INTRODUCTION The residents of many Australian rural and remote communities do not have the essential infrastructure and services required to support healthy living conditions and community members choosing healthy lifestyle options. Improving these social determinants of health is seen to offer real opportunities to improve health among such disadvantaged populations. In this paper, we describe...

The study, commissioned by the Australian Nursing Council Inc. (ANCI), sought to develop an approach to the maintenance of continuing competence in nursing broadly acceptable to nurses in all States and Territories and included the conduct of a postal survey of registered nurses (RNs) throughout Australia. An options booklet and accompanying questionnaire were posted to a random sample of 2 % o...

The new species Chelodina (Chelodina) murrayi is described from the late Miocene Alcoota Local Fauna of central Australia, in the Northern Territory. The new species is based on shell fragments and can be diagnosed by a ventrally reflexed anterior margin of the plastron, a ventrally narrowed cervical scute and strongly dorsally curved margins of the carapace extending from approximately periphe...

In early April 1998, the Centre for Disease Control in Darwin was notified of a possible case of dengue which appeared to have been acquired in the Northern Territory. Because dengue is not endemic to the Northern Territory, locally acquired infection has significant public health implications, particularly for vector identification and control to limit the spread of infection. Dengue IgM serol...

There is no morphological identification key to satisfactorily distinguish between the larvae of Aedes (Stegomyia) species with special consideration to endemic and exotic species in Australia. Difficulty in differentiation between exotic Aedes (Stegomyia) albopictus (Skuse) and Aedes (Stegomyia) scutellaris Walker has been described previously. Aedes (Stegomyia) larvae were collected during an...

During 1948, scientists (an anthropologist, a nutritionist and a plant ecologist) of the American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land observed the daily activities of families of nomadic Aborigines in the monsoonal climate of Groote Eylandt, Bickerton Island, Port Bradshaw, Yirrkala and Oenpelli, Northern Territory. The close relationship between the hunter-gatherers and the marine ...

The distribution of antilopine wallaroo, Macropus antilopinus, is marked by a break in the species' range between Queensland and the Northern Territory, coinciding with the Carpentarian barrier. Previous work on M. antilopinus revealed limited genetic differentiation between the Northern Territory and Queensland M. antilopinus populations across this barrier. The study also identified a number ...

We describe here a new method for highly efficient detection of microRNAs by northern blot analysis using LNA (locked nucleic acid)-modified oligonucleotides. In order to exploit the improved hybridization properties of LNA with their target RNA molecules, we designed several LNA-modified oligonucleotide probes for detection of different microRNAs in animals and plants. By modifying DNA oligonu...

Identification and characterization of near-neighbor species are critical to the development of robust molecular diagnostic tools for biothreat agents. One such agent, Burkholderia pseudomallei, a soil bacterium and the causative agent of melioidosis, is lacking in this area because of its genomic diversity and widespread geographic distribution. The Burkholderia genus contains over 60 species ...

There are 1474 fish species now known from the Northern Territory, in 195 families, with a number of these species still undescribed. The 1474 species include 120 new records for the NT and three for Australia, while nine non-native species exist as small feral populations.The most speciose family is the Gobiidae (gobies), with 150 recognised species, and is the main fish group inhabiting coral...