Winners all round

Cheers to iinet who decided to give me a trip for two to Sydney to catch the Australian vs New Zealand rugby union match. Another flimsy excuse for a lack of recent postings.

In other news Kathy Belov did the Australian Museum People’s Choice Eureka Prize. I’m gonna try and count this as a poll crash win! Woo!

And finally. Me On 3 submissions with Aunty III have now closed. Below is the channels tribute to over 5,000 entries. Remember there can only be one!*

*Actually, I think there will likely be more than one

60 Second Science: Kids competition

Through the ABC Teaching Science mailer.

Children in Australian schools can win cash prizes by creating a 60 second science video. The video can be filmed or animation, and must “demonstrate and explain a scientific experiment, principle or concept.” (Full rules here)

Registration closes at the end of September. The prize has been set up thanks to funding from the Victorian Department of Education – but there is a $1000 of prize money available in each state ($400 and $100 for first and second in primary and secondary divisions).

Entry forms available here.

Jump, on Three…

Darn you Auntie!

You taunt me too much. I’m fairly sure I’d just started my previous job and you taunted me similarly with some sort of awesome youth television hosting opportunity (think it was travel around Australia and videotape it for JTV).

This time ABC has announced a casting call for all eager beavers interested in hosting any sort of television show on their upcoming children’s programming channel, ABC3. All you need is a high school certificate. Why again am I trying to get yet another degree?

I just hope they get some decent talent, and not the airheaded morons who host those sponsored video music shows on the weekends at midday, and not contrived scripted personalities like The Shak. Being  non-commercial channel, Auntie has had a good track record of cultivating actual talent.

Applications for MeOn3 close next Friday.

Alas as it was for the BestJobInTheWorld, I don’t have a video camera, so can’t put an entry together. Besides, we are meant to stick to the plan this year.

My new housemate (who I went to high school with) has also suggested this to me. Grrrr…

First swine flu death in Australia

My boss and some co-workers are flying to Melbourne on Monday to meet with clients. We were joking about how they should be extra careful while visiting the “swine flu capital of Australia“. Maybe she should put herself in a week-long quarantine when she gets back.

One of our Medical Writers pointed out how its all overblown. And I pointed out that no one had died in Australia yet.

Well, I guess I should stop opening my mouth to talk about swine flu from now on. A 26-year old Indignous man from central Australia died in Royal Adelaide Hospital ICU died from a number of complications, including pneumonia. He was infected with the Mexican Influenza A/H1N1 virus.

It is not known where or when the man contracted the virus, nor how much it may have contributed to his fate.

I’ve pointed elsewhere on the internets that WHO has expressed concern over the possibility that Indigenous Canadian groups may be more susceptible to the A/H1N1 virus. Let’s hope that situation is not true here (or there, even).

Do we take this as a sign to panic? That we aren’t doing enough? Or are the governmental precautions still too heavy handed? They won’t do anything to help, they did not help this man? Does this change anything? Is it just a continuation of SNAFU ‘flu?

Image Credit: ‘Chasing pig at Gatton College‘, Unknown circa 1940s – State Library of Queensland on flickr

Let me axe you a question

Ooooh!

Shameless host promotion! WordPress has enabled polls!

My chances of getting someone to crash my blog* have gone up +100% (from 0%)!

Am I over using exclamation points! (That’s not the poll question)

This should have been tacked on to my previous post:

For the five people I know who are reading this.

*hint hint

Taking an axe to all that is holy

…on the ABC

…Radio.

Friends of the ABC is rightly unimpressed by cuts to Radio National’s quality programming. It’s something to do with the corporate facist government agenda or something-or-other. But I do agree that the national broadcaster has a duty to serve quality content over just being a cash machine for the government sponsored media.

But what is everyone focusing on amidst the dismissal of “several programs“?

The Religion Report.

That’s right Auntie has decided to throw down the gauntlet and showed of its godless commie glory for all to see.

No more will the government sponsored media pander to followers of God, Ywh, Ganesha, Allah, or Xenu.* If only they could manage the same with government sponsored schools, universities, television, charities, politics…

For those who still require their lust of government sponsored religion by radio, I believe Sunday-night Safran is still on air.

*I do admit using some of The Religion Report online transcripts for Wikipedia and other purposes, high quality objective programming, despite the nature of this post I think it probably is a loss to quality programming on-air if it isn’t replaced by something similar or better. There is nothing wrong with openly talking about religion. I agree with the Canberra Times editorial, some religious adherents are probably thankful for the removal of scrutiny.

