Skip to content
BioBlog

Month: August 2020

it’s “only” a 1% death rate

August 31, 2020 | Alison | critical thinking, science and society

I’m seeing a bit of that phrase in my social media feeds at the moment, in relation to covid-19. In practice, this would mean that if everyone in New Zealand were to catch the virus eventually, that would be 50,000 people dead.  The ‘normal’ annual all-cause mortality in this country is around 33,000. It’s been […]

Continue reading

covid myths & politics

August 10, 2020 | Alison | critical thinking, science and society, Uncategorised

This year’s election campaign in New Zealand has attracted a number of “fringe” parties, at least some of whose supporters seem to have a fairly tenuous hold on reality and a highly flexible approach to the truth. I mean, how else could one describe some of those affiliated with the NZPP/Advance coalition, whose members & […]

Continue reading

Search Bioblog

Pages

  • About Bioblog
  • Archives
Swan girl - portrait of the author as a young scientist This blog in response to comments from secondary school biology teachers. I hope to use it as a way of encouraging critical thinking, looking at scientific papers that are relevant to the Level 3 curriculum and to Scholarship.

Most Read

  • if pharyngeal slits turn into gills, why don’t humans have gills?
  • those vaccine ingredients again
  • apple juice & gallstones
  • “killer neandertals” – does this one really stack up?
  • cute, creative caminalcules
  • is it a shrimp? is it a prawn? no – it’s Super Crayfish! (revisited)
  • it always pays to check before you share
  • vaccines, viruses, & mRNA
  • the moo woo train has left the station
  • another antivax myth (ingestion vs injection)

Recent Comments

  • Alison on apple juice & gallstones
  • Tam on apple juice & gallstones
  • Alison on human-chimp similarities – evolution? or design?
  • Alison on those vaccine ingredients again
  • Moz on those vaccine ingredients again

Tags

1080 acupuncture animal behaviour animal diversity anti-vaxxers Biology Olympiad biotechnology blogging books chemistry communication covid-19 creationism critical thinking developmental biology ecology ed education environment and ecology evolution fluoridation genetics gmo history of science human evolution humour journalism medicine miracle mineral supplement MMS nature of science new science stories plant responses plant structure pseudoscience scholarship biology science science & society science and society secondary schools social media STEM tertiary study transition vaccination

Recent Archives

  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • June 2020

Categories

  • Add category
  • animal behaviour
  • animal diversity
  • communication
  • critical thinking
  • ecology
  • education
  • evolution
  • genetics
  • history of science
  • human evolution
  • humour
  • nature of science
  • new science stories
  • plant responses to the environment
  • plant structure
  • scholarship biology
  • science and society
  • Uncategorised

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
© 2021 BioBlog | All views expressed on this site are the the authors on and do not represent the opinions of the University of Waikato.