The pandemic has certainly been a trigger for some really interesting science to be done. Here’s something that’s hit the headlines today – Artificial Intelligence can be used to detect COVID-19 from the sound of someone’s cough. If you want to read it, the full report is here, but unless you’re lucky enough to subscribe […]
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Post-communist Bulgaria, solar eclipses, and NZ Level 2 restrictions
In August 1999, I had the opportunity to travel from the U.K. to Varna, Bulgaria, on the Black Sea coast, to view the European Total Solar Eclipse. Just why we ended up in Varna, as opposed to a plethora of other possibilities in Europe, is a bit of a long story, but a substantial part […]
Continue readingWe are at Level 2. Sadly the evidence on campus suggests otherwise
I have just got back to my office after a lunch-time run around campus. I have seen almost no evidence that anything is different from yesterday. Two people were having a conversation at an obvious ‘social-distance’ length. Another person was wearing a mask. (To be fair, so were the staff at Bongo sushi, but that […]
Continue readingThis is exponential growth
Since I last posted on Wednesday, we have seen about zero sign of any flattening in the exponential growth of COVID-19 cases worldwide. I’m not a epidemiologist, or a health professional, or a infectious disease expert. But I do know what an exponential looks like. With cases doubling about every four days world wide, and […]
Continue readingEight new COVID-19 cases today. It’s no surprise when you look at some numbers
So, as I sit at home with a very, very slight headache (i.e. not at work when I would otherwise be so), the now familiar figure of Ashley Bloomfield reports eight new confirmed cases of COVID-19 including two in Waikato. A surprise, given that we had just twelve yesterday? No. A worry? Maybe, but no […]
Continue readingDelays in feedback: Learning to drive, brain waves and COVID-19
With the numbers of new COVID-19 cases in China diminishing by the day, China now faces a problem. How to get the country back to work, or partly back to work, or more back to work, without taking too many risks with the virus taking off again. The risk can’t be eliminated, except by shutting […]
Continue readingA beginning of semester corona-rant
I’ve had enough of COVID-19 now. No, I haven’t had it (well, not that I’m aware of), what I mean is I’ve had enough of reading misleading headlines, hearing xenophobic attitudes and dealing with outright selfish behaviour. Let me elaborate: Point 1 We know that every outbreak will be accompanied by a kind of tsunami […]
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