Kimberley Collins • Oct 16, 2018 •
As another Bird of the Year draws to a close, Kimberley Collins reflects on why this kind of fun and uplifting advocacy is an important way to get New Zealanders to take an interest in conservation. Every year, thousands of New Zealanders flock to the polls to vote for their favourite bird. Well-known and enthusiastic “campaign managers” hit the streets (and … Read More
Jean Balchin • Mar 09, 2018 •
A groundbreaking Griffith University study has found Antarctic krill which ingest microplastics are able to turn them into nanoplastics through digestion. What are Krill? Krill is a general term used to refer to around 85 species of free-swimming crustaceans called euphausiids, of which Antarctic krill is one species. Antarctic krill are one of the most abundant and successful animal species on … Read More
Guest Author • Feb 22, 2018 •
Adam Bulley, The University of Queensland and Thomas Suddendorf, The University of Queensland This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Everyone knows smoking, consuming too much sugar and drinking too much alcohol will harm our long-term health – but many of us do these things anyway. Why? Of course, … Read More
Helen Petousis Harris • Feb 19, 2018 •
In the clinical trials for HPV vaccines cervical cancer was not a primary endpoint. An endpoint in a clinical trial is a disease or a symptom of interest. I want to explain why cancer was not an endpoint these efficacy studies. Instead surrogate endpoints were used. Why not, given that is what the investigators wanted to prevent? Because you can’t … Read More
Alison Campbell • Feb 07, 2018 •
That’s the premise of an article in Nature (Brown & Woolston, 2018), which I discovered via the excellent Debunking Denialism on Facebook (and if that’s not a good example of how various social media are interlinked, I don’t know what is). Since mine is a science blog, obviously I was interested in the Nature narrative. Brown & Woolston believe … Read More
Jean Balchin • Dec 20, 2017 •
Both chimpanzees and six-year-old children love seeing punishment doled out, even if it costs them, according to a paper published online this week in Nature Human Behaviour. These findings reveal new insights about the evolution of peer-punishment as a means to enforce social norms and ensure cooperation. We know from previous research that humans and some animal species experience … Read More
Sarb Johal • Apr 24, 2017 •
In this week’s Psychology Report I talked with Laurie Parma from the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge in England, about Nature Buzz (iTunes / Android)- the new research application they have developed to explore the links between nature and well-being. Have a read of this conversation to understand more … Read More
Guest Author • May 10, 2016 •
By Ivy Shih, The Conversation Imagine a seasonal jab of antibodies that could neutralise the HIV virus. Such an injection could prove to be next best alternative to an HIV vaccine, which has proven elusive to date. American and German researchers have demonstrated that by injecting macaques with neutralising antibodies, they successfully shielded the monkeys from HIV infection … Read More
Marie Brown • Oct 23, 2015 •
Environment Aotearoa 2015 confirmed what many of us already knew: our natural heritage is in serious trouble.[i] Despite decades of law, policy and grass-roots conservation initiatives our biodiversity is rapidly declining because of habitat loss, fragmentation and change; pollution; impacts of invasive species; macro scale changes such as ocean acidification and a host of other negative … Read More
Siouxsie Wiles • Jan 08, 2015 •
Researchers in Germany and the USA have just published a paper in the journal Nature describing a new antibiotic they have called Teixobactin (1). This study is good news; the World Health Organization warned last year that cancer chemotherapy and routine surgery will soon become life-threateningly risky because of the worldwide rise in antibiotic-resistant … Read More