Received

Conservationists are pleading with the NSW government to halt logging in one of the few remaining strongholds for the endangered greater glider.

Confronting drone footage has been captured by Australian filmmaker Andrew Kaineder, showing what logging by the Forestry Corporation of NSW is doing to the Tallaganda state forest, east of Canberra.

The forest is right next to the protected Tallaganda National Park, which was hit hard in the Black Summer fires.

The flames took out so many mature, hollow trees that experts quickly realised temporary nesting boxes would be needed to help the imperilled species get by.

Mr Kaineder put his drone up at Tallaganda where logging crews have been working their way across state forest, taking down trees adjacent to the national park.

It's what the Forestry Corporation calls selective harvesting but to the filmmaker, who's worked on many nature-focused documentaries, there's little evidence of careful choice.

"When I was driving in, I was welling up pretty much, at just how vast the devastation was. It is shocking," he told AAP.

"It's not clear-felled, but it looks like rubbish. It's vast and it's devastating but the devil's advocate could be like 'oh well, they've left this many trees, and that's all right'.

"If a glider is living in a tree, it doesn't have many options about where to go."

WWF-Australia has long been involved in efforts to boost the glider's chances of escaping extinction and is imploring the NSW government to order an immediate halt to logging in the Tallaganda area.

Conservation scientist Kita Ashman says the loss of core habitat is brutal for a species that's suffered population losses of up to 80 per cent in some areas.

Dr Ashman says the arbitrary boundary between national park and state forest means nothing to gliders and describes it as reckless.

"You've got national park on the west side, and state forest that's subject to logging on the east side ... you can be standing in national park and be on the boundary of a logging coupe.

"I've been working in forests that have gliders in them for a really long time and I've never seen greater glider densities like this anywhere else up the east coast.

"Logging should be halted in Tallaganda state forest."

The Forestry Corporation says selective harvesting is carefully planned to ensure wildlife remains abundant.

That includes the retention of "wildlife habitat and tree retention clumps" to support connectivity between harvested areas, unharvested parts of the state forests and protected areas.

It said its monitoring before logging detected almost 400 greater gliders, showing management of forests and protected areas was supporting populations.

NSW Environment Minister Penny Sharpe did not respond to AAP's questions.

But the Environment Protection Authority said the WWF had lodged a complaint but had not alleged unlawful activity.

"However we will review the operations and will work closely with WWF and FCNSW on the matters raised to ensure appropriate outcomes are achieved," the EPA said.

© AAP 2023

Doctors have pulled a live and wriggling eight-centimetre parasite from an Australian woman's brain after she caught it from a carpet python in an apparent world first.

The 64-year-old woman from southeast NSW was admitted to a local hospital in 2021 after she experienced three weeks of diarrhoea and abdominal pain, then a constant dry cough, a fever and night sweats.

She became depressed and forgetful before a neurosurgeon at Canberra Hospital found an abnormality in her brain's right frontal lobe during an MRI scan in 2022.

When doctors performed brain surgery to investigate, they found the 8cm Ophidascaris robertsi roundworm, which scientists believed was the first to be found in a human.

The roundworms are common to carpet pythons and typically live in the animals' oesophagus and stomach before the parasites' eggs are shed in faeces.

Researchers, who identified the parasite, believed the woman became infected when she collected and cooked a type of native grass called Warrigal greens after she found it beside a lake near her home.

The greens were likely laced with the parasite shed by a python and researchers suspected the woman's other organs - including her lungs and liver - had larvae in them.

"This is the first-ever human case of Ophidascaris to be described in the world," infectious diseases expert and study co-author Sanjaya Senanayake said.

"To our knowledge, this is also the first case to involve the brain of any mammalian species, human or otherwise.

"Normally the larvae are found in small mammals and marsupials, which are eaten by the python, allowing the life cycle to complete itself in the snake."

The discovery highlighted the importance of thoroughly washing foraged foods and the dangers of diseases and infections passing from animals to humans, Dr Senanayake said.

The woman has been out of hospital for months and is living in the community, with infectious disease and brain specialists continuing to monitor her.

"This Ophidascaris infection does not transmit between people, so it won't cause a pandemic like SARS, COVID-19 or Ebola," Dr Senanayake said.

"However, the snake and parasite are found in other parts of the world, so it is likely that other cases will be recognised in coming years in other countries.

"I can't state enough our admiration for this woman who has shown patience and courage through this process."

About 30 infections have emerged globally in the past three decades and about 75 per cent of them were zootonic, meaning they could pass from animals to humans, Dr Senanayake said.

The researchers who worked on the discovery are from the Australian National University, Canberra Health Services, CSIRO, the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney.

Their findings will be published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

© AAP 2023

Queensland leads the nation in advertised salary growth, as the industrial umpire's award wage decision flows through.

The latest research by Seek shows advertised salaries rose by 0.4 per cent in July, slightly higher than the rises across April to June.

Over the year, advertised salaries rose by 4.6 per cent, up from 4.5 per cent in the year to June.

"Advertised salary growth remains solid," Seek senior economist Matt Cowgill said.

"The Fair Work Commission's decision to raise award wages by 5.75 per cent was likely a contributing factor here - but it's notable that the most award-reliant industries, such as hospitality and tourism, didn't see particularly strong growth."

Queensland advertised salaries were up 5.3 per cent over the year, following a growth trend that began in 2021.

The territories are lagging, with 3.7 per cent advertised salary growth in the Australian Capital Territory and 2.5 per cent in the Northern Territory.

The largest rises by industry were in insurance and superannuation (up 9.2 per cent), community services (6.7 per cent) and trades and services (5.9 per cent).

The slowest growth was recorded in government (0.9 per cent year-on-year), continuing a trend of slow public sector growth.

Meanwhile, Reserve Bank deputy governor Michele Bullock will provide some insight into the key economic issue of climate change when she delivers a speech in Canberra on Thursday.

Ms Bullock will take over as head of the central bank after governor Philip Lowe steps down on September 17.

The Intergenerational Report released last week predicted higher temperatures could reduce economic output over the next four decades by up to $423 billion in today's dollars.

© AAP 2023