US MARINES

RP from QRes#8690

Teamwork makes the Dream work.

Marines with @MrfDarwin participate in Exercise Carabaroo, Shoalwater Bay Training Area, Queensland, Australia.

https://t.co/cbuTQcq1Ao

Resignations in the Region

RP from QRes#8693

Australia's Bank of Queensland says CFO Matt Baxby to resign

https://www.reuters.com/article/boq-cfo/australias-bank-of-queensland-says-cfo-matt-baxby-to-resign-idUSL4N23Q4I1

John Setka's Victorian CFMEU deputy Shaun Reardon resigns over 'irreconcilable differences'

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-20/john-setka-cfmeu-vic-deputy-shaun-reardon-resigns/11227680

Air New Zealand boss Luxon resigns, could pursue politics

https://www-1.thenewstribune.com/news/business/article231715418.html

Jakarta official submits resignation

https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2019/06/19/jakarta-official-submits-resignation.html

More bait for gold bugs

RP from QRes#8694

2018-11

==‘Just bring the gold back’: RBA responds as conspiracy theories swirl around Australia’s ‘missing’ gold

Australia owns 80 tonnes of gold worth $4.4 billion but it’s not even in the country — and the internet is rife with conspiracy theories.==

Is Australia’s gold really being secretly melted down and sold to the Chinese?

If you’re into conspiracy theories, talk of impending global economic collapse and have a deep distrust of central banks, you may have come across this one.

It goes like this. Most people would be aware that the Reserve Bank of Australia, like all central banks around the world, holds a portion of the country’s reserve assets in gold.

What you may not know, because it was only made public in December 2012, is that 99.9 per cent of Australia’s $4.4 billion worth is actually held by the Bank of England.

Of that gold, 11 tonnes is “leased” out to earn interest — it brought in around $700,000 last year — while the other 69 tonnes is sitting in a vault in London. Or is it?

“There are all sorts of conspiracy theories and rumours in the gold market as to what’s going on,” said economist John Adams, who has been on a crusade to find Australia’s “missing gold” in a series of videos with Digital Finance Analytics founder Martin North.

The crux of the conspiracy theory, promoted by the likes of Swiss gold trader Egon von Greyerz, is that China, India and other eastern countries are accumulating more gold than can be explained by mining production.

He believes much of it is actually western central banks “covertly disposing” of their gold, or otherwise leasing it to China and India through bullion banks which then “issue an IOU only backed by paper since the physical will never return from Asia”.

“Since 2008 just China and India have accumulated 26,000 tonnes of gold,” Mr von Greyerz wrote recently. “That is a remarkable figure and virtually the total mine production for that period.”

An audit of Australia’s gold holdings was conducted in 2013, but a freedom of information request for the findings and the final report was denied as providing the documents “would, or could reasonably be expected to, cause damage to” the relationship between the RBA and the BoE.

https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/just-bring-the-gold-back-rba-responds-as-conspiracy-theories-swirl-around-australias-missing-gold/news-story/c0fe71e8bd40a3440a58febb80df8da3

Horns are growing on young people's skulls. Phone use is to blame, research suggests.

RP from QRes#8698

Mobile technology has transformed the way we live - how we read, work, communicate, shop and date. But we already know this.

What we have not yet grasped is the way the tiny machines in front of us are remolding our skeletons, possibly altering not just the behaviors we exhibit but the bodies we inhabit.

New research in biomechanics suggests that young people are developing hornlike spikes at the back of their skulls - bone spurs caused by the forward tilt of the head, which shifts weight from the spine to the muscles at the back of the head, causing bone growth in the connecting tendons and ligaments. The weight transfer that causes the buildup can be compared to the way the skin thickens into a callus as a response to pressure or abrasion.

The result is a hook or hornlike feature jutting out from the skull, just above the neck.

In academic papers, a pair of researchers at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, argues that the prevalence of the bone growth in younger adults points to shifting body posture brought about by the use of modern technology. They say smartphones and other handheld devices are contorting the human form, requiring users to bend their heads forward to make sense of what's happening on the miniature screens.

The researchers said their discovery marks the first documentation of a physiological or skeletal adaptation to the penetration of advanced technology into everyday life.

Health experts warn of "text neck," and doctors have begun treating "texting thumb," which is not a clearly defined condition but bears resemblance to carpal tunnel syndrome. But prior research has not linked phone use to bone-deep changes in the body.

"An important question is what the future holds for the young adult populations in our study, when development of a degenerative process is evident in such an early stage of their lives?" ask the authors in their most recent paper, published in Nature Research's peer-reviewed, open access Scientific Reports. The study came out last year but has received fresh attention following the publication last week of a BBC story that considers, "How modern life is transforming the human skeleton."

Since then, the unusual formations have captured the attention of Australian media, and have variously been dubbed "head horns," "phone bones," "spikes" or "weird bumps."

Each is a fitting description, said David Shahar, the paper's first author, a chiropractor who recently completed a PhD in biomechanics at Sunshine Coast.

"That is up to anyone's imagination," he told The Washington Post. "You may say it looks like a bird's beak, a horn, a hook."

However it is designated, Shahar said, the formation is a sign of a serious deformity in posture that can cause chronic headaches and pain in the upper back and neck.

Part of what was striking about their findings, he said, was the size of the bone spurs, which are thought to be large if they measure 3 or 5 millimeters in length. An outgrowth was factored in to their research only if it measured 10 millimeters, or about two-fifths of an inch.

The danger is not the head horn itself, said Mark Sayers, an associate professor of biomechanics at Sunshine Coast who served as Shahar's supervisor and co-author. Rather, the formation is a "portent of something nasty going on elsewhere, a sign that the head and neck are not in the proper configuration," he told The Washington Post.

Their work began about three years ago with a pile of neck X-rays taken in Queensland. The images captured part of the skull, including the area where the bony projections, called enthesophytes, form at the back of the head.

https://www.nwherald.com/2019/06/20/horns-are-growing-on-young-peoples-skulls-phone-use-is-to-blame-research-suggests/awh3g7i/