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Month: December 2020

vaccines, viruses, & mRNA

December 13, 2020 | Alison | genetics, science and society

Today I was told that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine (now approved for use in the US, UK, & Canada) is a virus (screencap at the bottom of this thread). It really isn’t, but I’ve seen this one several times & so I think it’s worth unpacking a little further. (You can also read about mRNA vaccines […]

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those vaccine ingredients again

December 10, 2020 | Alison | communication, critical thinking, nature of science, science and society

A year ago I posted an explanation on vaccine “ingredients”, in relation to some wild claims made about the measles vaccine in the context of Samoa’s measles epidemic. From what I’ve seen on recent RNZ comments threads, an update for the time of SARS-Cov-2 is required. So, here’s purple making a statement about the Pfizer […]

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mammoth bones – and … potatoes???

December 8, 2020 | Alison | critical thinking, ecology, human evolution, plant structure

Today I came across an interesting share in a science group that I follow – an article about a “huge 25,000-yr-old hut” made of mammoth bones. Having really enjoyed Jean Auel’s “Earth’s Children” series, of course I was going to read on. But alas, the article was disappointing: the headline image didn’t match the story; […]

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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.

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  • if pharyngeal slits turn into gills, why don’t humans have gills?
  • those vaccine ingredients again
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  • is it a shrimp? is it a prawn? no – it’s Super Crayfish! (revisited)
  • vaccines, viruses, & mRNA
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  • another antivax myth (ingestion vs injection)

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