Hawke’s Bay Airport rainfall was 200mm this month, 1000mm this year.

Police have launched a murder investigation following the death of a 17-month-old boy in Adelaide.

Police said the boy, named Ronan, was unconscious and in a critical condition when he was taken to the Women's and Children's Hospital at about 6pm on June 7.

Ronan had suffered head and other injuries and died two days later.

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Detective Inspector Mark McEachern said Ronan's injuries are believed to have been caused by an assault.

"In the two days before Ronan was taken to hospital he was being cared for by friends who are known to his parents, at an address in Ferguson Street, Glenelg North," McEachern said.

"When he was returned to his father's house at Ottoway at 4pm on the Wednesday he was unable to be roused and an ambulance was called."

Police are asking if anyone heard or saw anything involving a young child in Ferguson Street on the afternoon of June 7.

This includes anyone that may have dash cam footage in Ferguson Street that afternoon.

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Experts have weighed in on the discovery, saying the funds should have been kept safe.

Drone footage has captured a shiver of tiger sharks descending on a whale carcass in a fierce feeding frenzy in Queensland, prompting authorities to issue a warning for the area.

The video was filmed by marine park rangers, off Hervey Bay on Sunday, and shows "about 50 sharks" making a meal of the humpback whale.

The Department of Environment and Science (DES) today issued a statement, reminding people to steer clear of both stranded or deceased marine animals.

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"Where there are dead whales, there are likely sharks nearby and this vision clearly shows why this is the case," Daniel Clifton, a senior ranger, said.

"That is why we ask people to keep their distance from dead whales that wash up near the shore."

Clifton said there's a risk of disease from deceased or stranded animals.

"Marine animals can also carry zoonotic diseases, so you should never touch them," he said.

"The QPWS and local councils have highly trained experts ready to deploy to whale strandings, and it is best to wait for the experts to attend and assist during stranding events."

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The comments come as a population of around 40,000- 50,000 humpback whales make their annual migration from Antarctica to warmer, tropical waters.

As the population of whales continue to grow, authorities say they expect the number of animals to die from natural causes off the coast to also increase. 

The dead humpback filmed on Sunday is the fifth whale to die in Wide Bay waters in the past week.

Its remains have been anchored to a secure spot to allow the feeding and breakdown of the carcass to continue.

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"The death of one whale, although sad, creates a life source for many other scavenging animals including fish, sharks and other marine life," Clifton said.

"We're fortunate here in the Great Sandy Marine Park that we can experience these natural processes first-hand."

Anyone who sights stranded marine life, including whales, are urged to report the incident immediately to DES on 1300 130 372, or to the relevant council.

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You may be interested (or possibly horrified) to discover you ingest and inhale thousands of tiny life forms on a daily basis.

The air and surfaces around you are home to multitudes of bacteria, fungi, viruses, mites, algae and protozoa.

Your skin isn't much better, with a complex ecosystem of organisms called commensals which aren't necessarily good or bad, but will shift in their composition depending on where you live, the products you use and the pets you have.

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Most of these creatures are generally undetectable due to their microscopic size and low concentrations. But when they find a niche they can exploit, you might notice them by their smell, or the appearance of unwanted staining and colour changes.

A lot of this fungal growth is what we call mould.

We've all been disappointed in ourselves at one time or another, lifting a neglected orange out of the fruit bowl to discover the bottom half is covered in a velvety blue-green growth.

But what do the myriad colours that appear on our stuff tell us about the world we try not to think about?

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Black

Often black staining is quite a disturbing occurrence. The concept of toxic black mould is one many people have become aware of due to flood impacts.

A quick online search will likely terrify you, but not all black discolouration is due to the same organisms, and almost none of it will outright cause you harm.

Stachybotrys is the one known as toxic black mould. It often turns up on building materials that have been wet for a long time.

When the grout in your shower turns black though, that's a different fungus called Aureobasidium. It's slimy, sticky and somewhere between a filamentous mould, which grows threadlike roots through whatever it's eating, and a yeast, which prefer a free-floating, single-celled style of life.

