One of the things I like about my job is that there’s always the opportunity to learn new things. Today I learned about episomes. Not being an actual geneticist & all, it was a novel term to me. An episome is defined as: a portion of genetic material that can exist independent of the main […]
Continue readingMonth: August 2012
fostering is the cause…
… of a lack of time for other things. (Like writing ‘proper’ posts.) On Friday we became the foster parents of a tiny 4-year-old black toy poodle male (who’d previously been a stud dog). At least, we think he’s about four; could be a bit less or a bit more. Kanji (his new name) is […]
Continue readingcharter schools (from letters to the editor)
Usually when I choose to base a post on the ‘letters’ section of a newspaper, it’s because something that someone’s written has rather got my goat. This time – this time, it’s because I agree with the sentiments & feel they warrant a wider audience & further analysis. The Government wants to introduce charter schools, […]
Continue readingthis is a poodle moth…
… and I shall call it… no, not Ben. That name’s taken. This is Ben. The And this is a poodle moth (via Animal Story): The photo’s all over the internet (especially via pinterest: there’s a particularly lovely image collection here). However, neither scirus nor google scholar searches return a scientific name for this lovely […]
Continue readingdodgy experts & gardasil – further questions
Perhaps the greatest fear for any parent is that their child will die before they do. Such events must be incredibly hard to bear, particularly if the death is unexplained and unexpected, & my heart goes out to any parents in such a situation. Sometimes, particularly where the death is unexplained, all sorts of alternative […]
Continue readingpassionate biologists start early
Today, 385 talented senior biology students from 67 secondary schools will sit the NZ International Biology Olympiad entrance exam. Dr Meikle, secretary NZIBO said "This is the largest number of students from the widest range of schools ever!" At Christ’s College, the students are so keen that they will sit this test at 7:15 am. […]
Continue readingthings to do with precious bodily fluids
A couple of posts back I wrote about the dreadfulness that is ‘Fresh Cell Therapy’. As practiced by the German clinic offering it, FTC supposedly involves injecting foetal lamb cells into people as a ‘treatment’ for all sorts of ills. (I used the word ‘supposedly’ deliberately – the best one can hope is that in […]
Continue readingquality counts – except when it doesn’t
A few weeks ago, writing about the ‘great class size debate’, I also touched on the question of quality teaching. There’s no question – at least, there shouldn’t be – that children deserve the best possible learning experiences, and one of the requirements for that is quality teaching by excellent, expert teachers. It’s quite tricky […]
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