News & Views Index
April 2007

 

Science's Editor in Chief Says Creationism Deadens Curiosity.    (28/04/07)

    Donald Kennedy, Editor in Chief of the journal Science and President Emeritus of Stanford University told a full house at the university's Cubberley Auditorium on April 4 that high school students who are taught creationism instead of evolutionary theory lack the critical thinking skills that are necessary for university. [More]

 

Lighting Up for Research of Australian Synchrotron Nears.    (27/04/07)

    The commissioning of Australia's first synchrotron facility is now near enough that it will call for initial proposals of projects in May. [More]

 

And Just When You Thought Black Wasn't White, There's Howard and Bishop to Set You Right.    (26/04/07)

    In yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald's editorial we're told, "Mr Howard is wrong, profoundly so, in positing that the choice is between a strong economy or significantly cutting greenhouse emissions that, per person, are the world's highest. [More]

 

Labor to Separate Science from Education and Amalgamate Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.    (25/04/07)

    Yesterday the federal Labor opposition released New Directions for innovation, competitiveness and productivity: a ten point plan for innovation in Australia and while thin on detail was not entirely devoid of substance. [More]

 

Maths versus the Quick and Easy; Besides There's an Election Coming, Stupid.    (25/04/07)

    Some three weeks ago over 500 mathematicians sent an open letter to Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, in the hope that it would trigger some active response in order to reverse the downward trend in the quality and quantity of mathematicians in the academic, governmental and business sectors. [More]

 

New Analysis Supports Flores Man is a Distinct Species.    (23/04/07)

    Work reported at the Paleoanthropology Society's annual meeting supports the contention by the Australian/Indonesian team that discovered the 18,000 year-old fossils. One-meter tall Flores Man is a distinct species, not Homo sapiens. [More]

 

An Advocate in a High Place.    (20/04/07)

    Diana Warwick (61) was appointed Chief Executive of Universities UK (comparable to our Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee) in 1995. In 1999  she was created a Labour life peer and as such she sits in the House of Lords as Lady Warwick. [More]

 

Minister for Education, Science and Training, Announces Research Quality Framework Assessment Panel Chairs.    (18/04/07)

    The Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop, today announced the Assessment Panel Chairs for the Research Quality Framework (RQF). [More]

 

One Thing Steven Smith and Julie Bishop Have in Common is that in Describing the Melbourne Model as Following the American System they Really Don't Know What they're Talking About.    (17/04/07)

    When the vice-chancellor of The University of Melbourne, Glyn Davis undertook to revamp the curriculum, he pointed to such schools as The University of California, Berkeley as a model. [More]

 

Bell Shakespeare Receives $1M Three-year Grant from DEST to Assist in Schools Program.    (17/04/07)

    We don't know if the Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop, has ever attended a performance of the Bell Shakespeare Company and is really doesn't much matter. She has just announced a three-year $1 million dollar grant allowing it to expand its Education Programme. [More]

 

He Was Not Amused -- Computational Physicist's Sarcastic Comments Gets Him the Sack.    (12/04/07)

    Claudio Mendoza, the 10 year head of the computational-physics lab at IVIC in Caracas, was stripped of the position and sent to the research bench with the implication that he should consider himself lucky.  [More]

 

The Royal Society Takes up the Cudgels to Give the Lie to the Arguments Put Forward in Channel 4's Recent Great Global Warming Swindle Programme.    (11/04/07) [More]

 

Cambridge and Professor Richard -- Melbourne and Professor Davis.    (11/04/07)

    Glyn Davis took over the vice-chancellorship of The University of Melbourne in January 2005.  Alison Richard was installed as the 344th Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge on 1 October 2003. [More]

 

Stuff the Universities, Let's Use Megaphone Intimidation to Spruik Primary and Secondary School Performance Pay.    (10/04/07)

    It's been going on for months and it's been a marvellous diversion. [More]

 

University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor Continues His Hymn of Despair, While the Minister for Education Supplies the Obbligato.    (05/04/07)

    While the Labor opposition is spruiking reducing Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) fees to entice more high school matriculators into university, Professor Davis reiterates that there is no compelling evidence that increased HECS fees discourages perspective enrolees. [More]

 

While the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Malcolm Turnbull, Marches to the Prime Minister's Drumbeat, CSIRO Starts Telling it Like it is.    (04/04/07)

   Malcolm Turnbull berates the Labor opposition for not recognising that Australia's actual contribution to climate change (global warming) is miniscule (heaven forbid we should set an example), the journal Nature reports on the detrimental effects of local pollution on rainfall and CSIRO is becoming increasing visible. [More]

 

Over 500 Australian and International Mathematicians and Scientists Urge Government Action to Revive Australia's Ailing Mathematical Sciences.     (04/04/07)

    We reprint in its entirety the April 4 media release from the working party of the National Strategic Review of Mathematical Sciences Research in Australia. [More]

 

U.S. Supreme Court Rules Four Motor Vehicle Produced Greenhouse Gases are Pollutants.    (03/04/07)

    The decision was close, 5 to 4, but the United States Supreme Court yesterday ruled that carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons are pollutants and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Clean Air Act has the authority to regulate heat-trapping gases in motor vehicle emissions. [More]

 

More Women Needed in Science, Mathematics and Engineering, Bishop tells First National Symposium on Women in Science and Engineering. (02/04/07) [More]