Bleaching will often kill Aureobasidium, but the dark pigmentation will likely hang around – harmlessly, but stubbornly.

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Blue

That blue orange I mentioned before, you can thank Penicillium for that. The organism that gives us blue cheese and the antibiotic penicillin is also responsible for producing a dense growth of mould that almost looks like smoke when disturbed, spreading millions of spores onto the rest of your fruit bowl.

Penicillium is a big group with hundreds of species, ranging from recognised pathogens to species yet to be named.

However, the ones that turn up in our homes are generally the same "weed" species that simply cause food spoilage or grow in soil.

Yellow and orange

We often think of fungi as organisms that thrive in the dark, but that's not always true. In fact, some need exposure to light – and ultraviolet (UV) light in particular – to complete their life cycle.

Many plant pathogens use UV light exposure as a trigger to produce their spores, and then protect their DNA by hiding it behind melanin-containing shells.

Stemphylium and Epicoccum turn up in our homes from time to time, often hitching a ride on natural fibres such as jute, hemp and hessian.

They produce a spectrum of staining that can often turn damp items yellow, brown or orange.

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Green

We're all fairly familiar with the green spots that turn up on mouldy bread, cake and other food items. Often we try to convince ourselves if we just cut off the bad bit, we can still salvage lunch.

Sadly that's not the case, as the roots of the fungi – collectively called mycelium – spread through the food, digesting and collecting sufficient nutrients to pop out a series of tiny fruiting bodies which produce the coloured spores you see.

The green tuft is often from a group of fungi called Aspergillus. Under the microscope, they look rather like the puffy top of a dandelion gone to seed.

Like Penicillium, Aspergillus is another big fungal group with lots of species that turn up virtually in every environment. Some are heat tolerant, some love acid and some will happily produce spores that stay airborne for days to months at a time.

In the green gang is also a fungus called Trichoderma, which is Latin for "hairy skin". Trichoderma produces masses of forest-green, spherical spores which tend to grow on wet cardboard or dirty carpet.

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Pink, purple and red

There are plenty to speak of in this category. And there is also a common bacterium that makes the list.

Neurospora, also known as the red bread mould, is one of the most studied fungi in scientific literature. It's another common, non-hazardous one that has been used as a model organism to observe fungal genetics, evolution and growth.

Fusarium is less common indoors, being an important crop pathogen, but will sometimes turn spoiled rice purple. It also occasionally turns up on wet cement sheet, causing splotchy violet patches.

Fusarium makes large, sticky, moon-shaped spores that have evolved to spread by rain splashes and hang onto plants. However, it is fairly bad at getting airborne and so doesn't tend to spread very far from where it's growing.

Finally in this category: that pink scum that turns up around bathroom taps or in the shower.

It's actually a bacterium called Serratia. It will happily chew up the soap scum residue left over in bathrooms, and has been shown to survive in liquid soaps and handwash.

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White

When fungi were first classified and were eventually given their own phylogenetic kingdom, there were lots of wonderful and not strictly categorical ways we tried to split them up.

One of these was hyaline and non-hyaline, essentially referring to transparent and coloured, respectively.

One of the interesting non-pigmented moulds you may well catch sight of is a thing called Isaria farinosa ("farinosa" being Latin for "floury").

This fungus is a parasite of some moths and cicadas and is visible as brilliant white, tree-shaped growths on their unfortunate hosts.

So when you notice the world around you changing colour, you can marvel with your newfound knowledge at the microscopic wonders that live complex lives alongside yours.

Then maybe clean it up, and give the fruit bowl a wash.

This article was written by Michael Taylor, adjunct academic at Flinders University, and is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Jobs that involve being paid to go on holiday are up for grabs.

The Royal Automobile Association's Travel arm is unable to keep up with demand in South Australia.

This year is on track to see double the number of travel bookings made in the year before the pandemic hit.

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With double the workload, it needs to double its workforce and is seeking an additional 50 travel experts to join the team.

The job involves getting paid to organise customers' holidays and sometimes even being paid to holiday yourself.

