If you have been reenacting a crossing of the Simpson desert for the past two years, or are a recently returned hermit, they you are probably unaware of the forthcoming Mayan Calendar Apocalypse. To briefly…
- Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology, Adelaide University
Shutting down around 100 man-made water storage structures in Australia’s north west could stop the spread of cane toads into Western Australia’s Pilbara region, a new study has found. Cane toads, which…
Vaccination is one of the most important preventative measures against serious illness, but its very success may be working against it. With parents no longer having the experience of the devastating diseases…
The difference between today and 2002 could have hardly been more stark. Then, a knot of us waited in the desert on a slight rise over an ancient ochre mine. The air was dry and the sun was setting over…
There’s just two sleeps to go until the Solar Eclipse on Wednesday 14 November 2012. This is the first significant solar eclipse since 2002. If you want to make a last minute dash to north Queensland to…
The recent announcement that Alzheimer’s disease may develop up to 20 years before we can diagnose it by conventional means comes as a coda to a year of turmoil in Alzheimer’s drug development. The drug…
Researchers have found brain changes caused by Alzheimer’s disease in a group of 20-somethings, marking the earliest ever detection of early-onset dementia warning signs and paving the way for new treatments…
Every year consumer advocate Choice magazine hands out its “Shonky” awards for products that, to put it mildly, do not live up to the manufacturers claims of effectiveness or quality. Being on the shonky…
Image Credit: Ian Musgrave Australians can never look at the sky the same way again. When you go out tonight to look at the southern sky, you will know that alpha Centauri, the red star in the iconic pointers…
Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) is in the news this week with two recently released studies. As you may remember from one of my previous articles, PFOA is persistent organic pollutant which can accumulate…
In many ways the history of the Olympics is the history of athletes trying to kill themselves with increasingly sophisticated drugs. In the original Olympics the athletes used various herbal stimulants…
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has considered a proposal to list 1,3-dimethylamylamine (DMAA) as a schedule 9 compound. Schedule 9 compounds are prohibited substances which have no therapeutic…
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a person in want of coolness is in want of a tan. And increasingly, that tan is coming out of a bottle. To get the kind of deep-all over tan that Aussie legend…
Memo to CAM enthusiasts, try not to shoot yourself in the foot publicly next time. I am, of course, referring to the recent article in the Medical Journal of Australia “The Legitimacy of Academic Complementary…
There is a persistent belief that drinking coffee is bad for you. Some alternative medicine systems eschew all coffee drinking (but are enthusiastic about coffee enemas). Certainly if you overindulge the…
I’ve written before about the toxins secreted by the Cane Toad. The toad’s venom is a complex mix of chemicals. The most important is related to digoxin, the toxin found in the Foxglove plant, and works…
The iTelescope SSO webcam is going well with some dropouts, http://www.ustream.tv/channel/itelescope The Universe Today webcam is going strong. http://www.universetoday.com/95630/watch-the-transit-of-venus-live…
The historic transit of Venus is tomorrow (6 June), starting early in the morning. While some of you will have taken time off work (or made simple observing devices to take to work), not everybody can…
Bisphenol A (BPA) - a chemical used in the manufacture of polycarbonate plastics and some epoxy resins – has been in the news quite a bit lately. Headline-grabbing news items have been breathlessly reporting…
Who amongst us hasn’t wished, in the wee small hours when we are staring at the bedroom ceiling wide awake, heart pumping, bitterly regretting that last, late night espresso, that there was an anti-caffeine…
In the aftermath of the announcement that the government will remove the 30% private insurance rebate for alternative medicines found to be ineffective, last Saturdays Adelaide Advertiser carried a double…
In the aftermath of the budget, one set of cuts may have been missed. The government is looking to remove the 30 per cent private health insurance rebate for some “alternative” medicines and therapies…
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently revised the safety labels for statins, widely used anti-cholesterol drugs. They mandated label warnings saying statins may increase the risk of type 2…
I have been reading an attempted defense of homoeopathy that was published recently. There is a lot that is wrong in this alleged defense of homoeopathy (see here for some background), but one thing that…
Various groups (eg here) have been citing an article currently in press, “Glyphosate induced cell death through apoptotic and autophagic mechanisms” by Gui et al., as evidence that the herbicide [glyphosate](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate…
Contact Ian for
- General
- Media request
- Speaking request
- Consulting / Advising
- Research collaboration
- Research supervision
- Location: Adelaide, Australia
- Website
- Article Feed
- ORCID
-
- Joined
