Year in events: Top 10 news stories of 2012
These stories made up our most popular news headlines for 2012:
1. Mass spider webs cover flood-affected areas
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Spiders are weaving mass webs after being forced to higher ground in the wake of the NSW floods.
2. Australians awarded top photography prizes
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Photographs from two Australians have been named winners in the prestigious Loupe Awards for 2011.
3. Broken Hill hosts giant LEGO garden
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LEGO celebrates its 50th anniversary with a display of giant pine trees and flower clumps in outback NSW.
4. Plants can talk to each other
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Plants are known to respond to light, but they can respond to – and produce – sounds as well, new research says.
5. New Gouldian finches found in Kimberley
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Conservationists in WA’s Dampier Peninsula have discovered a breeding population of the rare Gouldian finch.
6. Darwin boy’s find could rewrite history
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A 500-year-old Portuguese gun has been found on an NT beach, and may suggest Europeans arrived earlier than thought.
7. Clouds part for 2012 solar eclipse in Queensland
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The clouds in far-north Queensland parted just in time for a view of the total solar eclipse.
8. Napoleon’s fascination with Australia revealed
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Napoleon Bonaparte, French Emperor and European conqueror, had a fondness for Australia, a new exhibition reveals.
9. Black hole caught swallowing red giant star
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A supermassive black hole has been caught in the act of swallowing up a red giant star.
10. Huge national park declared in Northern Territory
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Remote Limmen NP, on the Gulf of Carpentaria, has stunning sandstone formations, rare species and wild river systems.
