BioBlog

there’s a word for this sort of misinformation about vaccines

Alison Campbell • Apr 10, 2021

A friend found a concerning FB post (see below – this is a public post & so I have not redacted the name) & – as you do – immediately queried it with Southern Cross Life & Health Insurance as well as sending the screenshot to me¹. We both read the relevant policies & exclusions and were pretty sure the … Read More

“doing my own research” & the scientific method

Alison Campbell • Apr 07, 2021

This evening I was engaging in polite conversation (well, I was polite, anyway) on an RNZ Facebook post about – you guessed it! – the covid19 vaccination program. One of those present offered up a link to a blog post by Joseph Mercola to support a claim he was making about the vaccines. When I pointed out that … Read More

the strange case of the headless sea slug

Alison Campbell • Mar 31, 2021

Autotomy. There’s a word you don’t see every day – but those familiar with lizards may well have seen the result. For autotomy is the scientific name for what I suppose we could also call “self-amputation”: the process whereby an animal deliberately sheds a part of its body (a tail, limb, or other appendage). Lizards do it, but apparently so … Read More

I’m still not in the money

Alison Campbell • Mar 24, 2021

In the last week water fluoridation has made the headlines again, alongside the continuing articles and posts related to SARS-Cov-2 and the rollout of vaccines against it. One of the common features shown by quite a few of those opposed to these 2 public health initiatives (fluoridation & vaccination) is a tendency to claim that those supporting the initiatives in … Read More

Luciferin, Luciferase, etymology, & innuendo

Alison Campbell • Feb 17, 2021

On Friday (5 February) we went for a walk in the Karangahake Gorge, and were very happy to discover (during the Windows Walk) that there are glow-worms in the darker parts of the mine workings. (Strictly speaking they’re glow-maggots as they’re the larvae of small flies/midges, but that is perhaps less attractive to the ear ) These little … Read More

Vaccines, viruses, & mRNA

Alison Campbell • Dec 13, 2020

Today I was told that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine (now approved for use in the US, UK, & Canada) is a virus (screencap at the bottom of this thread). It really isn’t, but I’ve seen this one several times & so I think it’s worth unpacking a little further. (You can also read about mRNA vaccines here, here, & … Read More

Mammoth bones – and … potatoes???

Alison Campbell • Dec 11, 2020

Today I came across an interesting share in a science group that I follow – an article about a “huge 25,000-yr-old hut” made of mammoth bones. Having really enjoyed Jean Auel’s “Earth’s Children” series, of course, I was going to read on. But alas, the article was disappointing: the headline image didn’t match the story; the apparent construction … Read More

Those vaccine ingredients again

Alison Campbell • Dec 11, 2020

A year ago I posted an explanation on vaccine “ingredients”, in relation to some wild claims made about the measles vaccine in the context of Samoa’s measles epidemic. From what I’ve seen on recent RNZ comments threads, an update for the time of SARS-Cov-2 is required. So, here’s purple making a statement about the Pfizer covid-19 vaccine that – … Read More

It always pays to check before you share

Alison Campbell • Nov 19, 2020

Back in 2008, Dr Anthony Fauci (yes, that Dr Fauci) co-authored a paper that examined the interplay between influenza infection and secondary bacterial … Read More

Crabs, carcinisation, and crappy headlines

Alison Campbell • Nov 10, 2020

This is a post of two parts: the interesting tale of convergence involving crab-like creatures, and the very poor – nay, crappy (because I like the alliteration) – headline on a popular article about it. Part 1: the history of carcinization in crustaceans, described in this 2017 paper in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society (Keiler, Wirkner, & … Read More

About BioBlog

BioBlog is the home of Dr Alison Campbell, a science communicator and senior lecturer in biological sciences at the University of Waikato. You'll find a fair bit of biology here and ruminations on science in general.

The views expressed on this blog are those of the author and do not reflect the views of the owners of SciBlogs.co.nz, the Science Media Centre or the Royal Society of New Zealand.

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