Planck Sees Light Billions Of Years Old. The Planck space telescope has begun to collect light left over from the Big Bang explosion that created our universe. [ScienceDaily: Latest Science News]
Posts By Me
Giant glacier in Antarctic is melting four times faster than thought.. Satellite records show that if the melting of the Pine Island Glacier in west Antarctica continues at current rates, the main section will have disappeared in 100 years, 500 years sooner than thought just a decade ago. [Environmental Health News]
New 3D Perspective in Maps API for Flash. Google has released a new "3D" perspective "mode" for Google Maps applications based on Flash. This gives a 3D-like experience to the 2D Google Maps (without the 3D terrain or 3D models from the Google Earth API). You can tilt and rotate the map and "fly" around Google Maps. One advantage to…
The bandwidth-sync correlation that's worth thinking about Check this out. Every once in a while a cool graph pops into my head. Here are a dozen or so forms of communication, arranged on two axes. On the horizontal, they rank from asynchronous (meaning the creator and the responder are separated in time--like a letter) and synchronous (meaning the creator and…
On social work training. 'Degrees in social work are viewed as being "difficult to fail" - a reputation that is unacceptable, a select committee of MPs has said.' From James A: As I wrote several years ago; When I taught on social work courses, on which the majority of other tutors were former social workers, they were often exemplary tutors.…
5.8% unemployment. Once again, the labour market data in Australia shows a remarkably robust labour market, with seasonally adjusted unemployment stable in July at 5.8%. ANZ CEO Mike Smith last night stated that he saw unemployment here stabilising at 6%, which would be remarkable. The problem is that that would require a fair pick up in the economy in the…
Executive Director of the Lowy Institute, Michael Wesley, gave a short presentation in Melbourne, with the broad theme being that coming years are likely to see Australia facing the most challenging global environment in our history. Read on at CoreEcon.. Australia's next great challenge?.
Do Teachers Matter?. A psychology study hit the headlines last Friday under the banner ‘Teacher quality makes little difference, study shows’. AN AUSTRALIAN study has cast doubt over the “teacher effect”, by suggesting differences between teachers play only a minor role in how well a child will learn. The global study, led by the University of New England, monitored 500 pairs…
The Practical Trade off Between Class Size and Teacher Quality. My AFR oped today is on class size and teacher quality. Full text over the fold (with hyperlinks for anyone who wants more detail on the research). In a Class of Their Own, Australian Financial Review, 14 July 2009 Few education policies are more popular than class size reductions. Alongside…