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Are COVID Vaccines…Vaccines?

Marc Grey Are COVID Vaccines…Vaccines? In a previous article, the 4 COVID vaccines coming to New Zealand were discussed in some detail. In this one, we examine some common questions that people have about these vaccines. Firstly, because most of them are made via novel technology (in particular the

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Apes, Robots and Men: The Life and Death of the First Space Chimp

Apes, Robots and Men: The Life and Death of the First Space Chimp

Alice Gorman Flinders University Associate Professor in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders University On January 31, 1961, an intrepid chimpanzee called Ham was launched on a rocket from Cape Canaveral in the United States, and returned to Earth alive. In this process, he became the first hominin in space. In

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China Virus Cases Drop Ahead of Mass Immunisation

The Wuhan plague sure is a tricky little virus. It seems particularly determined to show up the arrogant bullshit of “experts” and public health bureaucrats. An endless parade of lab-coated media tarts posturing as our sole sources of truth have been continually confounded by the Chinese virus. Whether it’s

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Calling All Aussie Spider Wranglers

Calling All Aussie Spider Wranglers

The common perception of Australia as a land inhabited mostly by vicious, poisonous animals is not entirely unearned. After all, we have sharks, taipans, redback spiders and Clementine Ford. But, to us country folk especially, it can all seem a bit too much ado about nothing. But, then you read

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The “Record” Ozone Hole That Just Vanished on Its Own

The “Record” Ozone Hole That Just Vanished on Its Own

The discovery of the depletion of the ozone layer in the late 1970s and the subsequent Montreal Protocol of 1987 are often cited by climate alarmists as the paradigm case to support their delusions. But, in reality, it’s mostly an object lesson in everything that’s wrong with climate

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So Many Vaccines So Little Time

So Many Vaccines So Little Time

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

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Using Batteries to Make Plants Grow

Using Batteries to Make Plants Grow

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

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Cats Have Us Well Trained

Cats Have Us Well Trained

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

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Veggie Tales in Your Inbox

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

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Fewer Cows Recommendation Absolute Nonsense

Fewer Cows Recommendation Absolute Nonsense

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

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Meat Made Us Smart

Meat Made Us Smart

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

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black and brown galaxy

Is It Lights Out for Dark Matter?

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

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Take an Elevator to Orbit?

Take an Elevator to Orbit?

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

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Biden Appoints Open Racist to Cabinet

Biden Appoints Open Racist to Cabinet

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

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In the Asian Flu of 1957-58, They Rejected Lockdowns

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

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Can Satellites Grow on Trees?

Can Satellites Grow on Trees?

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

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