You may recall a few months ago that a Museum in Western Australia changed maps in its display after complaints from CCP operatives that Taiwan was not shown as part of the PRC:
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4069499
Good news! Although they have not publicised the fact, my sources indicate that after receiving a "very large" number of complaints, they have now removed the colouring indicating Taiwan is part of the PRC and have issued an apology to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Australia.
It's worth fighting every battle.
Hi everyone, I’m Nerida Wilson Senior Research Scientist at the Museum of Western Australia and Adjunct Research Fellow, University of Western Australia. I work in phylogenetics, biodiversity and systematics.
I’ve been working in taxonomy and classification for around 16 years and I’ve been involved with naming 18 new species, from sea dragons to nudibranchs. I do lots of voyages, expeditions and diving to collect new specimens, but my everyday reality is LOTS of office and lab work.
Most recently I’ve been working towards untangling the systematics of the nudibranch genus Moridilla, which has led to the discovery of a new species. This has been the focus of a competitive naming competition opened up to the public Australia. Talking about as yet unpublished research in long-form radio, and having thousands of people have their say on it has been novel, and I’m happy to answer questions about the experience.
I’ve also just been involved with publishing a paper in Scientific Reports showing that the sister group of nudibranchs+pleurobranchs is the shelled group Ringiculida. We are still making leaps in understanding how sluggy heterobranch groups are related to each other. It's really exciting!
I’m happy to discuss marine taxonomy, scientific collection expeditions and my experience so far in opening up my work to run a public competition as a form of outreach. My colleague - Dr Amber Beavis, who is the project coordinator for the 'Name this Creature' competition - is helping me type the answers.
I will be back at 9 am Western Australia (7 pm ET) to answer your questions, ask me anything!
Edit: Thanks so much everyone for your questions - I’m really glad we got to all of them! We’ll be checking in a bit later today so happy to answer any follow up questions that arise. If you’d like to know more about the nudibranch we’re naming you can listen to the ABC RN *Off Track* show [*Meet the Nameless Nudibranch* here](http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/offtrack/name-this-nudibranc/7686532). And if you’re curious about what the winning name is, check in for [the announcement on the 20th August](http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/offtrack/)!
Roeburn was close, getting to 50.5 °C
Many locations in the Karratha area saw their hottest ever temperature today
Ted Cruz retweeted a post by the government of Western Australia, whose handle is WA Government – that appeared to advise a woman that dancing would not permitted at a New Year’s Eve party at her home.
Cruz, who has campaigned against pandemic restrictions, took it as cue to attack the Democrat-led state of Washington, whose widely used abbreviation is also WA, saying that those in leadership were “power-drunk authoritarian kill-joys”. This was despite the fact that the original tweet did not mention Washington.
Cruz tweeted: “Blue-state Dems are power-drunk authoritarian kill-joys. Washington State: NO DANCING ALLOWED!!! Any rational & free citizen: Piss off.”
