Cockatoo inside Sydney supermarket rescued after four weeks

A sulphur-crested cockatoo that had been living inside a Sydney supermarket for four weeks and surviving on brioche has been captured by wildlife services.

Mickey had been stuck in the Coles supermarket in Campbelltown, New South Wales, for almost a month, with multiple rescue attempts proving unsuccessful as the bird was spooked by people.

New South Wales environment minister Penny Sharpe announced on Tuesday evening that the bird had “been safely captured by wildlife rescuers after spending way too long in Macarthur Square”.

“Mickey is being assessed by experts. We hope Mickey will be flying free by tomorrow,” she said.

The native bird was reportedly trapped inside a store around four weeks ago after flying in through the loading dock of the supermarket.

A concerned wildlife enthusiast named Tom contacted 2GB on Monday after hearing about a plan to shoot the bird as multiple efforts to release it back into the wild had proved unsuccessful, Australian news outlet news.com.au reported.

“I think it’s absolutely ridiculous, I’m just over the fact people don’t use common sense anymore,” the wildlife lover, identified by only his first name, said.

“The common sense and the right answer is so simple and they make it so difficult and make the wrong answer at the end of the day. What’s the harm in catching the bird and releasing it?”

Authorities, however, assured the public that Mickey was never in danger of being shot.

On Monday night, members of the Sydney Metropolitan Wildlife Services had tried to lure the bird outside, but their efforts were unsuccessful.

“The poor bird hasn’t had any dark for over four weeks and has been living on brioche and water [placed] by the night manager – who is very fond of the bird,” the rescue group wrote on social media.

“Two traps left but with so much food in the store, who knows if that will work. Hopefully, we exhausted him so much he will come down to a trap for water.”

Wildlife rescuers had even brought in another cockatoo, Old Lady Doris, to reassure Mickey, but it remained scared. The plan seemed promising at first as Mickey flew down, only to become startled and quickly retreat out of reach.

“He’s really scared because there’s been so many attempts – people trying to catch him,” Feathered Friends bird rescue director Ravi Wasan, who brought in Old Lady Doris, was quoted as saying by The Guardian.

“He’s so scared but the other cockatoo, obviously, is so loving that it really reassured him. We got so close … and then they opened the emergency doors and it spooked him.”

Hours before the bird was finally rescued, Mr Wasan said: “He just needs to chill out, relax and come down without thinking that people are going to try and catch him. The exits where the cockatoo would go out are also the exits for patrons, so he just has to realise that the patrons … aren’t terrifying, which is obviously challenging when he sees everyone as a potential threat.”

A Coles spokesperson confirmed that while the bird was no longer inside the store, it remained within the shopping centre as of Monday afternoon.

“The cockatoo, which has become a friendly fixture in the Macarthur Square shopping centre, is currently not inside Coles but exploring other areas inside the broader shopping precinct,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying by NewsWire.

“When the bird entered our store over the past few weeks, our team along with external expert wildlife and bird management organisations have been working extremely hard to safely and importantly, humanely, relocate the cockatoo to where it belongs, in the outdoors.

“We are working hard to balance our responsibility around food safety and animal welfare. While this friendly cockatoo is making himself at home in-store, we want our products to be enjoyed by our customers without any food safety issues.

“The cockatoo is currently not inside Coles, however, if it does return, we will continue to try a number of methods to entice him or her back into the outside world.”

New South Wales premier Chris Minns said on Tuesday: “We don’t want to shoot wildlife. Mickey is everyone in Sydney’s spirit animal at the moment, eating free food.”

A spokesperson for Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service, or Wires, an Australian wildlife rescue organisation, had earlier cautioned against leaving food out for the bird as it could lead to health problems for the animal.

This isn’t the first time a bird has become trapped in a shopping centre. On 12 August, Wires helped rescue another cockatoo that had gotten stuck inside Big W.

A spokesperson said it took several attempts before the bird was finally freed by leaving a back door open. “This is generally the only way we are able to free the birds that regularly fly into the centre via the large sliding opening doors into the complex,” she said.

Ms Sharpe thanked everyone “who rallied to help Mickey, including staff at Coles, Sydney Wildlife Service, Wires and the team at NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service”.

