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Month: March 2023

look at this pretty critter!

March 28, 2023 | Alison | animal behaviour, animal diversity, ecology

This gorgeous little insect is a female Australian bag moth (Cebysa leucotelus) – in this image she’s sitting on the netting we’re using to keep the late-season cabbage butterflies off our brassicas, but I suspect that normally she’d have been a little harder to spot. After all, from the tips of her antennae to the […]

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of cicadas & cordyceps

March 21, 2023 | Alison | animal diversity, ecology
of cicadas & cordyceps

I suspect many of those reading (like many of my friends) will have watched the series The Last of Us. (I haven’t, because I’m fairly sure I’d be spending a fair bit of time with my eyes shut!¹) What you might not realise is that the fungal “protagonist” (for want of a better word) is actually […]

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permafrost, viruses, and silly zombie headlines

March 15, 2023 | Alison | critical thinking, ecology, new science stories, science and society

Permafrost is “any ground that remains completely frozen – 0°C or colder – for at least two years straight”, and as you’d expect is found at high altitudes or in polar regions. It acts like a deep-freezer – scientists have found mammoths buried in permafrost that were so well preserved that at least one field […]

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mastodons in greenland

March 12, 2023 | Alison | animal diversity, ecology, evolution, genetics
mastodons in greenland

What is a mastodon, anyway? Like mammoths (on the left in the image above), mastodons were common during the last ice age, but the two elephant-like creatures are fairly distant relatives. The more-familiar mammoths were close cousins of modern elephants (a fact that is of interest to those considering doing a Jurassic Park on mammoths – […]

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schol bio exam – a performance standard

March 6, 2023 | Alison | critical thinking, education, scholarship biology

This post is intended for students who are preparing for the 2023 Schol Bio exam, and discusses material covered in a tutorial meeting. One of the obvious questions is, what’s the examiner looking for?  Like the NCEA subjects. Scholarship subjects all have assessment specifications. You’ll find the Biology one here. The written exam will comprise […]

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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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