Science Stuff

I know that the revitalised blog has been heavy on the politics and light on the science and pretty pictures that characterised its previous incarnation. I'm still writing about science, it's just that it's being published on my department's blog, EcoEvo@TCD. It's one of the reasons this blog has lain dormant for so long as my desire to write had been largely satiated by posting there.

I'll try and remember to link to my posts there when they come up, but in the meantime here's links to the posts from this year. I'll post older ones at a later date when I'm feeling self-indulgent. Hopefully one or two will be of interest.

 Killing in the Name of Science (Part 1): The Science of Scientific Whaling
The one where I dissect (pardon the pun) a paper on scientific whaling and [spoiler alert] show it to have nothing of scientific merit.

Killing in the Name of Science (Part 2): What About the Bunnies?
 The one where I look at the legislation covering animal use in the lab and examine our hypocrisy when it comes to which animals we care about and which ones we don't.

Killing in the Name of Science (Part 3): Dying for Conservation
The one where I look at a spate of news articles where conservation programs resulted in the intentional death of animals.

Science and Journalism
The one where I try and get us to engage and improve scientific journalism.

Kapapo, Kereru and Kaka, Oh My!
The one where I reminisce about some of the amazing birds I saw and studied in New Zealand.

 A Rose by Any Other Name
The one where I complain about the difficulties of naming things scientifically. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sexism vs cultural imperialism

Image
As I was getting ready for bed last night a friend shared a tweet that immediately caught my attention. https://twitter.com/sbattrawden/status/1143465003409915905 The tweet was of a paper that has just been published online, titled "Does physician gender have a significant impact on first-pass success rate of emergency endotracheal intubation?" and showed the abstract which began, It is unknown whether female physicians can perform equivalently to male physicians with respect to emergency procedures. Understandably, this got the backs up of a lot of people, myself included. Who on earth thinks that's a valid question to be researching in this day and age? Are we really still having to battle assumptions of female inferiority when it comes to things like this? Who on earth gave this ethics approval, let alone got it though peer review? I then took a deep breath and asked myself why a respected journal, The American Journal of Emergency Medicine , would publish
Read more

The remarkable tree lobster

Image
I can’t remember the first time I heard about the Lord Howe Island stick insect, and I can’t say my interest has been much more than in passing. They would pique my interest when I saw them in the news, only to fade back into the vast and ever growing pile of ‘oh, interesting’. Then, at the beginning of November, I actually got to come face to face with one of these creatures and it was so incredible I decided to find out more. This is what I’ve learned… Lord Howe Island stick insects are - I’m sure you’ll be surprised to learn - found on Lord Howe Island. This is a small crescent-shaped island in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand. I didn’t realise until researching this piece that the island is actually inhabited. It has a population of 382 people according to the 2011 census . The Lord Howe Island stick insect ( Dryococelus australis ), or LHISI as it’s known to friends, was first described by Xavier Montrouzier in 1855 from specimens collected by the HMS Hera
Read more

Gutting the DSA with dodgy statistics

A couple of days ago the Rt Hon. David Willetts MP (Minister for Universities and Science) announced his changes to the Disabled Students’ Allowance. The DSA is a grant given to disabled students to help cover costs that arise as a direct result of their disability. It's an excellent scheme and for many it can, and has, make the difference between success and failure. These 'changes', more accurately termed 'cuts', are far-reaching and devastating. 
Read more