I’ve written a couple of times about the so-called ‘Miracle Mineral Supplement’, aka MMS. A recent post over on Science-Based Medicine looks at some of the claims made for this stuff, which is simply sodium chlorite, ‘activated’ by being mixed with citrus juice – and at some of the potentially serious side-effects associated with its use. And […]
Continue readingMonth: August 2010
a brief hiatus…
I’ve been out of the office for a couple of days, with other things on my mind. Unfortunately when this happens there’s always a pile of stuff (that needed doing yesterday) waiting on one’s desk. So I’m afraid that I might not be in a position to post anything here for the next couple of […]
Continue readingwhat made me a teacher
This is a re-posting of something I originally wrote for the ‘other blog’ – I thought I’d publish it here too as part of the occasional ruminations by Marcus & me on the subject of science teaching 🙂 Recently I’ve had occasion to reflect on the things that have made me the sort of teacher that […]
Continue readingnorthern rata – first it’s an epiphyte, then it’s not
Last year’s Level 3 paper on ‘plant responses & animal behaviour’ (AS 90716) had a question on northern rata – rather a lovely tree; I remember that we had one on our section back in Wairoa, when I was a kid. For some reason that tree & the big totara next to it had been left […]
Continue readingazolla & endosymbiosis
There are other photosynthesisers besides Volvox, living in our fishpond. Bigger plants include waterlilies, various sedges, & Elodea. And at this time of year the surface is covered by a carpet of duckweed, but when summer comes the Azolla will tend to take over. Sometimes called ‘water fern’, Azolla contains an endosymbiont, a cyanobacterium (blue-green alga) that lives within […]
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