TOWNSVILLE, Australia, June 27 (UPI) -- Australian scientists have discovered fish use the threat of punishment to maintain stability in their social order.

TOWNSVILLE, Australia, March 29 (UPI) -- A jellyfish no bigger than a thumbnail but packing a poisonous punch ground to a halt the filming of a Hollywood movie on Australia's touristy Fraser Island.

SYDNEY, March 20 (UPI) -- A historian argues that Portuguese navigators sailed along Australia's east coast in the early 16th century and charted it.

CHICAGO, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- A U.S.-led study suggests the Earth's biggest mass extinction about 250 million years ago changed the ecology of the oceans. Researchers say the event wiped out an estimated 95 percent of marine species and 70 percent of land species.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Dec. 7 (UPI) -- U.S. marine scientists say size and shape may predict the survival of corals around the world during the coming years of increased ocean turbulence.

TOWNSVILLE, Australia, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- Australian scientists say coral reef shark populations on the Great Barrier Reef are in a catastrophic collapse.

TOWNSVILLE, Australia, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- Researchers said the re-introduction of the dingo -- Australia's leading natural predator -- could improve the survival rate of species it often attacks.

UPI almanac for Friday, Oct. 27, 2006.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- New Zealand botanists have found Cook's scurvy grass, a species that has come close to extinction, growing lavishly on a small offshore island.