levels of autonomy over the conduct and future development of its academic programs so as to ensure their integrity and quality" and that the college's identity will be preserved. New dean Sharman Pretty outlined drastic changes under the university's plan for the college in early April 2009; as a result, it is now being called into question. Staff at the college responded to the changes, claiming the university did not value vocational arts training, voicing fears over the future of quality training at the VCA. Former Victorian arts minister Race Mathews has weighed in on the debate expressing his hope that, "Melbourne University will not proceed with its proposed changes to the Victorian College of the Arts", for'good sense' to prevail.
In 2011, the Victorian State Government allocated $24 million to support arts education at the VCA and the faculty was renamed the Faculty of the Victorian College of the Arts and the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. The Parkville Campus is the primary campus of the university. Established in a large area north of Grattan Street in Parkville, the campus has expanded well beyond its boundaries, with many of its newly acquired buildings located in the nearby suburb of Carlton; the university is undertaking an'ambitious infrastructure program' to reshape campuses. Melbourne University has 10 residential colleges in total, seven of which are located in an arc around the cricket oval at the northern edge of the campus, known as College Crescent; the other three are located outside of university grounds. The residential colleges aim to provide accommodation and holistic education experience to university students. Most of the university's residential colleges admit students from RMIT University and Monash University, Parkville campus, with selected colleges accepting students from the Australian Catholic University and Victoria University.
Several of the earliest campus buildings, such as the Old Quadrangle and Baldwin Spencer buildings, feature period architecture. The new Wilson Hall replaced th
Mamungari Conservation Park
Mamungari Conservation Park is a protected area located in South Australia within the southern Great Victoria Desert and northern Nullarbor Plain about 200 kilometres west of Maralinga and 450 kilometres northwest of Ceduna. The conservation park was proclaimed in 1970 as a national park under the National Parks Act 1966 for the purpose of conserving ‘the environments of the Great Victoria Desert and protect wilderness values.’ It was not assigned a name in 1970 and was subsequently constituted as the Unnamed Conservation Park under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972. It was renamed as Mamungari Conservation Park on 30 November 2006, it is one of fourteen United Nations Educational and Cultural Organization World Biosphere Reserves in Australia and obtained this status in 1977 with the name of the Unnamed Biosphere Reserve. The conservation park is classified as an IUCN Category Ia protected area; the conservation park is managed jointly by the traditional owners and the Department for Environment and Water.
The conservation park may only be visited by those who have obtained the minimum impact code and can demonstrate experience using that code. Permits will take 4 to 6 weeks to arrange; the only road of significance that passes through the conservation park is the Anne Beadell Highway. Protected areas of South Australia List of biosphere reserves in Australia Serpentine Lakes Mamungari Conservation Park official webpage Mamungari Conservation Park webpage on protected planet Webpage for the Unnamed Biosphere Reserve on the UNESCO website The Friends of the Great Victoria Desert Parks webpage
Avon Hudson
Avon Hudson is a South Australian RAAF ex-serviceman, nuclear weapons testing whistle-blower and co-author of the 2005 book Beyond Belief which he wrote with academic and historian, Roger Cross. Hudson was assigned to work at the Maralinga testing range during the period of minor trials which included the explosive scattering of plutonium. At risk of incarceration for exposing Commonwealth secrets, Hudson disclosed undertakings of the British nuclear weapons testing period in South Australia making multiple appearances in mainstream media from the 1970s through 2010s, his disclosures delayed the return of the testing range to their traditional custodians, the Anangu people due to the inadequacy of clean-up measures, persistent contamination and associated health risks of ionizing radiation. He gave testimony to the Royal Commission into British nuclear testing in Australia in 1984 and 1985 and has continued to work as a spokesperson for nuclear veterans in South Australia since that time. Avon is an anti-nuclear activist and educator committed to explaining radiological hazards in accessible English- knowledge he has acquired over many decades of private study.
After six years with the RAAF, Hudson left the armed services and instead worked on the civil space program in Australia. Avon Hudson has served as an elected member of the Wakefield Regional Council for many years. During his time as a councilor, Hudson formally established the region, which includes his hometown of Balaklava, as a "nuclear free zone". Avon Hudson's life is the subject of a public exhibition which opened on February 13, 2015, as part of the Adelaide Fringe Festival in Balaklava, South Australia; the exhibition Portrait of a Whistle-blower presents artifacts and images which trace his journey from childhood through his RAAF service and his subsequent life as a nuclear whistle-blower. The exhibition is curated by photo-media artist Jessie Boylan, who contributed images to the exhibition including reproductions of artifacts and portraiture of Hudson; the artifacts on display include photographs from Hudson's own collection, a piece of vitrified earth from Maralinga, a red umbrella Hudson once used to evade an undercover government agent, following him, two cathode-ray tube televisions displaying TV news broadcasts and documentary film footage.
