Dr Siouxsie Wiles is a research scientist with a background in medical and environmental microbiology. She has made a career out of combining her twin passions of bioluminescence and microorganisms. After many years working in the UK, she recently relocated to the University of Auckland. Her research is currently focused on Staphylococcus aureus (the hospital superbug MRSA), Streptococcus pyogenes (the flesh-eating bug) and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. She is not in the pay of Big Pharma.
1 November 2018
Air New Zealand has just announced The Impossible Burger is now available to a minuscule number of their customers, a move described as an “existential threat” by New Zealand First's Mark Patterson. So what is all the fuss is about?
1 November 2017
As a parent, I know what it's like to worry about whether you are doing the right thing for your child. When my daughter was born, I couldn't quite believe that after just a few days in hospital we'd be going home in sole charge of a small infant. Didn't they realise we were unqualified?!
1 August 2015
Researchers from Switzerland and Germany have just published a paper in which they describe using brain imaging and a cool way of looking at sound, called the modulation power spectrum (MPS) to understand just why screams are so alarming. Rather than looking at the amplitude and frequency of sounds over time, the MPS plots the modulation frequency against the number of cycles per octave, shown as a kind of heat map. On this kind of spectrum, there is a clear zone that gives clues to the gender of the speaker, and another distinct zone that gives information about meaning. But there is also a zone that until now hadn't been associated with any function. In fact, it has been thought to be irrelevant to human communication. This region corresponds to a perception of sound called roughness, which is thought to be unpleasant.
1 May 2015
The Dominion Post recently ran an article about “Glowing GE bacteria” which were “produced illegally in New Zealand using mail-order kits from America”. Perhaps unsurprisingly given that the phrase 'genetically engineered' was mentioned, Green MP Stefan Browning and GE Free New Zealand spokesperson Jon Carapiet chimed in to share their dismay that people/kids were fiddling with complex natural systems and things that posed a threat to our GE-free status (which we aren't). I'm paraphrasing here, but I think that was the sum of it. The usual GE = evil sort of stuff. Let's look at what happened and if it posed any risk to anyone.
1 February 2015
In November Wellington's Dominion Post newspaper ran a piece (in my opinion...) of misleading propaganda they passed off as a cartoon which can be summed up as naturopathy vs science.
1 February 2015
Researchers in Germany and the USA have just published a paper in the journal Nature describing a new antibiotic they have called Teixobactin. This study is good news: the World Health Organization warned last year that cancer chemotherapy and routine surgery will soon become life-threateningly risky because of the worldwide rise in antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
1 November 2014
Siouxsie Wiles doesn't find too much humour in a supposedly satirical paper.
1 February 2014
Siouxsie Wiles takes a look at a new medical journal - available at all good supermarkets.
1 August 2012
A new alternative treatment for Alzheimer's doing the rounds seems to be based on a misunderstanding of the underlying science.
1 May 2012
A heartstring-tugging appeal in the_ NZ Herald _doesn't tell the full story.
1 February 2012
Spoiler alert: Don't read if you haven't seen the film_ Contagion _(which I highly recommend) but want to.
1 November 2011
Proponents of alternative therapies often throw around charges of vested interest when challenged. But often their own interests don't bear scrutiny.
1 August 2011
The world-wide panic over the MMR vaccine was sparked by the actions of one doctor who breached several standards of scientific practice. This article is based on a presentation to the 2010 NZ Skeptics conference.