News of the day

• I’ve always said that there aren’t enough pigs to go around and now a Lincoln student has not only agreed, but is trying to fix it, which is more than I’ve ever done.
• Professor Stephen Duffull is the new Dean of Pharmacy at the University of Otago – his research focus is on individualising drug doses to patients’ needs.
• the PM launched the Government’s 2010 agenda yesterday and rather than link to everything, you can check out the newsfeed at the bottom of the left sidebar – we added it last night and will keep it updated with the latest stories (RSS readers will need to come to the site) – I wrote a post on it yesterday;
• Massey University’s Riddet Institute has successfully worked with Speirs Foods in Marton to develop a new Omega-3 product. Speirs focuses on fresh cut salads and has very high market share, so this product is an attempt at forging new markets. They’ve signed up with a big international food company and brought in research support from Massey. It’s a great PR story, but I will follow this one over time and see how it goes, as it could be a great example of what the tertiary sector can do. I’ve popped a reminder in the diary for next month.
• The Dargaville News reports on five student landscape designers competing at the Ellerslie Flower Show.
• More than 600 students were disciplined by the University of Otago last year – that University really does have a different culture as I can’t imagine anyone else has enough such events to bother compiling the total;