The exhibition was launched as part of an expanded event called 10 Minutes to Midnight, presented by Alphaville and Nuclear Futures. The event combined history and discussion and was supported by the Australia Council for the Arts and Arts SA, it featured three stages, including a projected video installation which created an impression of the nuclear test program and its effects and an open discussion with Boylan and Hudson. The event attracted a public audience which included nuclear veterans and their relatives who were able to share their experiences and ask questions. Additional contributing artists included Teresa Crea, Linda Dement, John Romeril, Nic Mollison and Luke Harrald. Anti-nuclear movement in Australia Gavin Mudd Jim Falk Mark Diesendorf Dave Sweeney Alan Parkinson Hedley Marston
Emu Field, South Australia
Emu Field is located in the desert of South Australia, at 28°41′54″S 132°22′17″E. Variously known as Emu Field, Emu Junction or Emu, it was the site of the Operation Totem pair of nuclear tests conducted by the British government in October 1953; the site was surveyed by Len Beadell in 1952. A village and airstrip were constructed for the subsequent testing program. Two British atomic tests were conducted at the site. Totem 1 was detonated on 15 October 1953 and Totem 2 was detonated on 27 October 1953; the devices were both yielded 9 kilotons and 7 kilotons respectively. The site was used in September–October 1953 for some of the Kitten series of tests, which were conventional explosions used to evaluate neutron initiators, it was found that the radioactive cloud from the first detonation did not disperse as expected, traveled north-east over the Australian continent. The site at Emu Field was considered too remote for future use, the search for a more convenient location led to the survey of Maralinga, where a further series of atomic tests was conducted in 1956.
There are now stone monuments at the ground-zero points, which can be visited by tourists, though the location is still remote. Evidence of the explosions may still be seen at ground-zero in the form of vitrified sand and concentric blast rings. "Operation Totem - 1953". Atomic Forum - An illustrated history of nuclear weapons. Retrieved 2007-12-24
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or from a combination of fission and fusion reactions. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from small amounts of matter; the first test of a fission bomb released an amount of energy equal to 20,000 tons of TNT. The first thermonuclear bomb test released energy equal to 10 million tons of TNT. A thermonuclear weapon weighing little more than 2,400 pounds can release energy equal to more than 1.2 million tons of TNT. A nuclear device no larger than traditional bombs can devastate an entire city by blast and radiation. Since they are weapons of mass destruction, the proliferation of nuclear weapons is a focus of international relations policy. Nuclear weapons have been used twice in war, both times by the United States against Japan near the end of World War II. On August 6, 1945, the U. S. Army Air Forces detonated a uranium gun-type fission bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" over the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
S. Army Air Forces detonated a plutonium implosion-type fission bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" over the Japanese city of Nagasaki; these bombings caused injuries that resulted in the deaths of 200,000 civilians and military personnel. The ethics of these bombings and their role in Japan's surrender are subjects of debate. Since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons have been detonated over two thousand times for testing and demonstration. Only a few nations are suspected of seeking them; the only countries known to have detonated nuclear weapons—and acknowledge possessing them—are the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, China, India and North Korea. Israel is believed to possess nuclear weapons, though, in a policy of deliberate ambiguity, it does not acknowledge having them. Germany, Turkey and the Netherlands are nuclear weapons sharing states. South Africa is the only country to have independently developed and renounced and dismantled its nuclear weapons.
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons aims to reduce the spread of nuclear weapons, but its effectiveness has been questioned, political tensions remained high in the 1970s and 1980s. Modernisation of weapons continues to this day. There are two basic types of nuclear weapons: those that derive the majority of their energy from nuclear fission reactions alone, those that use fission reactions to begin nuclear fusion reactions that produce a large amount of the total energy output. All existing nuclear weapons derive some of their explosive energy from nuclear fission reactions. Weapons whose explosive output is from fission reactions are referred to as atomic bombs or atom bombs; this has long been noted as something of a misnomer, as their energy comes from the nucleus of the atom, just as it does with fusion weapons. In fission weapons, a mass of fissile material is forced into supercriticality—allowing an exponential growth of nuclear chain reactions—either by shooting one piece of sub-critical material into another or by compression of a sub-critical sphere or cylinder of fissile material using chemically-fueled explosive lenses.
The latter approach, the "implosion" method, is more sophisticated than the former. A major challenge in all nuclear weapon designs is to ensure that a significant fraction of the fuel is consumed before the weapon destroys itself; the amount of energy released by fission bombs can range from the equivalent of just under a ton to upwards of 500,000 tons of TNT. All fission reactions generate the remains of the split atomic nuclei. Many fission products are either radioactive or moderately radioactive, as such, they are a serious form of radioactive contamination. Fission products are the principal radioactive component of nuclear fallout. Another source of radioactivity is the burst of free neutrons produced by the weapon; when they collide with other nuclei in surrounding material, the neutrons transmute those nuclei into other isotopes, altering their stability and making them radioactive. The most used fissile materials for nuclear weapons applications have been uranium-235 and plutonium-239.
Less used has been uranium-233. Neptunium-237 and some isotopes of americium may be usable for nuclear explosives as well, but it is not clear that this has been implemented, their plausible use in nuclear weapons is a matter of dispute; the other basic type of nuclear weapon produces a large proportion of its energy in nuclear fusion reactions. Such fusion weapons are referred to as thermonuclear weapons or more colloquially as hydrogen bombs, as they rely on fusion reactions between isotopes of hydrogen. All such weapons derive a significant portion of their energy from fission reactions used to "trigger" fusion reactions, fusion reactions can themselves trigger additional fission reactions. Only six countries—United States, United Kingdom, China and India—have conducted thermonuclear weapon tests. North Korea claims to have tested a fusion weapon as of January 2016. Thermonuclear weapons a
