I’ll be using this lolcat in my classes for sure 🙂 And seeing it spurred me to write a bit about studying at university, for those of you who’ll be heading that way this year. Namely, that it’s not like being at school.
Continue readingTag: science & society
on the shoulders of giants
One of the things that sets science apart is the way that it operates, building on the work of others and accepting, rejecting or altering understandings as new data come to hand. The idea that science is so open to change seems to be one of the hardest things to get across, in the classroom & […]
Continue readingsaying a lot about little – another example of how not to use statistics
Ben Goldacre has written an interesting post on a ‘news’ item comparing pay scales for UK workers in the public & private sectors. The original story drew a number of comparisons between the two, several of which turn out, on closer examination, to be spurious. For example, the item comments that public servants work fewer […]
Continue readingpreparing for the future
Just catching up on my ‘official’ reading, including the Education Review. The November 13th issue (see? I said I was behind!) included a series of articles to do with the government’s draft Tertiary Education Strategy (or TES for short). One in particular caught my eye as it was related to something I wrote a while ago, on […]
Continue readingrocket science & testosterone
No, I’m not trying to suggest that spaceship designers/engineers have to be male. That would be a) stereotypical & b) incorrect as well, given that women also produce a certain amount of this hormone. But I wanted to catch your attention & direct it to a post by Ed Yong on Not exactly rocket science, where […]
Continue readingan update on xenotransplantation
This one’s really for those teachers who might be thinking of getting their year 13 students to look into xenotransplantation. I’ve written a bit about this previously, but you might also be interested in the following, from the Science Media Centre: Animal-human transplants OKedAuckland-based Pig cell therapy pioneer Living Cell Technologies looks set to expand […]
Continue readingdo flies do housework?
Some more entertaining & educational reading for you while I’m away 🙂 This time it’s from the Bug Girl’s Blog, where the eponymous Bug Girl describes as ‘egregious’ the headline Fruit Fly Sperm Makes Females Do Housework After Sex. Visit the Bug Girl’s place to find out not only what egregious means, but also why she’s so annoyed about the headline. […]
Continue readingfacilitated communication?
Like me, you may have seen this article in the Herald (or some other paper) on Wednesday this week. It tells the story of Rom Houben who, after suffering severe injuries in a car accident, was left in what doctors diagnosed as a ‘persistent vegetative state’ for 23 years. His mother, however, was insistent that her […]
Continue readingoff to entertain at cafe scientifique
Well, the mad rush to confirm degree completions is finally over (6.32pm & counting…) & I’m off to meet Marcus at the pub for the last Cafe Scientifique of the year. The topic: strange science. It’s open for the audience to bring up any topics they want to discuss, but we have the odd (& […]
Continue readingregulating supplements
Last Friday the Science Media Centre’s media alert included the following: Dietary supplements such as multivitamin tablets and energy drinks are an increasingly common part of our lives, but should they be? Concerns have been sparked recently by the availability of ultra-high caffeine energy drinks, the proliferation of people taking (often large) doses of vitamins/minerals […]
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