I’ve just seen an on-line report that some parents overseas have been organising ‘swine flu parties’ (more than just your average sleepover), deliberately exposing their kids to the virus in the belief that this will give them immunity to a future, more virulent strain. Something like the ‘measles/chickenpox parties’ which have also received some adverse […]
Continue readingMonth: June 2009
can we clone it? yes we can! but should we?
I began thinking about this post when I read a National Geographic article about the possibility of cloning a woolly mammoth. (The print version of the magazine is always good reading, & the on-line version has heaps of extra stuff.) But, just because this now seems to be on the verge of being possible, does […]
Continue readingamazing aye-ayes
I’m not sure how much time you spend on the ‘non-human’ primates these days; we got quite a bit of content in that area when I was a student, but I do know that things have changed! Anyway, lemurs (prosimians) are part of that group. And one that’s always fascinated me is the aye-aye – […]
Continue readingthe TimeTree of Life
Oh, now this is really cool. There’s a new site available that lets you find out the divergence times for a whole lot of different species (anything that there is DNA sequence data available for, really – it’s based on published data & gives the references along with results). It’s called Time Tree, & it […]
Continue readingpermit me a small piece of pedantry
But I simply couldn’t resist this particular headline from the Royal Society’s news bulletin. (Not the RS’s doing, they simply select science-y headlines & send them round): Museum asks, what is greatest invention? Science Museum in London choses the steam engine, the X-ray machine, the electric telegraph, the DNA double helix, Stephenson’s Rocket train, the Apollo 10 […]
Continue readinga fieldays update…
… and a VERY happy me. Not to mention the rest of our team. Because – – we won ‘Best Premier Feature Site 2009′ at Fieldays 🙂 And it’s been a very busy few days, hence my lack of anything substantial for you to really get your teeth into. But I promise, this will be rectified […]
Continue readingscience on the farm: “my land, our environment”
It’s Fieldays time again (my excuse for not writing something ‘solid’!). This time round the theme is ‘my land, our environment’. Many of my colleagues are doing work on issues directly related to this theme – & they have an international reputation for the excellence of what they do. Anyway, the challenge was to represent some […]
Continue readinga whole lot more on ‘ida’
I’ve written a couple of posts on ‘Ida’ (Darwinius massillae) – the 47-million-years-old fossil primate which has been the focus of so much media hoop-la. For those of you who would like to read more widely about this discovery, Laelaps has hosted a blog carnival where he’s brought together links to some great writing by […]
Continue readingwhy science outreach is important
I talk and write quite a bit about why science outreach is important, and it’s always nice to hear what someone else has to say on this issue. So I was really pleased to find this commentary by Lawrence Kraus (thank you to Laelaps). Lawrence’s post is on a rather cool new site called the […]
Continue readingfluoridation – another issue that never seems to go away
Back in 2006 Hamilton held a referendum on the issue of whether or not the city’s water supply should continue to be fluoridated. (We even held a Cafe Scientifique about it.) At that time 38% of eligible voters returned voting papers, & 70% of those voters wanted fluoride retained in our water. So I had […]
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