Author: Charles Ebikeme
-
Middle East Coronavirus
Since the summer of last year, the perennial talk of epidemics and pandemics has focused on a novel coronavirus. A virus that belongs to a diverse group of that affects many animal species — from bats to humans. At the time the public health risks were unknown. How many could eventually possibly become infected or…
-
Weekly Science Picks
That time of the week again. Time to kick back with a sunday newspaper… but since newspapers are dead we bring you a weekly run-down of all things sciencey! We begin in space, with aliens. Australian Science’s Markus has a piece at Discover News on the search for extra-terrestial life and the feeling of finding…
-
The Great Race of Mercy
“How the boy said, ‘mama, I’m going to die,’ and how she knew enough to say, ‘no you aren’t honey, no you never will.’ How this boy could only stare back at his father and mother and why they lied.” In the late decades of the 18th century and the early 19th century, unknown numbers…
-
The parasitic warfare perpetrated by ladybirds
There is a scientific term that causes fear and alarm to those that study biodiversity. More fear and alarm than the term climate change. Biotic homogenisation — introducing a new exotic species to an area that was, until now, without admixture. Worldwide there is an increase in introduced exotic species and the potential of these…
-
The elusive atmospheric molecule
Sometimes, the simplest things are the hardest to find. Out there, up there, in the atmosphere, amongst the things that fly around, are things that collide with other things and make other things. Small things crash into each other and produce other small things. The layman’s way of saying chemical reactions happen. This one, the…
-
Weekly Science Picks
Science Sunday! What better way to spend the day than to kick back and let some of the week’s best science stories come to you. Firstly, right here on Australian Science, Markus tells the story of the world’s slowest experiment — that is still going. The World’s Slowest Experiment “This curious looking setup is the…
-
Weekly Science Picks
Science Sunday! My first since the death of Google Reader. Let’s dive straight in. Viet Le, the scientific amasian, has a nice piece on genetically modified crops. Perhaps the time has come to have another debate on the issue of GMOs, too often dismissed out of hand. An “Acceptable” GMO? “So, this brings me back…
-
India, Novartis, and Australia’s new patent law
April 1 — about the only thing on the internet that wasn’t a huge Poisson d’Avril was the “landmark” ruling that came from the Indian Supreme Court early on Monday. The result was delivered from a packed room, the two judges probably had to raise their voices to be heard. Poetry to the simple fact…
-
15 million mobile phones used to track malaria
We all know that mosquitoes spread malaria. What we never quite realise is that humans also spread malaria — and quite significantly. In some places, the spread of malaria is directly linked to the mass movements of human populations. The movements of infected humans seem to increase the dispersal of parasites beyond what would be…
-
The beat the mosquito’s heart didn’t skip
It pulsed continuously without stopping. Then it repeated, as it had done many times before. Then, without delay, almost without skipping a beat, it changed direction. The action was as old as man himself, yet this time, completely and uniquely different — the perfect heartbeat. The perfect mosquito heartbeat. An interesting quirk of nature is…
-
The Contagion of Violence
When Professor Plum killed Dr Black, in the library, with the candlestick it was for no other reason than murder is a disease. Murder is infectious and the contagion of violence is everywhere. Violence begets violence.Violence within nations and cultures. It occurs within families and between partners. It increases the risk of violence directed at…
-
Weekly Science Picks
Welcome to some of this week’s best science happenings on the interweb space! The first question is simple: can you name a female statistician? Epidemiologista answers its own question with a nice profile of Dr Janet Lane-Claypon: epidemiologic pioneer. Can you name a female statistician? “We read about statistics every day: be it the predicted…
-
Invasion of the Asian tiger mosquito
Sometime during that glorious decade known as the 1980s, a shipment landed in Houston, Texas. A shipment carrying more than its cargo. The point of origin was Japan. The shipment was used tires. The payload was Asian tiger mosquitoes. Within years of landing in Texas the tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, rapidly displaced resident populations of…
-
Weekly Science Picks
#Scio13 This week Science Online kicked off in Raleigh, North Carolina. The unconference that brings together communicators of science in all their ilks — writers, bloggers, scientists themselves, filmmakers etc — the list goes on. “I write fiction in the form of grant proposals…” For those of us that couldn’t make it out to Raleigh…