The woman with the ear of the Prime Minister in the pandemic
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Greg Bruce meets Dame Juliet Gerrard, the Prime Minister s chief science advisor. I asked Dame Juliet Gerrard if she ever relies on gut feeling. I said it seemed like gut feeling would have been required a lot in the early days of the pandemic, when we didn t know anything about the virus.
She said: I think scientists call gut feeling a hypothesis .
That sounded quite witty for a scientist, so I asked if she d used that line before. She said she hadn t. She said: It was a glib answer, but I think there s something in that. That s what scientists do: They read a lot, and they have a hunch; and they think: Okay, so how am I going to test that hunch?
Cruise company takes legal action to prevent White Island victims suing
(Photo / AP) Thu, 24 Dec 2020, 3:46PM
The largest cruise company in the world, Royal Caribbean, has launched a legal bid in Australia to prevent victims of the White Island eruption from suing them in US courts.
A litigation has been launched in Miami, where Royal Caribbean has its headquarters, by American couple Ivy and Paul Reed who were badly burned in the December 9, 2019, eruption and Australians Marie and Stephanie Browitt who had family members die.
The Guardian has reported the Reeds and Browitts have accused Royal Caribbean of failing its safety obligations in allowing the cruise passengers on a day trip to White Island despite warnings the volcano may erupt.