News

26 August 2021 – NIWA Science & Technology Fair 2021

This is not happening tomorrow as a live science fair. Like last year, it'll be online. More information will be released at some point in the hopefully not too distant future.

26 August 2021 – NZQA exam schedule

NZQA has announced all exams and portfolio due dates will be moved back two weeks, now to be held 22 November to 14 December. More info on NZQA site.

31 July 2021 – the first international vaccination campaign

In 1803 the first international vaccination campaign was launched (literally – they used a ship) by a Spanish physician, Francisco Javier de Balmis, using cowpox to vaccinate against the deadly smallpox virus spreading in Central and South America.

Smallpox was highly contagious and had up to a 52% fatality rate, which is bad enough, but diseases don't just kill. In 18th century Europe, smallpox killed an estimated 400,000 people a year, and caused a third of all cases of blindness. Survivers were left badly scarred.

The vaccination technique discovered a few years earlier by Edward Jenner was effective, but cowpox only lasts in a test tube for 12 days, and there was a big ocean to cross.

To transport the cowpox virus to South America, de Balmis took 22 orphan boys, aged 3 to 10, selected by their carer and nurse Isabel Zendal, who insisted on accompanying them. (She also took her 9 year old son, so maybe only 21 of the boys were orphans.) The children were used as live incubators of the cowpox virus. Every ten days during the voyage, the virus was transferred from the pustules of two infected children to two healthy children, thus maintaining an unbroken strain across the Atlantic Ocean, visiting the Canary Islands, Puerto Rico, and Cuba on the way.

This may seem a somewhat barbaric way to transport a virus, but it was certainly the most practical method at the time. Cowpox was not life threatening, smallpox was.

The boys were left in Mexico, and from that country in 1806 a further 26 boys, aged 4 to 14, were collected for de Balmis' onward trip across the Pacific Ocean to Macau, Canton in China, and the Philippines. Meanwhile, José Salvany, deputy surgeon of the expedition, had gone south to what is now Venezuela, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and Bolivia. The vaccine was also carried north as far as Texas.

On his return journey to Spain in 1806 de Balmis offered the vaccine to the British in Saint Helena, in the middle of the Anglo-Spanish War (1804-1808).

As this article explains, "By the end of the campaign, about 300,000 people ... had received the vaccine for free." The mission was a success, and an extraordinary achievement.

Smallpox was officially declared to be globally eradicated in 1980. As for vaccines, we have it much easier now. Vaccines can be transported internationally without using orphans, they are safer than they've ever been, and it's easy to get a vaccine. Vaccines work.

By the way, Edward Jenner coined the words "vaccine" and "vaccination" in 1796 from the Latin for "of the cow". Isabel Zendal was recognised by the WHO in 1950 as the first nurse to take part in an international mission.

10 June 2021 – Richard Branson on dyslexia

Holly Jean Brooker, NZ Herald reporter and mother of a dyslexic child, spoke with Richard Branson about his dyslexia, which he calls his superpower. His dyslexia was not recognised or diagnosed while he was at school – "So, it's not a surprise that school didn't work out for me." However, he credits his dyslexia with giving him a "heightened sense of imagination" which he says was key to many of Virgin's successes. Read the article.

17 May 2021 – Research shows more value in numeracy

Cambridge University researchers surveyed people in the UK, Ireland, USA, Spain, and Mexico, and examined predictors of belief in COVID-19 misinformation. Across all countries surveyed, they found "having higher numeracy skills were associated with lower susceptibility to coronavirus-related misinformation".

While the research was not able to show the correlation had a causative relationship, it does make a certain amount of sense that people who have worked on their maths skills will ask themselves "does this really make sense?" when presented with misinformation.

Parents can improve their children's numeracy skills by getting them to up to speed with their times tables – see the Multiplication Grids page to download grids.

24 April 2021 – Petition about child mental health services

Samantha Edmondson has started a petition about child mental health services: That the House of Representatives urge the Government to increase resources for and access to mental health services for children and remove barriers for families requiring help.

Samantha gives her petition reason:

The Government needs to encourage more Occupational Therapists and Child Psychologists to train, so more resources are available to the many families who are struggling to be seen. In my view the mental health system is already in crisis and if a child feels unheard from the early years of their life, why would they turn to the health system as teenagers or adults at breaking point?

Considering the wide range of conditions which we know can be improved with access to the right treatments, easy access to children's mental health services seems vital. Signatures are being accepted until 28 May 2021. Update: The petition closed with 1790 signatures.

27 January 2021 (updated 3 Feb) – Present situation

Sorry, my schedule is now rather full, so I'm quite unlikely to be able to accept new students. However, I do have a waiting list which every so often I manage to whittle back a bit, so enquiries are still welcome.

Ian.

23 January 2021 – Fact checking simple chemistry

I came across this story about a new design of hydrogen generation and storage device. One claim by the manufacturer rang my warning bells.

Lavo says ... that hydrogen is "inherently no more dangerous than other conventional fuels such as gasoline or natural gas," ...

That doesn't sound right at all, because hydrogen is explosive in air over a much wider range of concentration than most other gases. It's why the pop-test for hydrogen works (which a number of my students have discovered for themselves – under supervison!). So I looked up the values of the explosive limits of the three gases in air. Outside of these limits the gas might burn, but it won't explode.

Gasoline: min 1.4%, max 7.6%
Hydrogen: min 4%, max 75%
Methane: min 4.4%, max 16.4%

Yep, hydrogen gas is inherently more dangerous than gasoline or methane.

PS. Hydrogen is also odorless and can burn with a colourless flame.