News 13/7 – Robots in the Vines, Loan Problems and FRST $$

July 13th 2010 at 8:57am, By Dave Guerin

UCOL’s Nursing Mannequin UCOL has just bought Anne, a training mannequin that can even scream. Cool. Anne can also become Andy with some quick rearrangement.
Robotics The University of Canterbury is introducing robotics to horticulture to prune vines. It’s a cool idea, especially if it looks like the photo.
Loan Problems? It seems that some students might be hit by the new student loan limit of seven EFTS but the examples are rather unusual – students who do a degree before medical studies, or those who do a double degree and honours before a masters. Steven Joyce has said he’ll look into them and deal with genuine problems, but to me, the double degree, honours and masters example would fall completely within the rules.
New FRST $$ FRST has approved $48m of research spending for 42 contracts with 18 organisations. Most of it is going into freshwater, primary sector and high-value manufacturing research. My favourite was for “novel sauvignon blanc wines”.
Otago Research Maori and Pacific people are less likely to take up medical prescriptions, according to University of Otago research. Wellingtonians “grossed out” researchers with their swine-like behaviour around swine flu, while other researchers were looking at genetic markers for aortic aneurysms.
Sex but no Brothels The Massey academic’s advice on Queenstown’s sex life continues – Michelle Mars advises them to not to develop brothels.
Snow at AUT AUT will be hosting a snowboarding exhibition as part of the stduents’ association re-orientation.
Moko Massey vets are pretty sure that the dolphin found last week was Moko.
Events University of Waikato is running a new event management paper.