From time to time the media present us with reports of ‘miracles’: the most recent is probably that of the 9-year-old Dutch boy who was the sole survivor of a plane crash in Libya. Frankly I would have thought it more miraculous if everyone on board had survived… But anyway, ‘miracles’ are often presented in […]
Continue readingMonth: May 2010
female genital mutilation – hideous whichever way you look at it
I’ve just been sent through an article from an Australian news site, which suggests that the Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetrics will next month be discussing the possibility of doctors offering ‘ritual nick’ – a form of female genital mutilation that entails a small incision on the clitoris. (In this they seem to […]
Continue readingslightly more than half of everything i am is thanks to you (thanks, mum)
For teachers (& students): a biologist’s song for Mother’s Day. (Yes, I know it’s late, but my wonderful tutor just found the video!) It makes the point that, thanks to cytoplasmic inheritance & the nature of what goes on in the womb, slightly more than half of every mammal is due to the mother: we’re […]
Continue readingon craig venter & his new life form
There’s been a lot of hype – & some overwrought responses – surrounding the announcement that Craig Venter & his research team have ‘created’ a novel life form (a mycobacterium with a completely artificial genome). I wasn’t going to weigh into it. And I’m still not – but I am going to reproduce in full […]
Continue readingsequencing the neandertal genome
I’ve had this one in my ‘must write about’ file for a little while: in the May 7th edition of Science, a large research team announced that they’d produced a draft sequence of Neandertal DNA (Green et al. 2010). Using DNA from 3 individual Neadertals, the multi-institutional team managed to decipher more than 4 billion nucleotides from […]
Continue readingflashes in the eye
I’ve just spent an interesting hour down at my optometrist’s rooms, having my eyes looked into. And learning a whole lot of new stuff.
Continue readinglet it grow, let it grow…
The tutor running our first-year labs does a wonderful job of seeking out quirky little video clips that she can use to illustrate a particular point & pique her students’ interest. But I think I might have beaten her to this one (courtesy as usual of PZ): a time-lapse sequence of germination & growth of maize. […]
Continue readingmilk & health: there aren’t always two (equal) sides to a story
I had another learning experience down at the gym this afternoon. There I was, happily pedalling away on the exercycle (I believe in varying my cardio, otherwise it gets boring!) & reading a fitness magazine (what else?) when I came across an article on whether or not drinking/eating dairy products is bad for you.
Continue readinghelping students engage with maths & physics
OK, not biology 🙂 But what follows could equally well apply to teaching problem-solving in any of the sciences.
Continue readingknowledge vs certainty
From time to time (well, OK, quite often!) I write something about the nature of science. One of the things that I think is often misunderstood is that science is not about certainty, it’s about knowledge. Because we are constantly adding to our understanding of how the world works, we’re never 100% certain about our […]
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