Today’s Herald carried a story from the UK’s Telegraph, which looked at some research into the social behaviour of chimpanzees & bonobos (‘pigmy’ chimanzees). And – as usual – extrapolated from this to people… Grumpiness, it told is, was a sign of a more ‘advanced’ nature, whereas the happier, more peaceable bonobos were ‘less evolved’.
Continue readingYear: 2010
of rain and rotifers
Yesterday we went across to Tauranga to see my in-laws. It was a terrible day for driving; the forecast was for periods of heavy rain & it was pouring down when we arrived. My father-in-law had emptied the rain gauge that morning (23mm, he said), & by 1pm it was back up to 80mm & […]
Continue readingavatar
The family finally got its act together & went to see Avatar. In 3D 🙂 (Actually our act was arranged by friends, who also organised us into an al fresco meal of fish’n’chips beforehand.) I carefully didn’t read anything much about the movie before I went, so I’m aware that what I’ve got to say has probably been said before – but […]
Continue readinga quick lesson from statistics :-)
Frm PHD Comics (via Pharyngula): I couldn’t agree more 🙂
Continue readingmms revisited
A while ago I wrote a post on the so-called ‘miracle mineral supplement’, aka MMS. I thought I’d re-post it following an article debunking this nostrum in the Sunday Star-Times. My original post attracted a couple of comments from people claiming that MMS will cure a multitude of ills; I’ve reproduced them, & my responses, […]
Continue readingasking the right questions
A colleague sent me advance notice of an upcoming protest: a ‘mass overdose’ of sugar pills being organised as a protest against ‘homeopathic remedies’. (Grant picked up on this & has blogged on it over at SciBlogs. This got me thinking (as these things do) about an interesting podcast by Mark Crislip, who focuses on supplements & ‘complementary & […]
Continue readingcommunicating science – an example of good practice
The following is from the Young Australian Skeptics website – I’ve copied the whole post across because it’s a brief one (& I’ve added links to book reviews): We probably have all encountered scientifically ignorant people, for some people knowing the complexities of the universe is simply not interesting. This ignorance is generally spawned within […]
Continue readingprocrastination – something to avoid
I’ll be using this lolcat in my classes for sure 🙂 And seeing it spurred me to write a bit about studying at university, for those of you who’ll be heading that way this year. Namely, that it’s not like being at school.
Continue readingrather nice zoological videos
Over at Terrapin Procrastination there is a lovely long list of zoological videos for you to watch. (I don’t know whether or not to thank PZ for directing me there – right now I don’t have time to procrastinate!). My favourite description from the list would have to be ““sea angel” (pelagic nudibranch) kills and […]
Continue readingon the shoulders of giants
One of the things that sets science apart is the way that it operates, building on the work of others and accepting, rejecting or altering understandings as new data come to hand. The idea that science is so open to change seems to be one of the hardest things to get across, in the classroom & […]
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