I originally wrote the material in this post for the Science on the Farm website. It’s re-posted here because I thought it might be an interesting extension for those of you currently studying animal behaviour. Automatic milking is an exciting technological innovation facing the dairy industry in New Zealand, with the potential to affect farming lifestyles […]
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conspiracy theories & the electricity supply
Apologies in advance – this is way off my usual beaten track but it’s been a hard week & I am in need of diversion 🙂 Over the last few days there’ve been a couple of letters to the editor of the Waikato Times, talking about our electricity supply. The first suggested that Nikola Tesla had […]
Continue readingseeing the world through blindsight
While driving home on Sunday I listened to another Skeptics Guide podcast. The ‘science, or fiction?’ segment included the statement that ‘scientists had found that a blind man was able to navigate flawlessly around obstacles without using any other senses.’ Science, or fiction, indeed. I was inclined to pick it as the ‘fiction’ statement, until I […]
Continue readingit couldn’t happen here. could it?
I hope not. Some of my fellow Sciblings have written quite a bit lately about various ‘alternative & complementary’ health claims. And I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading their posts (here & here, for example). So I wonder what their take would be on a story from the UK, helpfully publicised by the Quackometer. Not only is […]
Continue readingswim with the sharks…
… says the blackboard outside the National Aquarium of New Zealand, over in Napier, Hawkes Bay. It also offers tuatara, kiwi, a cafe… Good for an hour or so of investigation, I thought – I was on my way back to Hamilton from a Schol Bio day in Hastings, & wasn’t in any particular hurry. […]
Continue readingtomorrow’s young scientists, today
In the last few days I’ve been lucky enough to spend some time with the latest crop of up-&-coming young scientists 🙂 Yesterday I spent the day doing a Scholarship Biology preparation day for students in Hawkes Bay(very kindly hosted by Lindsfarne College in Hastings). I always get a real buzz out of working with […]
Continue readingscience or magical thinking?
Coming back from last night’s Cafe Scientifique over in Tauranga, the speaker** & I were talking about the nature of science, and moved from there to the seemingly quite widespread acceptance of what could be called ‘non-science’. One of the modalities that falls in the ‘non-science’ group, we agreed, is homeopathy. And this led us to […]
Continue readingmore on sodium chlorite – the ‘miracle mineral supplement’
After reading & commenting on that letter, which attributed health benefits to sodium chlorite, I found my interest had been piqued. Just what has been claimed for this chemical? So I went looking…
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