A topic that gets quite a frequent airing in our tearoom is the decline in the number of students taking physics. This issue isn’t peculiar to my institution – a quick look at the literature indicates that it’s a global problem**. The question is, what can be done about this? It’s a question that Pey-Tee […]
Continue readingYear: 2012
sweet memories
I’ve just found a new blog that is a must-follow: Becky Crew’s Running Ponies. Run, don’t walk, over there – and read wondrous posts such as her discussion of a study that found chocolate** appears to enhance snails’ ability to form lasting memories. I wonder what will happen to chocolate sales at the uni shop, […]
Continue readingchutzpah & pingpong balls
Via a family member’s blog, I discovered a physics story with this wonderful beginning: It’s the rare scientific mind that has the pure intellectual chutzpah to tackle a problem that has troubled boffinry since the discovery of cryogenics – namely, "What happens if you combine liquid nitrogen with 1,500 ping-pong balls?" I wanna be in Roy […]
Continue readinghow do kids learn about dna?
My significant other is forever telling me that Facebook is a total time-waster. Sometimes I do tend to agree – but also, one can Find Out Stuff! Like the study I’ve just heard about via Science Alert, on how children get information about genetics and DNA – things we might regard as being in the […]
Continue readingtraumatic insemination? ooh that sounds painful!
Bedbugs. One of the critters that I’d prefer not to encounter on my travels. They come out at night and bite sleeping humans (& other animals), retreating during the day to their dark hideaways, often in cracks in furniture, walls, or floors. This sounds very insanitary but the species that bites humans, Cimex lectularius, isn’t generally regarded […]
Continue readingan ambulant toupee?
No, it’s a megalopygid moth caterpillar (via Science Alert on Facebook). Image: Rainforest Expeditions (on Facebook) Megalopygids are also called ‘flannel moths’ (you can see images of both adults and larvae here – the larvae are quite diverse in appearance). I do wonder, after looking at this adult, if they aren’t related to the poodle […]
Continue readingletting a good story get in the way of a few facts?
Today in the Herald I learned that eye colour can reflect personality. Apparently [r]esearchers from the University of Queensland and the University of NSW analysed the eye colour of 336 Australians – most with a northern European background. They answered a series of questionnaires measuring aspects of their personality like agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. The […]
Continue readingindonesia to host 2014 international biology olympiad
The dream is over! Dr Poonpipope Kasemsap, the IBO Chairperson, contacted NZIBO chair Dr Angela Sharples last night. The Indonesian government has stepped in to support the organisers and the 25th IBO will be hosted in Bali in either the 1st or 2nd week of July 2014. As Angela has said to me, on a […]
Continue readingthe sir paul callaghan science academy
Sir Paul Callaghan was a great scientist, a superb science communicator, and a visionary with a very clear idea of the importance of science and science education to New Zealand’s future: a future where our population is ‘science-savvy’ and where students are attracted to study for careers in science, technology and engineering. If that’s to […]
Continue readingscience: 1; society for textbook revise: 0
From Nature (& via a commenter at Silly Beliefs): science wins over creationism. In South Korea, the Society for Textbook Revise, STR [sic] – associated with the Korea Association for Creation Research – has apparently been pushing textbook publishers to remove two examples of evolution from school textbooks. You may be surprised to hear that […]
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