The daughter & I love reading Elizabeth Peters’ ‘Amelia Peabody’ books: lovely rollicking yarns with a leavening of actual historical events, likeable characters, and a delightful, gentle poke at Victorian standards (of writing & other behaviour). And, as they’re set in Egypt, the occasional mummy. We’re fascinated by mummies as well 🙂
Continue readingMonth: May 2009
an update on ida
In today’s Science journal there’s an update (Gibbons, 2009) on all the hoop-la associated with the unveiling of 47-million-year-old Darwinius massillae (aka ‘Ida). I commented earlier that the hugely overblown press coverage that accompanied the publication of Ida’s description in PLoS One was a worrying thing. It described Ida as a ‘missing link’ (a claim that the authors of […]
Continue readinghow well do we teach critical thinking?
Here’s a really interesting quote from Ryan, commenting over on Orac’s blog: Sometime in the 60s, education in America started putting a greater emphasis on skepticism. For the first time, kids were encouraged to question what they were told. This is a good thing, or course. But I wonder – have we been encouraging people […]
Continue readingwhy an anecdote can never be more than a starting point
At least a couple of times I’ve made a comment along the lines of "the plural of anecdote is not data". Now here’s an excellent video (courtesy of Evidence-Based Thought) that explains why not:
Continue readingso true…
Well, I got a giggle from it 🙂 It is sort of true, though – there are an awful lot of blogs out there, & one thing that puts me off returning to some of them is a distinct lack of regular updates. The husband complained over the weekend that I take blogging far too […]
Continue readingwhat turns on zebra fish
Achievement Standard 90716 expects you to know something about a range of animal behaviours, including intraspecific relationships (territoriality, cooperative interactions, reproductive behaviours, hierarchical behaviour, competition for resources) – & the relationship between behaviour patterns & environmental factors. Quite a range of stuff there – although it’s worth remembering that these are not isolated, stand-alone categories. With […]
Continue readinggender of children affects father’s voting preferences?
In the Herald today (I’m not picking on them! It’s just that this is our morning paper) is a headline: Having sons will turn fathers right-wing, study suggests. The ensuing item is from a UK research project that also suggest that if a man has daughters, his voting preferences will trend to the left. (Presumably someone with […]
Continue readingscience communication is fun!
In a couple of weeks it’ll be time for Fieldays again. We’ve lived in Hamilton for 13 years now, but last year was the first time I’d ever been out to this major agricultural event. And I went out there every day – because I’d been closely involved in the development of the Univesity’s stand […]
Continue readingonly in mice…
Just a quickie & a link: Ben Goldacre’s got an interesting post on the total misreporting of several bits of research, in the UK media. (Having read one of the ‘news’ items, on ‘man-flu’, I have to say that in that case the reporter was pointed in the right direction by the researchers themselves. But […]
Continue readinga wonderful fossil – but not a missing link
You’ve probably already seen the following image, as it’s been splashed all over the media recently: From Franzen et al. (2009) PLoS One 4(5): e5723 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005723.g001 NB ‘Plate B’ is the ‘counterplate’ of A; while A is complete & genuine, it seems that B was altered to make it appear more complete (& thus more attractive to […]
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