Science related stories and commentary
I’ve blogged before about how climategate’s final act, in which three separate investigations largely exonerated the scientists concerned and reaffirmed the climate science, was under-reported by the New Zealand media compared to the explosion of coverage at the start. Well, TVNZ’s Media7 show hosted by Russell Brown set out to find out just how much […]
MoreA colleague who read my previous post about the 60 Minutes miracle cure programme pointed out some of the reaction to the story on the Facebook page of the official-sounding Vaccination Information Network. A visit to the page finds it is anything but informative. Despite that, the VINE has attracted a following of 8000-plus people […]
MoreIf you watched the 60 Minutes item Living Proof on Wednesday night, you’ll no doubt agree that King Country farmer Alan Smith is lucky to be alive. Acutely affected by the H1N1 virus, Smith lay in intensive care close to death, an ECMO machine battling to keep his fluid-filled lungs functioning. As Mike McRoberts says […]
MoreBed bugs are in the news at the moment, with outbreaks of the little critters in New York theatres. So what are bed bugs, why are hotel rooms bed bug-magnets and how do you get rid of the damn things? This clever infographic from The Ottawa Sun goes some way to providing answers…
MoreThe weekend’s Skeptics conference was a refreshing reminder that there are sharp-witted people in New Zealand interested in rational thought and with a healthy disdain for pseudo-scientific claims, quackery and silly beliefs. Some of the conference sessions are available as podcasts over at the Science Media Centre website – more are to come as soon […]
MoreAs NIWA faced a scurrilous legal challenge over its climate data yesterday, its scientists were getting on with business, releasing details of the partial collapse of an undersea volcano in New Zealand waters. As the Herald reports: A volcanic cone on Rumble III, 200km northeast of Auckland, had crumbled. The volcano’s highest point had dropped […]
MoreIf New Zealand’s senior climate scientists weren’t tied up responding to vexatious attacks from the Climate Science Coalition, they have time to put together useful overviews of climate science aimed at informing the public about the state of climate change, as this useful report from the Australian Academy of Science does. It is ironic that […]
MoreCredit to Canada’s Winnipeg Sun for publishing the full page infographic below, which is a guide to the Northern Lights or aurora, which have been keeping sky watchers in the Northern Hemisphere happy of late.
MoreAs Australia rolls towards a Federal election a fair amount of pork barrel politicking is underway as Prime Minister Julia Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott fight to swing the divided electorate their way. Still, there hasn’t been much for science, the only significant thing outlined in Labor’s science policy released this week being the […]
MoreAnimal cloning is back in the spotlight in Britain following news that meat and milk from the offspring of cloned cattle may have ended up in products sold at British retailers. It is illegal to sell cloned material in the UK without approval, though scientists approached by the Science Media Centre in London suggest there […]
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PETER GRIFFIN 
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