n July this year, the Seattle Times ran a story on an orca called Tahlequah – she was pregnant, again. And just yesterday, she gave birth. The story is particularly noteworthy because a couple of years ago, Tahlequah also bore a calf, which died, and she then carried the dead baby on her nose for […]
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I’ve learned quite a bit about spiders over the years. (And I have never been able to understand the “burn it with fire!” some folks take towards these 8-legged creatures.) For example, it turns out that some spiders actively hunt fish, while others are vegetarian! Then, late last year, I came across a couple of […]
Continue readingThe news that school students from across New Zealand are organising the School Strike for Climate on March 15 has been all over the media lately. See this story, for example, which includes the comment that Globally, their message is clear. They are sick of waiting for adults to save their world so they are […]
Continue readingIn 2011, Sir Peter Gluckman released his report, Looking ahead: science education for the 21st century. In it, he noted the need to improve science teaching in primary schools, commenting that there should be an attempt to improve the confidence [my emphasis] of all teachers within primary schools to assist in science and that all primary schools should be […]
Continue readingI’ve always enjoyed Nick Lane’s writing1, so naturally an article he wrote for the ABC Science website caught my eye. Titled “Evolution of complex life on Earth, take 2?”, it discusses an organism that appears to be neither prokaryote nor eukaryote, but something in-between. There’s a great divide between the cells that fit the description […]
Continue readingSome of the things lecturers say make a lasting impression on students’ memories (albeit not always for the desired reasons). I remember, when I was a biology undergraduate, hearing about some of the undesirable effects of filiarid worm infection. According to the lecturer, in extreme cases this could lead to infected men having to ‘carry […]
Continue readingRight now, like many of my colleagues, I’m busy marking end-of-semester exams. (In my case this process is complicated by the worst cold I’ve had in ages…) However, I’m happily procrastinating – as far as the marking’s concerned – because something a student wrote in an essay triggered this post 🙂 One of my essay […]
Continue readingI’ve just spent an interesting hour down at my optometrist’s rooms, having my eyes looked into. And learning a whole lot of new stuff.
Continue readingI’ve spent a lot of time lately marking essays from my first-year students. For many of them, this may be the first essay they’ve written in a while, & along with getting their heads around the essay-writing process, they’ve also got to come to terms with the academic environment that they’re working in. That means: […]
Continue readingThis is only sort of science – but it’s fun (& also Friday). But the secretary came in with a document & pointed out that one of the names – Goodbehere – looked really old. ‘Must be a bit of history behind that one,’ she said. Names often have a story to tell. In science they […]
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