We’ve just come back from a few glorious days in New Plymouth (arriving home before the change in weather). Had a great time tramping, walking the coastal walkway, eating yummy food – all those nice things you do, holidaying with friends. And as some of the party were driving from Paritutu to meet the rest […]
Continue readingYear: 2012
cancer – an example of evolution at the cellular level
It’s more than 3 years now since a very close friend died of cancer. At the time, I wrote briefly of how cancer cell lines can evolve resistance to chemotherapy. Now Orac has written a much longer essay discussing the same thing. It’s well worth reading & would probably make an excellent resource for working […]
Continue readingin the lecture theatre – but definitely not giving a lecture!
This is a post I first wrote for Talking Teaching – but hey! it’s about teaching science! Today’s class was a real experiment for me, & although I try lots of different things in my classes, it was also a step outside my normal comfort zone. (But hey! life would be a bit boring if […]
Continue readinga bag moth in residence
When I took the cover off the barbecue the other day, a tiny insect caught my eye. It was moving in short, fluttering hops so was fairly easy to catch, and once I had it in a jar I could have a better look. It was less than a centimetre long, dark blue with lovely […]
Continue reading‘scientists anonymous (nz)’ write again…
I’ve written about the group who call themselves ‘Scientists Anonymous (NZ)’ before, in the context of determining the reliability of sources. At the time, I commented that I would have a little more confidence about the information this group was putting out there if the people involved were actually identified – as it is, they […]
Continue readingtertiary teachers & accreditation
This is something I wrote for Talking Teaching. It doesn’t have a strong biology focus, so I hope my ‘regulars’ will forgive me :-). but I’d like to generate some discussion around this issue. Over the years I’ve had a fair number of conversations with my students about what’s involved in being a university lecturer. […]
Continue readingparasite goes bananas before s*x
That got your attention, didn’t it? It certainly got mine when I was scanning the Science alert news page a wee while ago. The parasite in question is Plasmodium, the single-celled organism that causes malaria. (I’ve written about Plasmodium before as it has a rather interesting evolutionary history.) And the research in question was published […]
Continue readingmarathon man, part II (another replay)
Since I (re)posted the first part of this story last week, I figure I’d better complete the tale today 🙂 Hopefully things will settle down a bit at work now the semester’s under way, & I can get back into some ‘proper’ writing! Possession of an Achilles tendon is only one of the things that […]
Continue readingmarathon man (rpt)
I’ve been blogging since August 2007. Which seems quite a long time, looking back on it 🙂 Anyway, because I’m kind of rushed at the moment – & on the theory that new(ish) readers might not have delved all that far into the back issues, I thought I’d repost a couple of pieces from way […]
Continue readingchanging teaching techniques
This post’s title is another one drawn from the search terms that brought people to my ‘other’ blog at Talking Teaching 🙂 I’ve written quite a lot about the benefits students may gain as a result of lecturers changing the techniques they use in the classroom. A while back I wrote about the idea of helping […]
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