Labor MP for Campbelltown, Greg Warren, said: “I am looking forward to seeing Mickey back in the wild back where he belongs.”

Smallest known dinosaur egg found in China sets new record

Scientists say fossil dinosaur eggs unearthed at a construction site in China are the smallest ever found, providing new insights into the evolution of the extinct reptile.

The six eggs, fossilised into a lump, were discovered in 2021 in China’s Ganzhou region, which boasts one of the richest deposits of fossilised eggs from a range of ancient reptiles including dinosaurs.

But the fossil eggs found previously in the region were relatively large in size.

After three years of analysis, scientists obtained the overall image of the small eggshells found in 2021 and the fossilised creatures inside them.

The analysis, detailed last week in the journal Historical Biology, confirms that the creatures in the eggs are dinosaurs that roamed the region around 80 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous era.

“We report a partial egg clutch with six complete small eggs from the Upper Cretaceous Tangbian Formation of Ganzhou City,” the study says.

The smallest of the eggs is only about 29mm in length. The previously known smallest dinosaur egg was about 45mm by 40mm by 34mm.

The thickness, pores and other features of the eggshells from 2021 are unlike those of any other known for this class of dinosaurs.

This suggests they were laid by a new species from the group of four-legged dinosaurs called theropods. “The egg morphology and eggshell microstructure support it to be the smallest known non-avian theropod egg up to date,” the new study states.

The eggs are now classified in a new category called Minioolithus ganzhouensis, named after the Chinese city they were found in.

“This discovery increases the diversity of dinosaur eggs in Late Cretaceous and is significant for our understanding of the evolution of theropods in the Late Cretaceous,” the study notes.

Researchers plan to continue studying the site where the fossil eggs were found to understand the nature of the dinosaur that laid them as well as how these dinosaurs built their nests.

Who is going to Brics summit in Russia – and who has dropped out

The leaders of the world’s top emerging economies have begun arriving in the western Russian city of Kazan where president Vladimir Putin will host the 16th Brics summit, the first gathering of the bloc since its expansion last year.

The three-day summit begins on Tuesday and will see participation by 33 countries, with 24 represented at the leadership level, Russian media reported.

Mr Putin, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, will be seen shaking hands with multiple world leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian.

Brics, originally a diplomatic forum comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, sees itself as a counterweight to the Western-dominated G7. It has garnered increased international attention over the years, with the latest summit attracting a level of interest rarely seen since its founding 15 years ago.

Once regarded as a loose association of disparate emerging economies, Brics has taken on a more concrete form in recent years, driven initially by China with added impetus from Russia since the start of the Ukraine war in February 2022.

The bloc celebrated its first major expansion last year when Iran, the UAE, Ethiopia and Egypt joined. Other countries have since expressed interest in joining the group, potentially boosting its economic influence.

China will be represented at the Kazan meet by president Xi, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Friday. Mr Xi will participate in the summit of leaders and a number of expert dialogues, engaging in discussions with fellow heads of state on international matters.

Despite its ongoing economic challenges, China remains the engine at the heart of Brics, making up about 70 per cent of the bloc’s combined GDP in 2022.

“China is ready to work with all parties to strengthen Brics cooperation, ushering in a new era of unity and self-reliance in the Global South, and jointly promoting peace and development worldwide,” said Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the ministry.

India is sending prime minister Modi travelling to the summit. His attendance is seen as a significant moment for Indian diplomacy – since the start of the war in Ukraine, New Delhi has maintained close diplomatic ties with Russia while also working to increase trade connections with the West.

The summit is seen as an opportunity for Mr Xi and Mr Modi to meet amid an ongoing standoff along their countries’ disputed border, although no bilateral meeting has been announced yet. India’s foreign ministry announced on the eve of the summit on Monday that a deal had been reached over troop patrols and the disengagement of forces at the border.

The host of the previous summit, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, will lead a large delegation in Kazan, the country’s envoy Mzuvukile Maqetuka said. The envoy called the 2024 summit “highly significant”.

The leaders of Egypt, Ethiopia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Bolivia, Congo, and Laos are also set to attend.

President Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the UAE has already arrived in Russia and met with Mr Putin on the sidelines of the summit.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, one of the main founding members of Brics, cancelled his trip to Russia citing an emergency medical issue.

Mr Lula’s doctor, Roberto Kalil, said in an interview with the GloboNews TV channel that the president suffered a fall that caused “great” trauma to the back of his head, requiring stitches and resulting in a “small brain haemorrhage”.

He will participate in the Brics meeting via videoconference, his office said.

Mr Lula is scheduled to host the next G20 leaders’ summit later this year – one which Mr Putin is set to skip in light of the ICC arrest warrant against him.

The expansion of Brics is seen as a win for Mr Xi, who is trying to boost Beijing’s global clout by courting nations that share similar views on the US dominance of world affairs.

While South Africa has backed Mr Xi’s push, India has been hesitant given that a larger and stronger block could give more power to Beijing and enable it to push its own agenda. Brazil has also shown scepticism, maintaining good ties with Western nations.

Speaking at a conference with media organisations from Brics member states, Mr Putin said: “I am absolutely convinced that this [expansion of Brics] will increase interest in the organisation, influence in the world and authority. We are already seeing this.”

According to Mr Putin, at least 34 countries have expressed interest in joining the bloc, with Malaysia, Thailand, Nigeria, Bolivia and even Turkey, a Nato member, on the waiting list.

Pivoting away from the US dollar as a common currency for international trade, commonly referred to as dedollarisation, has been one of the focus areas of the grouping. The summit under Mr Putin’s presidency plans to transform the international monetary and financial system as a priority in order to negate the impact of Western sanctions, like those imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

As the chair of the bloc, Russia has proposed the formation of the Brics Cross-Border Payment Initiative, which will allow members of the organisation to use their national currencies to trade.

Brics members have also suggested creating an alternative messaging system to bypass the SWIFT interbank communication network, which is controlled by the US and therefore susceptible to Western sanctions.

Surfer, 36, dies after being impaled by swordfish in Indonesia

A 36-year-old surfer from Italy died after being impaled by a swordfish while surfing the waters in Indonesia.

Giulia Manfrini, a surfer from Turin, was reportedly struck in the chest by a swordfish on Friday in the Mentawai Islands in West Sumatra Province, a popular surfing destination known for its beautiful waters and challenging waves.

James Colston, who set up a travel agency with Manfrini, said on Instagram: “Even with the brave efforts of her partner, local resort staff and doctors, Giulia couldn’t be saved.”

Manfrini was a well-loved surfer and former snowboarder who co-founded a travel agency AWAVE Travel, living out her dream of combining her passion for surfing and travel.

The swordfish “unexpectedly jumped towards Manfrini and pierced her chest”, said Lahmudin Siregar, acting head of the Mentawai Islands’ Disaster Management Agency. “The information we received from the Head of Southwest Siberut District was that an accident occurred with an Italian citizen while surfing,” Mr Siregar told news agency Antara.

The swordfish left a two-inch deep wound and although Manfrini was rushed to a nearby clinic, she died shortly after.

Mr Colston called it “a freak accident” and said that “we believe she died doing what she loved, in a place that she loved”.

“Giulia was the lifeblood of this company and her infectious enthusiasm for surf, snow and life will be remembered by all that came in contact with her,” he said.

The news of her sudden death has left her 22,000 Instagram followers heartbroken, where she often shared her surfing adventures. Tributes poured in from her colleagues and Fabio Giulivi, the mayor of her hometown, Venaria Reale.

Mr Giulivi said: “The news of her death has left us shocked and makes us feel powerless in front of the tragedy that took her life so prematurely.”

One of her fans on Instagram wrote: “You surfed life and travelled the world doing what you loved most. Live enjoying life to the fullest and die doing what you love most.”

Manfrini had also earned the nickname “Surf Frother” from her fellow surfers for her energy and enthusiasm on the waters.

Her death follows another tragedy in the surfing community just a month earlier. In late September, surfer Jorge Alvarado died from a fatal head injury while surfing in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Fossil tracks reveal new ways dinosaurs used wings

Scientists uncovered strange fossil footprints of a tiny bird-sized feathered dinosaur in South Korea, a discovery that could shed new light on the origin of flight.

