Ben Goldacre in The Guardian on
why MSM science reporting is so bad. It's what i'd have written if i was more, like, eloquent and stuff.
Case in point, yesterday's solar cell breakthrough at Massey. Interesting result, but it's a long way from lab to the The Warehouse. By the way, what percentage of the population knows what a porphyrin ring is hhmm??
An interesting side note to that, Massey had a great fuel cell development team in the mid-90's. they were so starved of cash and support they were bought lock stock and barrel and shipped to the US to develop their stuff (they didn't get anywhere and last i heard one of his students got done for making E, but that's beside the point...). Wouldn't it be interesting if NZ media started investigating how bad our priorities are when it comes to science and commercialisation of said science. It's assumed, bluntly, that all you need is a good result and hey presto! we're launched into the top half of the OECD.
NZ Herald doesn't even do science reporting anymore, it's just technology, and aside from the two commentators done just as badly. I still remember trying to study the science press releases from the last election and couldn't even find one for the main parties - yeah, a real priority in NZ.
Oh, and by the way, our GNP dropped 0.4% last year. No worries, she'll be right....
