Marc Grey We are getting 4 COVID vaccines in New Zealand. These vaccines are especially interesting as novel technology has made their development rapid. At the same time, the precise nature of this technology is not as well-publicised as it could be. For instance, there is useful data on the
I recently reported on a promising technology whereby processed spinach plants can be turned into carbon nanosheets, which can in turn be used to make batteries and fuel cells more efficient. In a neat and somehow appropriate twist, old batteries can also be recycled into plant food. An Australian recycling
I’ve long argued that dogs are humankind’s closest mental animal cousins. The great apes may be genetically closest, but they are separated by a gulf of several millions of years of evolution. Dogs, on the other hand, have spent the last 40 000 years growing ever closer to
As the Scarecrow said, in The Wizard of Oz, “Some people with no brains do an awful lot of talking, don’t they?” And, as anyone who’s ever worked an office job knows, an awful lot of emailing. Now, literal vegetables are sending emails. (I’m sure there’s
Robin Grieve Chairman F.A.R.M. ‘The Climate Commission’s recommendation to reduce livestock numbers by 15% by 2030 is not sensible, practical or justified,’ Robin Grieve, chairman of FARM (Facts About Ruminant Methane) said yesterday. Reducing livestock numbers will invariably cost New Zealand export income, and mean that
When Kiwi actor Sam Neill starred in an Australian ad promoting the benefits of eating meat, specifically that meat eating is what boosted our species up the evolutionary tree, it caused quite a stir in ‘progressive’ circles. That doesn’t mean that he – or his scriptwriters, anyway – were wrong. In
The Big Bang Theory occasionally had some witty jokes about science – and also some extremely dumb ones. For instance, antagonist Barry Kripke states that “research into dark energy proved that Einstein’s cosmological constant was right all along”. Which is completely wrong. When a Catholic priest, Abbé Georges Lemaître, first
Even as Elon Musk’s SpaceX is achieving remarkable success in driving down the cost of space travel – in just a decade Musk has slashed the cost of getting a payload into orbit by 80% – new developments might make all his hard work redundant. Enter the Space Elevator. The idea
The Democrats love to big-note themselves as the party of “science” and “anti-racism” – which makes it doubly odd that one of Biden’s first cabinet picks is a scientifically-illiterate racist. Of course, the “party of science” claim is easily disproven by facts: Republican administrations have always had bigger science and
Jeffrey A. Tucker aier.org Jeffrey A. Tucker is Editorial Director for the American Institute for Economic Research. He is the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press and nine books in 5 languages, most recently Liberty or Lockdown. He is also the editor of
Kevin J Anderson’s ripping, seven-volume space opera, The Saga of Seven Suns, features among its sprawling cast of characters a race of spacefaring, sentient trees called the Verdani. While the concept of “treeships” traversing the galaxy remains firmly the province of science fiction (if not fantasy), Japan is experimenting
Covid Plan B covidplanb.co.nz The architect of New Zealand’s elimination strategy for COVID-19, Michael Baker, criticized former “Bachelor” star Naz Khanjani for implying her mild experience of COVID-19 was the typical experience. He said her comments were “dangerous” misinformation, and a “fallacy”. Yet a reality TV star
Covid Plan B covidplanb.co.nz Our letter to the NZ Herald regarding the recent story on our NZ Journal of Primary Health Care (https://www.publish.csiro.au/hc/Fulltext/HC20132). Vaccine caution We recently wrote a scientific article in a leading medical journal which featured prominently in a
After half a century of being “just a few years away”, are we actually about to see some real progress in fusion technology? I’m not holding my breath, but there does seem to be a promising burst of new research and activity. More importantly, the private sector is dipping
Covid Plan B covidplanb.co.nz Covid Plan B was ‘fact-checked’ as “misleading” for publishing on Facebook our article which used the existing conventional standard of statistical interpretation to find that a Danish study on mask wearing meant there was no significant benefit to wearing a mask against Covid-19. This
Dr. John Happs PA Pundits – International Dr. John Happs M.Sc.1st Class; D.Phil. John has an academic background in the geosciences with special interests in climate, and paleoclimate. He has been a science educator at several universities in Australia and overseas and was President of the Western Australian