The dinosaur, named Dromaeosauriformipes rarus, was a “dinky” two-toed raptor about the size of a modern sparrow, scientists from the University of Maryland in the US said.

The scientists were perplexed by the fossil footprints, which indicated that the dinosaur had giant long strides. “These tracks were a puzzle because their footprints are so tiny but they’re so far apart,” palaeontologist Thomas Holtz, who was part of the team that made the discovery, said.

The discovery was detailed in the journal PNAS.

The dinosaur did not merely run on land but used a strange mechanism that likely paved the way for flight as seen in modern birds.

There is evidence that the dinosaur flapped its feathered arms to achieve lift, allowing it to travel faster than if it had relied solely on the strength of its legs.

This form of movement, called “flap running”, was somewhere between running and flying and provided the dinosaur with enough force to lift off the ground in bursts, the study noted.

While the force from the movement would have enabled the dinosaur, an ancestor of modern birds, to likely run up a tree, it fell short of full-powered flight, scientists said.

“We can now move past the debate about whether pre-avian dinosaurs used their arms to help them move before flight evolved and start to uncover missing details such as which species had these abilities and when and to what extent they were developed,” Michael Pittman, another author of the study, said.

The researchers initially suspected the fossil footprints could have been made by a dinosaur with long, stilt-like legs akin to a “a Dr Seuss character”.

They also tested the theory that the animal could have just been “extremely fast”.

After considering the dinosaur’s hip height, they estimated that the speed needed to achieve the long strides would be about 10.5 metres per second.

This is more than the speed of any living running animal, including ostrich and cheetah, making it “highly improbable” the footprints were left by any of them, the researchers said.

They concluded that the trackway was produced at lower speeds with the dinosaur elongating its stride length using the force generated by the flapping of its feathered arms.

The unique footprints, scientists said, were left “in the midst” of the dinosaur taking off or landing.

“Thus the origin of flight may not be a simply binary of ‘can or cannot’ but a spectrum,” the study said.

“It is kind of like when a plane is coming down and bounces a little bit on the runway before slowing down,” Dr Holtz explained.

The latest research could inspire a closer look at similar dinosaur trackways in Bolivia or Madagascar or Australia. “There’s no reason to suspect these trackways were only in East Asia during the early Cretaceous, so we are hoping that people will look at their footprint slabs and find something else,” Dr Holtz said.

Second Australian teen denies murdering British woman during break-in

A second teenager accused of fatally stabbing a British woman during a home invasion in Australia has pleaded not guilty to murder.

Two teenage boys allegedly broke into the North Lakes, Queensland, house of Emma Lovell, 41, and stabbed her to death on Boxing Day holiday in 2022. The duo allegedly attacked Lovell and her husband when confronted.

In a judge-only trial, it was acknowledged that the second defendant, who was 17 then, did not personally commit any acts of violence, according to a report by ABC Australia.

The youth, whose identity is protected by law, also pleaded not guilty to charges of armed break-in, malicious acts and assault resulting in harm to the husband, who was reportedly kicked and stabbed in the back, according to Nine News.

Judge Michael Copley will consider whether the teenager shared a common intent to inflict harm.

The other teen admitted to the murder in March this year and was given a 14-year prison sentence.

The murder of the British woman was a “particularly heinous” crime, justice Tom Sullivan said at the time of the sentencing.

“They were ordinary citizens enjoying their family life in their home where they were entitled to feel safe. What happened… violated that entirely,” he said.

Lovell and her husband migrated from Suffolk to Brisbane with their daughters in 2011.

The stabbing took place outside their home and was captured on the family’s CCTV. The video was played in the courtroom to a gallery of people including Lovell’s two daughters, her husband and others.

The court was told that the couple were woken up by their dogs barking in their home in the suburb of North Lakes about 45km north of Brisbane. They went outside in the garden where Lovell was stabbed in the heart with an 11.5cm knife.

Police arrived on the scene to find her teenage daughters crying and calling for help before medics performed open heart surgery on the front lawn of her home.

Lovell died shortly after she was taken to hospital.

