A The fertile land of the Nile delta is being eroded along Egypt’s Mediterranean coast at an astounding rate, in some parts estimated at 100 metres per year. In the past, land scoured away from the coastline by the currents of the Mediterranean Sea used… Read More »Disappearing Delta
New Zealand’s National Party spokesman on education, Dr Lockwood Smith, recently visited the US and Britain. Here he reports on the findings of his trip and what they could mean for New Zealand’s education policy A ‘Education To Be More’ was published last August. It… Read More »Early Childhood Education
World science is dominated today by a small number of languages, including Japanese, German and French, but it is English which is probably the most popular global language of science. This is not just because of the importance of English- speaking countries such as the… Read More »The Birth of Scientific English
John McCrone reviews recent research on humour The joke comes over the headphones: ‘Which side of a dog has the most hair? The left.’ No, not funny. Try again. Which side of a dog has the most hair? The outside.’ Hah! The punchline is silly… Read More »What’s so funny?
In 1907, Leo Hendrick Baekeland, a Belgian scientist working in New York, discovered and patented a revolutionary new synthetic material. His invention, which he named ‘Bakelite’, was of enormous technological importance, and effectively launched the modern plastics industry. The term ‘plastic’ comes from the Greek… Read More »BAKELITE – The birth of modem plastics
For many environmentalists, the world seems to be getting worse. They have developed a hit-list of our main fears: that natural resources are running out; that the population is ever growing, leaving less and less to eat; that species are becoming extinct in vast numbers, and… Read More »The Truth about the Environment
A A few years ago, in one of the most fascinating and disturbing experiments in behavioural psychology, Stanley Milgram of Yale University tested 40 subjects from all walks of life for their willingness to obey instructions given by a ‘leader’ in a situation in which… Read More »Nature or Nurture?
For the century before Johnson’s Dictionary was published in 1775. there had been concern about the state of the English language. There was no standard way of speaking or writing and no agreement as to the best way of bringing some order to the chaos’… Read More »Johnson’s Dictionary
How can it be prevented? Peter Smith, Professor of Psychology at the University of Sheffield, directed the Sheffield Anti-Bullying Intervention Project, funded by the Department for Education Here he reports on his findings. A Bullying can take a variety of forms, from the verbal –… Read More »Persistent bullying is one of the worst experiences a child can face
Children in developing countries are healthier and more likely to survive past the age of five when their mothers can read and write. Experts In public health accepted this idea decades ago, but until now no one has been able to show that a woman’s ability… Read More »Do literate women make better mothers?
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