Wednesday, October 12, 2005
More than one pupil in every 10 is absent from school each day, research released by the Ministry of Education shows. The survey showed overall absence of 11 per cent, including a truancy rate of 3 per cent. Absences for boys and girls were similar but boys at co-educational schools had a higher overall absence rate than their counterparts in single sex schools. Maori and Pacific Islands students had double the truancy rate of New Zealand European and Asian students, the report said.
Is all that money being spent on school computers wasted? "Recent research indicates that students who frequently use computers perform worse academically than those who use them rarely or not at all... There have been no advances (in education) over the past decade that can be cofidently attributed to broader access to computers." Not only that, but computers are having a disturbing effect on socialisation: "Children learn the fragility of flowers by touching their petals. They learn to cooperate by organizing their own games. The computer cannot simulate the physical and emotional nuances of resolving a dispute during kickball, or the creativity of inventing new rhymes to the rhythm of jumping rope. These full-bodied, often deeply heartfelt experiences educate not just the intellect but also the soul of the child."
The more we go down the road of multiculturalism, the more we open the door for abuses to be condoned in the name of "culture". Stephen Hagan documents how the courts have condoned such abuses in Australia.
The majority of the Arab world thinks that Arab leaders are corrupt and cause destabilization in the region, according to a recent poll. The poll also showed that most Arabs want democratic reforms.
To no one's surprise, the Dutch government has decided to endorse guidelines for involuntary euthanasia of infants. Under the so-called Groningen protocol, euthanasia will be allowed when a child is terminally ill with no hope of recovery and suffering great pain, when two doctors agree that the case is hopeless and when the parents consent. The Dutch Parliament will discuss the guidelines but implementing the new policy will not require a vote or changes to the existing law.
After five years, Queensland's fledgling legal brothel sector has failed to bring illegal prostitution in from the cold. According to a government-initiated review by the Crime and Misconduct Commission, illegal prostitution continues "unabated" in Queensland with illegal prostitution making up 75 per cent of the sex trade. The report, Regulating Prostitution (pdf file 678KB), details failures in the health checking system for workers, a botched exit program to assist women out of the industry, and a blossoming illegal escort sector. All of the above was supposed to be fixed or curbed by the Prostitution Act, 1999.
Who will deliver our grandchildren? Cerebral palsy litigation is crippling the profession of obstetrics, argue four doctors in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Although it has never been safer to have a baby in the US, three-quarter of all obstetricians have had to deal with some form of litigation, mostly for having allegedly caused cerebral palsy. However the doctors claim that the notion that CP is caused by oxygen deprivation during delivery is based on outdated science. As a result, "litigation fears and costs now dominate the reasons for obstetricians avoiding or retiring from obstetric practice".
Microsoft has warned Windows users of three new "critical" security flaws in its software. The flaws could allow attackers to take complete control of a computer. The world's largest software maker issued patches to fix the problems as part of its monthly security bulletin. The problems mainly affect the Windows operating system and Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser. Computer security experts urged users to download and install the patches, which are available at www.microsoft.com/security.
The Ig Nobel Awards are a highlight of the scientific year. Yeah, right!
This year's batch highlighting the weird and downright absurd includes a kiwi winner. Massey University's James Watson was presented with the 2005 Agricultural History Ig Nobel prize at the 15th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony at Harvard's Sanders Theatre on Thursday night. This prestigious award was made in recognition of his paper published in Agricultural History "The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley's Exploding Trousers: Reflections on an Aspect of Technological Change in New Zealand Dairy-Farming between the World Wars".
Australia also punched above its weight in the awards taking the Biology prize for a study on the smell of stressed frogs and the Physics prize for studying a glob of tar dropping through a funnel since 1927. The internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria took the Literature award for their creative writing which has introduced to the world a rich cast of characters including General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq., and others.
The Peace prize went to English academics who studied the brainwaves of a locust which was forced to watch Star Wars, while the Nutrition prize went to Dr Yoshiro Nakamats of Japan who had photographed and analysed every meal he had eaten in the last 34 years.
