Author: Charles Ebikeme
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Weekly Science Picks
That time of the week again, where we run down some of the more interesting science happenings on the internets. ISON is dead, long live ISON! Back at the start of this year, in mapping out what the new year would have in store for the science stories to come, comet ISON topped our list.…
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Love of Language
“Canicule!” The word I was looking for was “heatwave”. Sometimes a word appears to me in a different language — one that is not my mother tongue. I quickly realised I am not the only one. What we are experiencing is a pandemic of bilingualism — part infectious disease and part hereditary burden — passed…
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Weekly Science Picks
Halloween week and we have a collection of scientific goodies for you to dig your teeth into. Some scary, others not, (does not contain smarties). Halloween’s Debt to a Demonic Virus “Our demons have their origins in our dread of death and the unknown. Today is Halloween, a time for costuming ourselves and confronting those…
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If a bird flies in the forest, does an insect hear it?
Morpho peleides is a tropical butterfly with a brilliant blue colour. Pilots flying over rainforests have been known to spot large collections of blue morphos above the treetops, warming themselves in the sunshine. The millions of tiny scales on its wings give it a shine and a glean that it uses to scare off predators.…
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Weekly Science Picks
It’s been a slow week, but science never stops. Let’s have a quick look at some of the interesting science-related happenings over the past seven days. Eileen Pollack, a professor of creative writing at the University of Michigan, is writing a book about women in the sciences, and has a long piece in the New…
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Weekly Science Picks
Sundays. They were meant for science. Without any further ado… For all those who have always thought about doing what we here at Australian Science do — science blogging — here are some word-shaped pearls of wisdom. Should you write a science blog? “I used to think there should really be more scientists blogging. That’s…
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Red bacteria as astronaut food
Like something out of Stanley Kubrick’s famed 2001: A Space Odyssey her name is Melissa. Melissa was the first of her kind. Melissa will be there when the first of us touches down on Mars. She will feed and nurture us as we begin our exploration towards the stars. MELiSSA — or Micro-Ecological Life Support…
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The language of biofilms
Every once in awhile, communities form. Collections of similar or diverse things come together, and in unison strive for a common goal. It is the same for mice, men, and bacteria. Humans do it and build nations. Bacteria do it and build biofilms. Dental plaque, the slimy coating on pipes and tanks, algal mats on…
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Weekly Science Picks
Science Sunday… our weekly guide and collection of some of the amazing science stories that have caught our eye over the past seven days. Twelve Months in Two Minutes; Curiosity’s First Year on Mars Hard to believe Curiosity has been on Mars for twelve short months. Here at Australian Science we’ve covered the tiny…
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Life of an epidemic: Australian dengue
It is always a bad sign when crowds gather. On the morning of Wednesday March 21 in the year 1900, a crowd began to gather in Sydney. A thousand people had gathered outside the offices of the Board of Health in Macquarie Street. They had gathered because bubonic plague had broken out. People had already…
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Public Health in the Age of Austerity
“Care of the public health is the first duty of the statesman” In 1932, the American Public Health Association, publishing in the American Journal of Public Health, called on their government not to forget about them. The consequences, they claimed, would be dire. They described it as a present state of emergency. At the time,…
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Australia’s evolving drug landscape
This year we saw Australia put into force a new patent law. An intellectual property system that was Australia’s most comprehensive in over two decades. It came into effect on 15 April 2013 and no one knew exactly what to expect from it. We have seen with cases like India, how one country’s patent laws…
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Weekly Science Picks
Happy Sunday, Happy Science. Without further ado, here’s the list… We start with one of our own. Pluto, the dwarf planet that has probably gone through more drama than any other palnetary body in our solar system is back in the news as well. What do Spock and Pluto have in common? Pluto’s new moons…
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Curious case of armadillo leprosy
Texans love all things armadillo. It is the state animal and Texas has become somewhat of a haven for hunting the small creature. In Louisiana and Texas, people hunt, skin and eat armadillos. Nothing exemplifies this all-things-armadillo attitude quite like the fact that barbecued armadillo and armadillo chili are popular delicacies in Texas. During the…