Guest Work

Why Do So Many Astronomy Discoveries Fail to Live Up to the Hype?

Guest Author • Jan 20, 2021

• academic research,
• astronomy,
• breakthroughs,
• media coverage,
• science communcation,
• science skepticism,
• scientific evidence

Dan Falk Britons who switched on their TVs to “Good Morning Britain” on the morning of Sept. 15, 2020, were greeted by news not from our own troubled world, but from neighboring Venus. Piers Morgan, one of the hosts, was talking about a major science story that had surfaced the previous day, informing his viewers that “there may … Read More

Book Review: Unlocking the World of Autism

Guest Author • Jan 20, 2021

• autism,
• autism spectrum disorder,
• book review,
• Psychology

Sara Luterman Growing up autistic in a non-autistic world can be very isolating. We are often strange and out of sync with peers, despite our best efforts. Autistic adults have, until very recently, been largely absent from media and the public sphere. Finding role models is difficult. Finding useful advice for navigating life’s problems, even more so. In … Read More

Breathing Life into the Corpse Flower

Guest Author • Jan 20, 2021

• botanical gardens,
• ecology,
• endangered species,
• genetic diversity,
• seed bank,
• TREES program

Doug Johnson The alien-like blooms and putrid stench of Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, draw big crowds and media coverage to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for instance, around 75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of their corpse flowers bloom. More than 300,000 people viewed it online. But despite … Read More

Upgrade rage: why you may have to buy a new device whether you want to or not

Guest Author • Jan 19, 2021

• Apple iPhone,
• gadgets,
• google,
• Hardware,
• operating systems,
• software,
• software updates,
• technology upgrades

Michael Cowling, CQUniversity Australia We’ve probably all been there. We buy some new smart gadget and when we plug it in for the first time it requires an update to work. So we end up spending hours downloading and updating before we can even play with our new toy. But what happens when we can’t update our gadgets any further? … Read More

Why Aotearoa New Zealand’s early Polynesian settlement should be recognised with World Heritage Site status

Guest Author • Jan 08, 2021

• Aotearoa New Zealand,
• human settlement,
• mātauranga māori,
• polynesian navigation,
• rock art,
• UNESCO World Heritage

Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato and Valmaine Toki, University of Waikato Aotearoa New Zealand likes to think it punches above its weight internationally, but there is one area where we are conspicuously falling behind — the number of sites recognised by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Globally, there are 1,121 recognised World Heritage Sites, both cultural and natural. Read More

Online Misinformation Fuels a Fight Over Folic Acid

Guest Author • Jan 06, 2021

• birth defects,
• folic acid,
• genetic testing,
• pregnancy,
• science skepticism

Christina Szalinski When Martha Field became pregnant in 2005, a singular fear weighed on her mind. Not long before, as a Cornell University graduate student researching how genes and nutrients interact to cause disease, she had seen images of unborn mouse pups smaller than her pinkie nail, some with brains bulging outside their skulls or with deformed … Read More

Six space missions to look forward to in 2021

Guest Author • Jan 05, 2021

• ESA,
• Hubble,
• ISRO,
• James Webb Space Telescope,
• NASA,
• space

Ian Whittaker, Nottingham Trent University and Gareth Dorrian, University of Birmingham Space exploration achieved several notable firsts in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, including commercial human spaceflight and returning samples of an asteroid to Earth. The coming year is shaping up to be just as interesting. Here are some of the missions to keep an eye out for. Read More

Dr. Jill Biden and the Doctoral Title Controversy

Guest Author • Dec 15, 2020

• doctorate,
• Dr Jill Biden,
• PhD,
• postgraduate research

Anaise Irvine The internet usually doesn’t pay too much attention to doctoral degrees and the people who hold them. Oh sure, we have our own corners of the web, but seldom does mainstream social media erupt with discussions about academic issues. This past weekend, that all changed. The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece* by a Mr. Joseph Epstein … Read More

Marine protection falls short of the 2020 target to safeguard 10% of the world’s oceans. A UN treaty and lessons from Antarctica could help

Guest Author • Dec 15, 2020

• Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources,
• marine ecology,
• marine protected areas,
• overfishing

Natasha Blaize Gardiner, University of Canterbury and Cassandra Brooks, University of Colorado Boulder Two-thirds of the world’s oceans fall outside national jurisdictions – they belong to no one and everyone. These international waters, known as the high seas, harbour a plethora of natural resources and millions of unique marine species. But they are being damaged irretrievably. Research … Read More

Report shows New Zealand’s ‘fragmented’ environmental research funding doesn’t match most urgent needs

Guest Author • Dec 10, 2020

• biodiversity loss,
• climate change,
• research funding,
• Water quality

Troy Baisden, University of Waikato There’s a serious mismatch between what New Zealand’s government identified as the most pressing environmental issues, including climate change and freshwater quality, and the investments in environmental research it actually makes. A report released today by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE) shows New Zealand spends about NZ$500m on environmental … Read More