… unless you've been following this blog for a while, in which case you may already have read about the sarcastic fringeheads (who are not members of a rock band, despite the wonderful name!). The dumbo octopus, the pacu (a fish with teeth like nutcrackers, an attribute that has given rise to an urban myth […]
Continue readingMonth: May 2014
fascinating stories of dna, and the kiwi’s close cousin uncovered
On Monday I was lucky enough to attend a lecture by Alan Cooper, director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA and one of the authors on a very recent paper that provides a new view of kiwi evolution (Mitchell et al., 2014). It was a fascinating & wide-ranging talk that started with a bit […]
Continue readingdissecting the predictable (in this case, ffnz on broadbent et al)
A paper just out by Broadbent et al (2014) describes research which used data from a 38-year-long longitudinal study of Dunedin children to examine claims that exposure to fluoride in childhood has a negative effect on children's IQ. The paper found these claims wanting, and thus – quite predictably – it's now subject to attack […]
Continue readingan anti-fluoride view: democracy is ok as long as it delivers what we want
At least, that's how it sounds in this Waikato Times report on the first day of presentations relating to submissions on Hamilton City Council's draft annual plan. One of those submitting was quoted as saying The democratic argument is flawed in this instance. Sometimes democracy is not enough, we need wise leadership. Democracy is a dangerous […]
Continue readingfacebook – more than just social networking
This is something originally written for the Talking Teaching blog, following a discussion (on FB – where else?) about social media & student learning. Some of my readers here and on Sciblogs will probably have realised that I quite like Facebook – not least because it's a good source of gorgeous images and quirky facts […]
Continue readingsomething reassuringly disgusting…
This post's title comes from Something Fishy where, talking about sea cucumbers, Illya wrote "But there's something else they can do. Something reassuringly disgusting. Something totally Sea Cucumber." I was mildly let down to find he was talking about bioluminescence, & not self-evisceration. Yes, that's right. When threatened (or repeatedly prodded by some uncouth human […]
Continue readinganother see-through animal (& a rather lovely image)
I saw this little critter a while back, over on Pharyngula, & put it on the list of Things To Blog About. Somehow, it took me a while to actually get onto it, but we've got there in the end 🙂 Image credit: Laurence Madin, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution/CMarZ, Census of Marine Life I was […]
Continue reading