On Facebook a while back, I noticed a post with an image of a fish under the caption, "Is this fish evil?" What with the way FB stuff rapidly disappears down the plughole timeline to the past I couldn’t find that post again (where’s Dr Who when you really need him?), but this is that […]
Continue readingYear: 2012
sasquatch dna!!! not so fast, pardner
If this had been published in that august journal, The Onion, it would have fitted right in. It would certainly make more sense if today was April 1. I mean, really (& hat-tip, as usual, to PZ)… A team of scientists can verify that their 5-year long DNA study, currently under peer-review, confirms the existence […]
Continue readingstingray x-ray
Another in the occasional series of rather lovely biological images: an x-ray of a stingray (Heliotrygon sp.) (from NatGeo, via Pharyngula) The genus name means ‘sun stingray’, a name that was given for the way that the cartilage fibres that support its body (like sharks, stingrays have a skeleton that’s based on cartilage, unlike the […]
Continue readinga cute little piggy (but why do we find it so?)
On Facebook yesterday, Science Alert posted a picture of a cute little piggy. Why, they asked, do humans feel such love for baby animals? Assuredly, this is a psychology experiment waiting to happen! Not so. For one of my favourite science writers beat them to it, by about 30 years. And in a rather entertaining manner. […]
Continue reading‘a newly discovered species of little people’
When the news first came out that Prof Mike Morwood & Thomas Sutikna were going to be giving a public lecture about Homo floresiensis, I was first excited & then seriously annoyed: yay! great topic, but rats! can’t get down to it. So I was absolutely delighted to see the following in this week’s Royal […]
Continue readingan interesting take on mousetrap evolution
One of the catchphrases of Intelligent Design creationism is ‘irreducible complexity’ – the idea that in some complex biological systems, it’s impossible to remove any one part without causing the whole system to fail. Supposedly this means that such systems could not have evolved but must be the product of a ‘designer’. The term – […]
Continue readingkissing cousins with kennewick man?
While away on holiday (gloat!) I got the opportunity for uninterrupted listening to podcasts 🙂 One of these was a July episode of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, which included a discussion of the (in)famous Kennewick Man remains. These 9,000-years-old bones have been the focus of considerable controversy in the US, where they were […]
Continue readingtalk nerdy to me
Grant’s talked quite a bit about TED talks. This one’s a cracker: Melissa Marshall talking about science communication. Important point for scientists: clear, careful explanations of what we’re doing =/= ‘dumbing it down’! And thanks, Annette, for passing it on 🙂
Continue readingnormal service will resume in about a week…
… because today the Significant Other & I are heading off for a week in balmier climes. Oh all right, in Rarotonga. So apart from a little something I prepared earlier, I won’t be blogging for a bit. Also, I’m not sure what my internet access will be like & so I may not be […]
Continue readingwhy kids should grade teachers
Next week my first-year biology students will be doing an appraisal of this semester’s paper, & of those academic staff involved in teaching it. They’re asked about the perceived difficulty of the paper, the amount of work they’re expected to do for it, whether they’ve been intellectually stimulated, the amount of feedback they receive on […]
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