One of my commenters asked the following question, & while I answered it quickly in that thread, I thought it might be useful for her (& maybe others) if I found a few references to support what I said. One of my friends has this as their current status on Facebook, and I wondered if […]
Continue readingProcrastinating like crazy, I’ve just come across an interesting post over on Science-Based Medicine. It’s about the hazards associated with water births (sometimes promoted as a ‘natural’ way to deliver a baby…). I’ve wondered before about the sense of delivering a baby under water (the ‘diving’ reflex only kicks in in cold water & no mum-to-be […]
Continue readingLast week I attended the launch of Science OlympiaNZ, a charitable trust set up as an umbrella group to support New Zealand’s various International Science Olympiad programs (& very generously supported by the Todd Foundation). Among the speakers was Max, a member of this year’s highly successful NZ International Biology Olympiad team. Max gave a great speech, & I […]
Continue readingA couple of years ago now, we held a Cafe Scientifique with the topic 1080 – friend or foe? Topical then (it drew a large crowd, wtih people from both sides of the debate) & just as topical now. On the one hand, 1080 is promoted as our current best option for the control of possums, […]
Continue readingJust a quick post as I’m away on a panel meeting & my brain is tired – but here’s something else from my file of ‘things I didn’t know’: Florence Nightingale was a statistician. Now, I heard all about Florence Nightingale when I was a kid. She made a major contribution to the development of […]
Continue readingFrom the Letters to the Editor (we should, apparently, be concerned that most people don’t know the form of fluoride in our drinking water…)
Continue readingI’ve just started reading Richard Dawkins’ latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth, & I’m thoroughly enjoying it. (At this point I should confess to a small heresy – in the past I haven’t always enjoyed his books. Not that they’re badly written – the reverse is true! But they just didn’t always gel for me. […]
Continue readingA while back I wrote about the wolves of Yellowstone & what they can tell us about the ecological impacts of a top predator. Wolves were reintroduced to the US’s Yellowstone National Park in 1995, after an absence of around 50 years, & wildlife biologists were having a field day (pardon the pun!) examining the […]
Continue readingI was spurred to write this by reading the latest post on the Quackometer. Dr Luc Montagnier shared the 2008 Nobel prize for medicine or physiology, for the discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus, a discovery with a significant impact on our understanding of the evolution and spread of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). However, […]
Continue readingFrom time to time my Significant Other’s thoughts turn to life in the country. This can manifest itself in the purchase of lifestyle-block magazines. I was flipping through one this morning & came across an item on self-grooming in cows, & thought I’d look into it a bit further as it seemed to fit with my […]
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