SYDNEY, April 24 (Reuters) – Bartenders tossing bottles in
the air, a man who talks to eels and the etiquette of park chess
are all part of an Australian exhibition telling the story of
some of Sydney’s most beloved public spaces.

Inspired by a book about drawing the city, curator Nerida
Campbell and her team at the Museum of Sydney fanned out across
the streets, choosing five public spaces and talking to people
about how they enjoy them.

SYDNEY, March 27 (Reuters) – Balancing in small boats in
choppy Antarctic waters, sometimes for hours and covered in ice,
Australian researchers shot at endangered blue whales with an
airgun to tag the giant creature with satellite tracking
equipment.

For three years the team of scientists from the Australian
Antarctic Division tagged the world’s largest creature and then
tracked the rarely seen whales using sonar attached to special
buoys to gain an insight into the threatened species.

SYDNEY, March 12 (Reuters) – When Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
sketched his celebrated portraits of the Parisian demi-monde,
even he could never have imagined his work would one day be
displayed to new admirers amid the scorching heat and gum trees
of faraway Australia.

“Paris & the Moulin Rouge,” at the National Gallery of
Australia in Canberra, the nation’s capital, is unusual in that
it marks the first time Australians have been treated to a full
range of Lautrec’s work.

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Elephant seals wearing head sensors and swimming deep beneath Antarctic ice have helped scientists better understand how the ocean’s coldest, deepest waters are formed, providing vital clues to understanding its role in the world’s climate.

The tagged seals, along with sophisticated satellite data and moorings in ocean canyons, all played a role in providing data from the extreme Antarctic environment, where observations are very rare and ships could not go, said researchers at the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystem CRC in Tasmania.

SYDNEY, Feb 15 (Reuters) – A buxom woman in a low-cut red
dress brandishes a pistol, her finger poised to pull the
trigger, but a closer look at the painting reveals the woman is
model-turned-novelist Tara Moss.

In another painting a woman in a red beret and tight yellow,
slit skirt with one hand on her hip and the other holding a
cigarette is in fact one of Australia’s senior crown
prosecutors, Margaret Cunneen.

SYDNEY, Jan 29 (Reuters) – China’s growing thirst for
Australian wines may be a golden ticket for now, but whether
demand will last remains unknown even as vintages from Down
Under gain new fans amid a surge of growth in broader Asia.

Australian bottled wine exports to China soared by 15
percent year on year in 2012, according to official data,
bolstered by a sales push targeting the country’s wealthy
drinkers and making Australia the top overseas market for wines
priced at more than A$7.50 ($7.90) a litre.

SYDNEY, Dec 6 (Reuters) – There are times when the sun never
sets on Antarctica, but a long-term Australian programme
encouraging people to “live the dream” and work in the vast
frozen landscape is having to extend a deadline for the project
due to a shortage of applicants.

For decades a potential job for adventurous youth seeking to
see a part of the world most people never get to, the programme
has been going for nearly 100 years since the first Australian
explorer, Sir Douglas Mawson, sailed into Commonwealth Bay in
East Antarctica in an expedition from 1911 to 1914.

SYDNEY (Reuters) – It is the 1960s and rock journalist Lola Bensky finds herself deep in the heart of the music scene in London and New York, interviewing emerging stars like Mick Jagger and Jimi Hendrix.

But the 19-year-old Melbourne-born Lola of the eponymous “Lola Bensky,” by Lily Bent, is no ordinary rock journalist. The Jewish child of two Holocaust survivors, she prefers to ask interviewees how they got on with their mother and wins praise from Cher, who tells her they look alike.

SYDNEY (Reuters) – A small population of dolphins in Western Australia state not only use sponges to help catch fish but the rare hunting technique has been passed from mother to daughter for generations, Australian researchers said.

Sightings of dolphins carrying sponges on their snouts to protect their sensitive noses while dislodging fish and crustaceans from the rocky ocean floor has been recorded since the 1980s.

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Scientists have produced the first three dimensional map of the surface beneath Antarctic sea ice, helping them better understand the impact of climate change on Antarctica.

The team of scientists from eight countries have used a robot submarine to chart a frozen and inverted world of mountains and valleys, allowing accurate measurements of the crucial thickness of Antarctic sea ice.