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Tag: covid-19

nuremberg, & history

November 18, 2021 | Alison | communication, critical thinking, science and society

There’s a lot been said recently about the Nuremberg code. So what is it, and why is it popping up now? As described in this excellent NEJM article, the Code was developed over 80 years ago in August 1947, by judges involved in the “Doctors Trial” at Nuremberg. There were a total of 13 court trials […]

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what is the “magneto” protein, & why are references to a 2016 paper suddenly in my feed?

July 5, 2021 | Alison | critical thinking, genetics, nature of science, science and society

A few days back an article in The Guardian popped up in my newsfeed. It was quite old – published in 2016 – but it looked interesting, so I read it & also tracked down the original paper. The article & research paper describe work done to develop and test a potential tool for unpicking […]

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covid-19 infection and how the spike protein is involved in doing harm

May 5, 2021 | Alison | nature of science, new science stories, science and society

Just this morning a journalist sent me a link to a press release about a new paper looking at how SARS-Cov-2 affects the vascular system, & asked me to comment on it for a article. If you’d like to read the actual paper you can find it here, but be aware that it does get […]

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on Plan B’s support for an anti-vaccine court case

April 26, 2021 | Alison | communication, critical thinking, science and society

Some of my readers may be aware that Nelson lawyer Sue Grey is taking a case to the NZ High Court in an attempt to stop the roll-out of the Pfizer vaccine. I don’t agree with her stance, but she has every right to do this. However, I was more than a little surprised to […]

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sam bailey on isolating viruses, and why she is wrong

April 19, 2021 | Alison | critical thinking, genetics, nature of science, new science stories, science and society

Recently I was told I needed to go to the Youtube channel of Dr Sam BaileyA and watch one of her videosB. So I did. This particular video is called The Truth About Virus Isolation, and yes it’s on Youtube, and no I’m not linking directly because I refuse to link to such a misleading […]

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why it’s important to check sources

April 17, 2021 | Alison | communication, critical thinking, nature of science, science and society

While checking my spam folder (before yeeting the contents permanently) I noticed that I’d been sent a bunch of email ‘newsletters’ from the group “Voices for Freedom.” Out of interest I opened one, just in case the contents were worth a post or two – & indeed they were. The writers of the newsletter state […]

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evidence vs spin

April 13, 2021 | Alison | critical thinking, science and society

A friend of mine pointed me in the direction of this blog post by New Zealand’s “Plan B” group. While initially this group opposed the government’s use of lockdowns to manage covid19 outbreaks in this country, they seem to have since moved on to opposing the rollout of vaccines against SARS-Cov-2. And, while they claim […]

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“doing my own research” & the scientific method

April 7, 2021 | Alison | communication, critical thinking, nature of science

This evening I was engaging in polite conversation (well, I was polite, anyway) on an RNZ Facebook post about – you guessed it! – the covid19 vaccination program. One of those present offered up a link to a blog post by Joseph Mercola to support a claim he was making about the vaccines. When I […]

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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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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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