Pilgrims responsible for plague spread

World Youth Day pilgrims have been blamed for an atypical spike in exotic influenza cases in NSW. CathNews.

Not quite the disease spike I was expecting. Perhaps raging hormones were kept in check .

According the Sydney Telegraph: “Nurses report seeing high rates of of virulent infections among New South Wales hospital patients with ‘new and unusual strains of flu from exotic places’.”

Flu outbreaks amongst the pilgrims occurred more than once (old ABCVideo).

But NSW Health spokespeople note it is impossible to lay the blame firmly on pilgrim carriers or whether its part of normal flu cycles.

Miley Cyrus not dead yet

via fracas.

I am definitely a bit worried at how easily wikipedia vandalism is re-reported as factual news by some outlets.

Wikipedia is not a reliable source folks. It’s a great resource, but in and of its own it is as useful as a class of 4th graders.

Not only was the hoax misspelled, the wikipedia editors didn’t even add the right date.

Oh dear…

A related item from tonight’s episode of Media Watch details how a simple Snopes search might have saved the Age some face by not regurgitating an old urban legend.

Sex, lies, and vomeronasal organs

That seems to be the end of the MHC-smelling your mates and the recent pill “revelation”.

Already I was disappointed when erv used science (or, well high school statistics) to make a mockery the latest hot news item.

It is a very bad shame that people who are supposed to be competent to report on science don’t understand what error bars are for.

I’d heard of MHC-smell relatedness before back when I was in high school from the BBC and ABC. But by the time I got home from work, erv has gone a destroyed my trust in the whole idea, with real science (this time she actually goes and talks to a scientist*)

Humans do not have well developed vomeronasal organs. Ok, what what? That’s ~nasal as in nose, or, oh, just look at wikipedia. As human-like apes have become more reliant on colour-based vision, our sense of smell has diminished. We just don’t have the capacity for being able to strongly sense smell differences associated with MHC.

So why is research still being done with smell-based MHC detection in humans?

Could there be non-olfactory cues in MHC distinction in humans and human-like apes? Differences in sweat light refraction perhaps?

*yes erv is a scientist in her own right, but just to perfect, she goes and talks to a scientist with appropriate knowledge – it’s a machiavellian scheme alright

Beautiful world

You have probably already seen this commercial. But it’s beautiful. So I think it’s a fitting link to leave on the top while I go absent for a little while.

Also take a look at these great photos of Golden ray migration.

Videos of tiger kittens’ debut.

Also Steve Parish is great.

[Ok, I've given in and relinked stuff from PZ at Pharyngula - you may have recognised a few of those contests - Now I demand he send hordes of traffic my way.]

Tales from the BCF

My BCF post has been resoundingly this blogs most popular entry*. So I thought I might as well follow it up with a link to a website by former attendees for former and present attendees, as well as those in similar cult-like environments.

So many members of religious cults are too frightened to speak: while they are in the cult, and after they come out. The cardinal rule all abusers enforce on their victims is “Don’t talk”. For if we talk, we assert ourselves against the abuse, and reveal it for what it is.

The main authors/moderators appear to remain Christian and religious, but perhaps they are a few steps closer to freedom.

At present you can read their response to (BCF leader) Vic Hall’s response to the Four Corners programme about the church and members.

Christian sect called a cult

The “Christian” part must have given it away…

The Brisbane Christian Fellowship (and their Toowoomba counterpart) is in the Courier Mail (“Church sect holds its faithful in grip of fear”, 28/06/08, M. Wenham) and on ABC’s Four Corners. The Christian Fellowship is one of those proliferating fundamentalist groups that pride themselves on devotion (read: mindlessness) and purity (read: xenophobia).

Flick through the 4Corners’ flash site and you can access a tract made by the church to help pubescent teenage girls through “changes” – complete with a section titled “What was Eve’s Deception” and helpful advice like:

Do you want to grow up to be a godly woman who is willing to be given and serve (remember we were created to be a helper) or rather spend your whole life like a sponge, desiring everyone else, (especially a future husband) to fulfil your self-centred needs?

Blessed! What may come if girls actually desire fulfilment?

The Fellowship also appears to be one of those great churches that thinks bad things are God’s way of punishing sinners. After a man suffered a heart attack, induced by the stress of the treatment he received leaving the church, the church actually has the gall to send him a letter, and then read it in church the next Sunday, explaining how this was God’s way of punishing the guy.

Hopefully exposure of groups like this will dispel the myth that Church makes nice people. Though I really doubt anything will come out of this. Australia is just as capable of protecting asshats under the guise of religious freedom as other countries.