BioBlog

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

First steps: Jerry DeSilva on the evolution of bipedalism

Alison Campbell • Sep 25, 2020

Yesterday morning I got up (at the rather early and unaccustomed hour of 3.30am) to listen to a webinar by paleoanthropologist Dr Jeremy DeSilva¹. Titled “First Steps”, his presentation was about the origins of bipedalism in the human lineage. It was a fascinating session & I thought I’d turn my notes into this post, to share with students, teachers, and … Read More

It’s “only” a 1% death rate

Alison Campbell • Aug 31, 2020

I’m seeing a bit of that phrase in my social media feeds at the moment, in relation to covid-19. In practice, this would mean that if everyone in New Zealand were to catch the virus eventually, that would be 50,000 people dead. The ‘normal’ annual all-cause mortality in this country is around 33,000. It’s been argued that we just … Read More

COVID myths & politics

Alison Campbell • Aug 11, 2020

This year’s election campaign in New Zealand has attracted a number of “fringe” parties, at least some of whose supporters seem to have a fairly tenuous hold on reality and a highly flexible approach to the truth. I mean, how else could one describe some of those affiliated with the NZPP/Advance coalition, whose members & supporters regularly share myths about … Read More

A fishy story: midas cichlids in nicaraguan lakes

Alison Campbell • Jun 11, 2020

Midas cichlids (Amphilophus spp.) are a popular aquarium fish, but in the wild they’re found in South America, ranging from Nicaragua to Costa Rica. The 2018 Schol Bio paper included a really interesting question about a Nicaraguan ‘species complex‘ of these fish, based on a paper in Nature Communications. and a monograph in Cuadernos de Investigacion … Read More

Honeycreepers in hawaii

Alison Campbell • May 25, 2020

The 2015 Schol Bio paper included a question about a group of birds known as honeycreepers, specifically, the 56 species endemic to the Hawaiian islands. (Or, were endemic: 18, or perhaps 19, are still living; the others are extinct.) Students who’ve already had a look at this paper as part of their preparation for the exam will know that it included … Read More

Applying the CRAAP test to Plandemic

Alison Campbell • May 11, 2020

In the last couple of days I’ve seen a lot of individuals and pages share links to a trailer for “Plandemic”. And I’ve had friends ask me what I think of it. They’ve commented that it looks and sounds pretty ‘sciencey’ but wanted another opinion. So, I had a look, and here goes. The “Plandemic” trailer focuses on statements … Read More

Thoughts on the proposed changes to NCEA

Alison Campbell • Feb 28, 2020

Many readers will probably have read this RNZ article (or heard the related interview), or seen calls for consultation on the Ministry of Education’s suggested changes to the number of subjects – and achievement standards – on offer to year 11 students. I’ve been following (& participating, where I can) all this with colleagues and friends, and … Read More

Why do students need to learn about the nature of science?

Alison Campbell • Feb 25, 2020

You’re probably aware that the Achievement Standards used to assess senior school students’ learning are being reviewed. Science is one of the ‘pilot’ subjects in this process, where a ‘Subject Expert Group’ has developed 4 draft Science standards¹ (a significant step away from the current 30+, and a response to advice from several high-level advisory groups). These drafts … Read More

Neandertals’ genetic legacy extends into africa

Alison Campbell • Feb 03, 2020

For the last few years it’s been pretty much received wisdom that African populations shared only a tiny proportion of their genes, if any, with Neanderthals. In contrast, other non-African sapiens populations had a small but significant admixture of Neanderthal genes. The underlying reason for this, it’s been assumed, is that Homo sapiens and neandertalensis only bred with each other in Europe … 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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