Senator Lidia Thorpe shares beheaded King Charles cartoon on Instagram

An Australian senator who confronted King Charles in parliament has shared a cartoon showing the monarch beheaded on social media.

Lidia Thorpe, 51, an outspoken advocate for Indigenous rights, shouted at the King in a fiery address during his royal reception in Great Hall of Parliament House on Monday.

She approached the stage shouting “you are not my king” and accusing the King of “committing genocide against our people”, as she urged him to negotiate treaty between Australia‘s First Nations and its government.

After her protest, the independent politician took to social media to further reiterate her position, sharing a cartoon showing a beheaded King Charles to her Instagram story.

The original post, shared by artist Matt Chun, was captioned with Thorpe’s words she directed at the King earlier on Monday: “You are not our king. You are not sovereign.”

It also featured a video of her confrontation with the King in Canberra, in which she said: “This is not your country.”

You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us – our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people,” she added.

“You are not our king, you are not sovereign… You destroyed our land.”

She was eventually stopped from approaching the King, who spoke quietly to Mr Albanese on the podium but otherwise appeared unfazed. Ms Thorpe was then escorted out of the chamber and she left yelling: “F*** the colony.”

Ms Thorpe, an Indigenous woman from Victoria, has long advocated for a treaty between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians to recognise their autonomy and set right historical wrongs.

She later explained her comments as she told Sky News: “There’s thousands of massacre sites in this country from invasion and someone needs to answer for it. He is the successor then he needs to answer.”

She went on to say: “We are the real sovereigns in the country. The King is not our sovereign. The King lives in your country [the UK]. He’s from your country he can’t be our King.

“I have the support of Aboriginal people around this country. I have the support from my grandmother, I have the support from elders around the country.”

She also claimed that the “bones and skulls” of Aboriginal people are still in possession of the royal family: “We have our bones and our skulls still in his possession, or in his family’s possession. We want that back.

“We want our land back and we want your King to take some leadership and sit at the table and discuss a treaty with us.”

The King and Queen have faced several low-ley protests during their trip to the former British colony where the King still serves as head of state. Australia remains the only Commonwealth country without a treaty with its Indigenous people.

Demonstrators have displayed banners with the word “decolonise” at several events since the royal couple arrived on Friday.

It is understood the King was unruffled and did not let the outburst overshadow what the royal party viewed as a positive day in the Australian capital.

The royal couple were earlier welcomed at Canberra airport with a traditional smoking ceremony where guests wafted burning eucalyptus over themselves, chosen for its health benefits in light of the King’s ongoing cancer treatment.

They commemorated Australia’s war dead at the national memorial, laying floral tributes as hundreds of well-wishers turned out to see the couple – including an alpaca who sneezed in front of the King.

China builds the world’s most powerful magnet

Scientists in China have built the world’s most powerful magnet, capable of producing a magnetic field 800,000 stronger than Earth’s.

After four years of development, a team from the Chinese Academy of Science’s Hefei Institutes of Physical Science achieved a steady magnetic field of 42.02 tesla for its resistive magnet.

The new world record beat the previous record of 41.4 tesla that was set by researchers at the US National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Florida in 2017.

The latest record-breaking magnet could lead to unexpected scientific breakthroughs, according to the researchers who developed it, including the observation of new quantum phenomena.

Its massive power has the potential to offer new insights in fields ranging from chemistry and physics, to material and life science, with its creators making it available to international users.

In recent decades there have been more than 10 Nobel prizes awarded to scientific discoveries achieved using a high magnetic field.

One key area for research has been in quantum phase transitions, which help explain the behaviour of electrons under extreme conditions. A better understanding of this field can lead to the development of improved semiconductors that are used in everything from smartphones to solar panels.

The amount of electricity required to produce ever stronger magnetic fields means that one of the key challenges to overcome with a magnet this powerful is the amount of heat it produces.

The 42 tesla resistive magnet requires 32.3 megawatts of electricity to produce the record-breaking field, and is the size of a small room in order to help prevent overheating.

“You’ve got to have a very good science case to justify that resource,” said Alexander Eaton, a condensed-matter physicist at the University of Cambridge, who was not involved in the latest breakthrough. “Every extra tesla is exponentially better than the last.”