As part of our coverage of “Knowledge” this month, we’re going to be looking at matters of science: what it is, how it works, what it means, why it matters; how to interpret the media reports that x causes cancer and y causes it; what a science-based, knowledge economy means for New Zealand.
In the meantime, here are scientific snippets to whet your appetite.
An unidentified species of jellyfish “the size of a smart car” has washed up on a beach in Tasmania.
Bill Nye “the Science Guy”, dubbed essential to advancing “the human cause” by (of all publications) Esquire, is trying to reason with American Creationists by way of a video clip entitled “Creationism Is Not Appropriate for Children”; watch him debate Creation Museum founder Ken Ham earlier this week. Slate has “answers for creationists”; read a science education advocate’s account of growing up in a Creationist state.
Dr Bridget Stocker and Dr Mattie Timmer of Victoria University of Wellington take an in-depth look at New Zealand’s most popular fruit, the banana.
Dr Martin Elvis from the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre suggests that going into space and finding suitable asteroids to mine might be even harder than first thought.
Canadian clinical pharmacologist David Bailey and Dr Dorothy Saville of the University of Otago explain how eating grapefruit, when combined with certain medication, can be bad for your health.
Mashable’s interview with Elise Andrew, the founder of the overwhelmingly popular Facebook page, I F...ing Love Science, is a testament to the strengths of being “a generalist”.
Meanwhile, these “#overlyhonestmethods” collected by TwentyTwoWords.com give a behind-the-scenes look at the work that goes on laboratories: