Orac often talks about ‘crank magnetism’ – the tendency for people who believe strange stuff in one area, to be attracted to other areas of oddness as well. (As far as I can tell, the terms was originally formulated on the denialism blog.) Anyway, having an hypothesis (the above crank magnetism) one must test it – […]
Continue readingI’ve just read an article by Joanne Kenen, who discusses the ever-difficult question faced by emergency-room doctors of when to raise end-of-life issues with a patient. Because I’ve had a bit of a discussion over at SciBlogs on the issue of how well we communicate about science in general, I thought (it being Friday) that I […]
Continue readingThis is a re-posting of something I originally wrote for the ‘other blog’ – I thought I’d publish it here too as part of the occasional ruminations by Marcus & me on the subject of science teaching 🙂 Recently I’ve had occasion to reflect on the things that have made me the sort of teacher that […]
Continue readingTrawling through my ‘blogging’ folder, wondering what to write about, I came across a paper from the New England Journal of Medicine that discusses problems with contaminated dietary supplements in the US (Cohen, 2009). I’ve previously written about the recall of ‘natural’ treatments for impotence, & Grant’s talked on more than one occasion for the […]
Continue readingA couple of days ago, on my post about World Blood Donor day, one of my commenters noted that the NZ Blood Service is apparently going to follow their Canadian & Australian counterparts in banning people from giving blood if they’ve ever had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. (At the moment folks who’ve had CFS are OK […]
Continue readingToday (June 14) is World Blood Donor Day. Blood’s not a product that keeps particularly well (about a month, if we’re talking whole blood) & blood banks are always looking for new donors. In New Zealand, around 3,000 donations per week are needed in order to meet the demand. So, if you’re been considering giving blood, […]
Continue readingI’ve just been sent through an article from an Australian news site, which suggests that the Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetrics will next month be discussing the possibility of doctors offering ‘ritual nick’ – a form of female genital mutilation that entails a small incision on the clitoris. (In this they seem to […]
Continue readingThere’s been a lot of hype – & some overwrought responses – surrounding the announcement that Craig Venter & his research team have ‘created’ a novel life form (a mycobacterium with a completely artificial genome). I wasn’t going to weigh into it. And I’m still not – but I am going to reproduce in full […]
Continue readingI had another learning experience down at the gym this afternoon. There I was, happily pedalling away on the exercycle (I believe in varying my cardio, otherwise it gets boring!) & reading a fitness magazine (what else?) when I came across an article on whether or not drinking/eating dairy products is bad for you.
Continue readingOK, not biology 🙂 But what follows could equally well apply to teaching problem-solving in any of the sciences.
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