Clare Dos Santos has been to multiple places on familiarisation trips and says it's "the best job".

"The role has taken me most recently to Alaska, done the Indian Pacific, lots of different cruises out of Australia, I've done Amsterdam to Budapest river cruising, as well as through the Caribbean, it even took me to Africa just before COVID," she said.

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"It's such a big, important part of the job because to be able to experience it firsthand means you're able to sell it to clients."

While candidates with 12 months of travel experience are preferred, anyone with a love of travel is encouraged to apply.

Applications can be made on the RAA website.

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Police advise motorists to avoid Ocean Beach Rd, Marine Parade and Tweed St.

Police are investigating after a person was caught on camera breaching the roof hatch of a Sydney public bus while it was in motion.

A photo, captured by a concerned member of the public and posted to Facebook, appears to show what looks to be a young male protruding from the top of the bus, as it turned a corner along the Bilgola Bends at Avalon yesterday.

The area, known for its long, winding roads has hosted a number of serious crashes over the years.

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Police say they have been made aware of the incident and are now conducting an investigation.

They urge anyone with dashcam footage or further information to make make themselves known to detectives. 

The incident, which was reported at 5.45pm on Sunday, occurred while the male was riding the 199 bus. 

It comes following a string of recent incidents involving busses across the state.

"The safety and security of our customers is paramount to Transport for NSW. We do not condone reckless and dangerous behaviour," a Transport for NSW spokesperson said.

"NSW Police are investigating this incident and Keolis Downer, the operator of the bus, is assisting police with their investigation."

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Police say Korrey Whyman was shot inside a moving vehicle on a highway near Rotorua.

It was meant to be the start of an exciting new chapter in Simon Peckitt and Felicity Stewart's lives but instead their worlds were torn apart.

The couple and their two young daughters had spent the weekend house-hunting in central Victoria after deciding on a tree-change.

But as the family drove back to Melbourne on the Calder Freeway on December 6, 2021, a 43-tonne semitrailer crashed into the back of their Volkswagen.

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Two-year-old Harriett, seated in the back seat, was killed instantly.

"She had the world in front of her," Stewart told the County Court.

"She was such a kind soul and brought so much joy to her parents, her sister and her wider family.

"It's terribly unfair that her life was cut so terribly short."

The driver of the semitrailer, Matthew John Livingston, on Monday pleaded guilty to culpable driving causing Harriett's death.

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He also admitted negligent driving causing serious injury to Peckitt and Stewart, as well as endangering 10 other people in the vicinity of the crash.

The court was told in the 400m before the crash site, there were several signs telling drivers to slow to 40km/h because of roadworks.

Livingston didn't hit the brakes until 0.91 seconds before the collision, striking the almost stationary Volkswagen at 86km/h.

The semitrailer then veered to the right, hitting a Toyota Hilux which rolled and trapped another driver for about two hours.

Three other cars were struck either by the Volkswagen or the Hilux, while several other motorists were forced to move their cars off the road to avoid being hit.

Stewart had to be airlifted to hospital where she spent several months undergoing treatment for a catastrophic brain injury and other fractures.

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She had post-traumatic amnesia for weeks after the crash and doctors advised her family not to tell her about Harriett's death until the end of January 2022.

Peckitt also suffered skull fractures and bleeding in the brain, with the injuries continuing to affect him to this day.

"I woke up in the ICU in a state of delirium, completely unaware of the pain and suffering to come," he told the court.

"It's a sad reflection that the first funeral I attended was that of my daughter."

Stewart also spoke of her youngest child Jemima, who at 12 months old was trapped next to her dead sister with her two parents unconscious in the front seat.

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"Jemima will never know what it's like to have an older sister … she will not have her best mate beside her," Stewart read to the court.

"She will carry this burden with her for the rest of her days."

Prosecutor Grant Hayward told the court Livingston had been sleep deprived, with other motorists seeing him swerve between lanes in the lead-up to the crash.

But the defence is disputing that the 44-year-old was fatigued before the collision.

The plea hearing before Judge Michael Tinney continues.

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