Calculations on the pressure buildup in a shitting penguin won the Fluid Dynamics prize for a group of European scientists while American cognoscentiae took the remaining awards: the alarm clock that runs away and hides taking the Economics gong; a study answering the age old question of whether people can swim faster in water or syrup took the Chemistry prize; and the prize in Medicine for the invention artificial testicals for dogs.
Is all that money being spent on school computers wasted? "Recent research indicates that students who frequently use computers perform worse academically than those who use them rarely or not at all... There have been no advances (in education) over the past decade that can be cofidently attributed to broader access to computers." Not only that, but computers are having a disturbing effect on socialisation: "Children learn the fragility of flowers by touching their petals. They learn to cooperate by organizing their own games. The computer cannot simulate the physical and emotional nuances of resolving a dispute during kickball, or the creativity of inventing new rhymes to the rhythm of jumping rope. These full-bodied, often deeply heartfelt experiences educate not just the intellect but also the soul of the child."
The more we go down the road of multiculturalism, the more we open the door for abuses to be condoned in the name of "culture". Stephen Hagan documents how the courts have condoned such abuses in Australia.
The majority of the Arab world thinks that Arab leaders are corrupt and cause destabilization in the region, according to a recent poll. The poll also showed that most Arabs want democratic reforms.
To no one's surprise, the Dutch government has decided to endorse guidelines for involuntary euthanasia of infants. Under the so-called Groningen protocol, euthanasia will be allowed when a child is terminally ill with no hope of recovery and suffering great pain, when two doctors agree that the case is hopeless and when the parents consent. The Dutch Parliament will discuss the guidelines but implementing the new policy will not require a vote or changes to the existing law.
After five years, Queensland's fledgling legal brothel sector has failed to bring illegal prostitution in from the cold. According to a government-initiated review by the Crime and Misconduct Commission, illegal prostitution continues "unabated" in Queensland with illegal prostitution making up 75 per cent of the sex trade. The report, Regulating Prostitution (pdf file 678KB), details failures in the health checking system for workers, a botched exit program to assist women out of the industry, and a blossoming illegal escort sector. All of the above was supposed to be fixed or curbed by the Prostitution Act, 1999.
Who will deliver our grandchildren? Cerebral palsy litigation is crippling the profession of obstetrics, argue four doctors in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Although it has never been safer to have a baby in the US, three-quarter of all obstetricians have had to deal with some form of litigation, mostly for having allegedly caused cerebral palsy. However the doctors claim that the notion that CP is caused by oxygen deprivation during delivery is based on outdated science. As a result, "litigation fears and costs now dominate the reasons for obstetricians avoiding or retiring from obstetric practice".
Microsoft has warned Windows users of three new "critical" security flaws in its software. The flaws could allow attackers to take complete control of a computer. The world's largest software maker issued patches to fix the problems as part of its monthly security bulletin. The problems mainly affect the Windows operating system and Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser. Computer security experts urged users to download and install the patches, which are available at www.microsoft.com/security.
The Ig Nobel Awards are a highlight of the scientific year. Yeah, right!
This year's batch highlighting the weird and downright absurd includes a kiwi winner. Massey University's James Watson was presented with the 2005 Agricultural History Ig Nobel prize at the 15th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony at Harvard's Sanders Theatre on Thursday night. This prestigious award was made in recognition of his paper published in Agricultural History "The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley's Exploding Trousers: Reflections on an Aspect of Technological Change in New Zealand Dairy-Farming between the World Wars".
Australia also punched above its weight in the awards taking the Biology prize for a study on the smell of stressed frogs and the Physics prize for studying a glob of tar dropping through a funnel since 1927. The internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria took the Literature award for their creative writing which has introduced to the world a rich cast of characters including General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq., and others.
The Peace prize went to English academics who studied the brainwaves of a locust which was forced to watch Star Wars, while the Nutrition prize went to Dr Yoshiro Nakamats of Japan who had photographed and analysed every meal he had eaten in the last 34 years.
Calculations on the pressure buildup in a shitting penguin won the Fluid Dynamics prize for a group of European scientists while American cognoscentiae took the remaining awards: the alarm clock that runs away and hides taking the Economics gong; a study answering the age old question of whether people can swim faster in water or syrup took the Chemistry prize; and the prize in Medicine for the invention artificial testicals for dogs.
