A friend found a concerning FB post (see below – this is a public post & so I have not redacted the name) & – as you do – immediately queried it with Southern Cross Life & Health Insurance as well as sending the screenshot to me¹. We both read the relevant policies & exclusions […]
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covid myths & politics
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 readinga pivotal species? what’s that?
By the end of the school year, year 13 students preparing for Schol Bio should have a pretty good grasp of the concepts & content they’ve encountered in their studies. What tends to throw some, though, is the fact that the context used for each question will almost certainly be something that they haven’t come across […]
Continue readingblood and guts, surgeons and scientists: “the butchering art”
The Butchering Art is medical historian Lindsey Fitzharris's first book. And what a book! Descriptions that bring the horrors of pre-anaesthesia, pre-antisepsis surgery shudderingly into view? Very definitely. Science and history? Oh yes, lots of it, and beautifully told. And through it all, the humanity and vision of Joseph Lister and others like him, working to […]
Continue reading“killer neandertals” – a wild claim that doesn’t want to go away
A while ago now (6 years ago, in fact! How time flies when you’re having fun), I wrote a piece about some fairly wild claims made about Neandertals. Rather surprisingly this post (here, & over on sciblogs.co.nz where it’s mirrored) continues to attract occasional comments from those who firmly believe in the idea that Neandertals […]
Continue reading‘a worm just crawled across my eye!’
Saw the webpage headline. First thought: ewwwwww. Second thought: ooooh, I wonder what that's all about? Answer: a little filiarid worm. FIliarid worms are roundworms (nematodes). I knew about the one that causes the disfiguring disease known as elephantiasis, but hadn't heard about the 'eyeworm', or Loa loa. Elephantiasis is due to lymphatic filiariasis, where the […]
Continue readingfarewell, sir terry pratchett
Today I heard that one of my favourite authors, Sir Terry Pratchett, had died (at the relatively young age of 66). And I cried. In his Discworld novels he created a world full of the most amazing characters, and while their voices – and through them his – will continue to speak to us, their […]
Continue readingweapons-grade foolishness from the ‘food babe’
Today, we move on to just plain, flaming, weapons-grade foolishness. Foolishness that is, unfortunately, spread to a rather wide audience. Vani Hari is the self-described 'Food Babe', on a mission to 'make America's food safer'. According to Ms Hari, if you can't pronounce a food item's ingredients, you shouldn't be eating it1. I guess she's […]
Continue readingkiwi evolution – a new take on an icon’s ancient past
‘The’ kiwi (Apteryx spp.) has always been a bit of an enigma, not least for the fact that it lays an absolutely enormous egg in comparison to its body size. In one of the essays in his book Bully for Brontosaurus (1991), Stephen Jay Gould argued that this differential in egg/body size was due to the […]
Continue readingthe drunken botanist
That’s the title of one of the books I’m reading at the moment: The Drunken Botanist, by Amy Stewart. (I do not know any drunken botanists!) Contrary to any expectations engendered by the title, the book is a thoroughly engaging wander through botany, history, & a little bar-tending (although, now that I look at the […]
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