I occasionally (very occasionally, right now, with my workload the way it is) watch the Symphony of Science series on youtube. Today I took a few minutes & watched "The world of the dinosaurs", which is quite good** in a techno- sort of way. Why am I mentioning this? Because when I was taking part […]
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on your bike
I drive a car. I also ride a bike to work a couple of days a week (an 18km round trip each time). And this is not a post on the science of either, but a plea to some car drivers for a bit more consideration (& road space). Today I consider myself lucky to […]
Continue readinga homeopathic dinosaur?
I was reading Andy Lewis’s Quackometer blog while eating lunch & came across a reference to a homepathic preparation of Tyrannosaurus rex. Hoho, I thought, you are joking; please pull the other one. And then (being of curious persuasion & also it was still lunchtime) I decided to check it out. But no, it turns […]
Continue readinghomeopathy is ‘personalised’?
Orac has just put up a post deconstructing various claims by a US homeopath. One of those claims really tickled my fancy: The problem is that homeopathy is aimed at treating the individual with a single remedy, chosen specifically for him or her. It is not for treating masses of people with the same pill. […]
Continue readingconvergent evolution: the pandas’ thumb
And yes, punctuation & grammar skillz, I has them 🙂 That apostrophe really is in the right place – read on to find out why. The tale of the panda’s thumb is well-known, & an excellent example of how the action of natural selection can result in jury-rigged solutions to problems: a result that works, […]
Continue readingmelanin + the pecten … a new metabolic future??
While lurking over at Riddled (by doubt, insecurity and what appears to be a type of marine worm)** I was introduced to a journal article on in-flight metabolism in birds.More specifically, to the idea that melanin in the pecten – a structure in birds’ eyes that appears to function in visual acuity – is able […]
Continue readingeye-catching blog post titles – I mean, ‘icky toilets’?
Via ResearchBlogging I found a post with the eye-catching title of Circumcision, preventing fraud, and icky toilets. What an odd juxtaposition, I thought. Darn good post, though!
Continue readingrhys morgan – another one to follow
Via Orac I found this excellent article by Rhys Morgan, a sceptical blogger who has recently been the focus of some attempts at bullying by someone claiming to be a legal representative of the Burzynski Clinic. Rhys has written an article for the UK newspaper The Guardian that highlights a number of issues related to […]
Continue readinga follow-up (from a new blog)
Over on ‘of trees and birds and other things’ Jarrod points out why it’s not a terribly good idea to base your view of a scientific issue on a single story in the popular press… (& hat-tip to David Winter on the atavism, who alerted me to this new evolutionary blog!) For the teachers & students […]
Continue readingwriting about environmental history
Over lunch today I had a really interesting conversation about environmental history and why it’s a Good Thing to know about. Much of the discussion was around the environmental history of Palmerston North, where I lived for about 22 years, first as a student at Massey University & subsequently as a teacher (first in various […]
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