I’ve just watched TV One’s interview with Robert, Lord Winston, who was here to open the new Fertility Associates buildings, receive an honorary degree from Auckland University, & probably much else besides. And he had some important, provocative things to say about the state of science in New Zealand, and the country’s attitudes to science.
Continue readingwe have lift-off…
On the new blog format. Which includes…. COMMENTS. So, go ahead – ask questions, make comments, tell me what you think…
Continue readingthings to remember when writing an essay
I’m marking exams at the moment & this has made me think I should revisit an earlier item on writing an extended (essay-type) answer to a question.
Continue readinganother title for the reading list
Thank a friend for this – she commented that she liked my reading list 🙂 Anyway, I’ve just started reading David Mindell’s book The Evolving World: evolution in everyday life. Still in the intro, actually, but it’s shaping up to be another worthwhile addition to my shelves.
Continue readingdipping deeper in the blogosphere
Nothing to do with biology this time – I've joined Technorati & needed a post to establish the link. Technorati Profile And why have I done this, you might ask? Well, it's all ERV's fault. She's written a blog on blogging, which I read with interest (it's always nice seeing what other people think about things) […]
Continue readingtheory, fact, hypothesis & law
I was just re-reading a paper (Gregory, 2008) that discusses the meanings of these terms, & thought I’d share it with you. As I’m sure you’re aware, they’re words that have quite specific meanings in science, and meanings that generally differ from everyday usage – ‘theory’ and ‘hypothesis’ are distinctly different terms, for example. Here’s what Ryan […]
Continue readingscience on the farm
Hi folks – service has been restricted this week as I’ve been flat-out with Fieldays. We had a big stand there highlighting some of the agriculture-related research we do at Waikato, & I’ve been out there every day. So I thought I’d do a shameless bit of promotion: as part of the uni’s relationship with […]
Continue readingmore from your inner fish
I’ve just finished reading Your inner fish (Shubin, 2008) – honestly, I can’t recommend it highly enough. But for anyone who hasn’t bought the book yet, let’s look at what another part of our anatomy – our ears – has to tell us about our evolutionary past.
Continue readinga smelly story
At the moment I’m reading Neil Shubin’s book Your inner fish. It’s a wonderful walk through the evolution of life, taking various aspects of our own biology & tracing their evolutionary history. Over lunch I was reading the chapter on the sense of smell, & some of the ideas there really excited me & I […]
Continue readinga pregnant placoderm
And what’s a placoderm, you ask? It’s an ancient armoured fish. The placoderms were a group of fish that were common during the Devonian (410 – 360 million years ago), but then became extinct. The reason for the title of this post? A group of Australian researchers (Long et al., 2008) have just reported on a placoderm fossil that contained embryos […]
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