rachel.blog

Category: Journal

  • The Daily Mail Song

    Yesterday I made a post with a loaded title and I was curious to see whether this would influence my stats. It did; the title generated more traffic than usual. What does that say about us? I can understand why tabloids like The Daily Mail choose such ridiculous headlines because headlines sell newspapers. A friend…

  • Bushy beaver or prepubescent pube?

    There’s a disturbing trend going on in the female body hair department and this is towards less hair down there. Women go to a salon where they spread their legs for a stranger who smears hot wax nail-bitingly close to important bits, strips of cloth are applied and then the whole lot gets ripped off.…

  • Women and scientists threats to society

    Australian politics has become so extreme that it is now bordering on funny. Australians have shamelessly elected someone who not only thinks coal and cars are king but who also inexplicably once said, I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number…

  • Jorvik and the Vikings

    York was once a thriving Viking city called Jorvik. Archaeologists in the 70s and 80s discovered the houses, workshops and backyards of these Vikings as they were 1000 years ago. They are now on display at the Jorvik Viking Centre in York. I took the kids there to have a look and it was fascinating…

  • Australians say no to rail

    It’s no surprise that I am not a fan of Australia’s new Prime Minister. In particular, I disagree with his views on climate change but here I want to write about his plans or lack of for urban/commuter rail. To quote Tony Abbott, We have no history of funding urban rail and I think it’s…

  • Australia’s anti-science government

    A little while ago I wrote a post titled Should politicians choose what research to fund? This was based on news from America that a Republican Representative was attempting to install a set of criteria chosen by politicians for funding research. One of the criteria was that research must be of the utmost importance to society…

  • Fairness in voting

    In less than a week, Australians will vote for their choice of prime minister in a federal election. I have always been interested in fairness but where voting is concerned, it can be very difficult to devise a fair voting system. Australia uses a preferential ballot system where voters rank candidates in order of preference.…

  • Possible practical applications in pure mathematics?

    The place we’ve rented in York is unfurnished so we’ve had to find things to sit on, lie on and eat from. Most of this stuff has come from second-hand furniture shops. In one place, I found a cool old trunk which I immediately decided should be our coffee table/toy box. Here it is: I…

  • Anthropologist debunks paleo diet

  • Watching the drip drop

    My old university, The University of Queensland, is home to the world’s longest running experiment. Things are just about to get exciting because a very rare event, the drip of a tar-like substance called pitch, is imminent and in the 83 years of the experiment’s life, only 8 drips have fallen. No-one has witnessed any…

  • Don't sleep with mean people

    This is the new campaign of Canadian rapper Baba Brinkman who is crowd-sourcing funding for a music video with the slogan don’t sleep with mean people.   His inspiration was an ancient Greek play called Lysistrata, in which the women collectively withhold sex from their husbands and lovers as leverage to get them to end the Peloponnesian…

  • Migraines and preservatives in food

    Recently I have been conducting some animal experimentation. The animal under investigation is me. I get migraines, frequently. They are not always terrible, but still unpleasant and usually accompanied by vision impairment. The vision impairment is debilitating because for the 30 minutes or so that it lasts, I cannot read, write or drive. A few…

  • Questions from my son

    I had a couple of questions from Daniel – who is 6-years-old – yesterday afternoon. One of the questions is quite profound, the other, profane. I’ll let you guess which is which. NB: Freud is our dog. Question 1: What would happen if I put my finger in Freud’s bottom and took it out and…

  • A high-five is worth gold

    There’s a great TED talk from the “That’s absurd!” playlist which is delivered by comedian and creator of Improv Everywhere, Charlie Todd. Improv Everywhere is a New York-based group of individuals who go about creating “scenes of chaos and joy in public places”, one of the most famous being the no-pants subway ride which is…

  • Rewilding

    I thought this short video about rewilding was rather lovely and so I want to share it. Rewilding is about restoring natural ecosystems – reintroducing missing plants and animals and letting nature take over. If you think the idea of elephants roaming Europe is odd, apparently biologists are already considering restoring Britain’s lynx population. Maybe…

  • The future of cycling?

    Could this bike be the future of cycling?   The levitating bike is an entry into the 2013 Hi-MACS annual design contest. It captures the energy from pedalling, stores it in a battery and then allows you to subsequently plug this energy back into the grid. It can also charge small devices via USB, like…

  • The river of myths

    I discovered this clip yesterday. It’s a very clever and visual illustration of the incredible progress made by “developing” countries in saving the lives of children. It’s delivered by Hans Gosling – Swedish medical doctor, academic, statistician and cofounder of Gapminder. There are more world trends presented in a similarly compelling way at Gapminder.

  • Should politicians choose what research to fund?

    When should politicians decide which research to fund and which research not to fund? NEVER. Because if we let our politicians shape scientific enquiry, it will become skewed, biased and will lose the innovation and creativity of a discipline that ought to be driven by curiosity and the search for truth. So imagine my surprise…

  • New Zealand legalises gay marriage

    On April 17th, 2013, New Zealand parliament cheered in song with the passing of a law which allows homosexuals to marry their partners. This is a fabulous outcome and a celebration of love and the tradition of proclaiming our love for one person through marriage. If two people wish to engage in a mutually consensual…

  • Peer review and hot cross buns

    Ben Martin is going to explain how academics get their work published in peer-reviewed journals. He is Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Auckland. He is also an associate editor for the Journal of the Australian Mathematical Society and has himself published a number of peer-reviewed papers. Rachel: Let’s say, you’ve written a paper. You…