Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
The formation of Arctic Sea ice has started to deviate from its normal seasonal pattern. About this time of year the sea ice should be rather obviously rapidly building up towards the seasonal winter maximum, and that was indeed happening as expected during the latter half of September. However, the past two weeks have seen that normal accumulation of … Read more
Regarding the question in the title, “How do we know how many Galaxies exist in the Universe?”, the short quick answer is that we do not have a precise number, instead what we have is an estimate that is based upon observational data collected by Hubble. There have been recent stories within the media regarding … Read more
The September numbers are out, it is now official. Starting in October 2015, every single month except one has been a record shattering month. October 2015 was the warmest October since monthly record keeping began in 1880, November 2015 was the warmest ever November, and so on for almost every single month. There was just … Read more
Elon Musk has outlined his plan to send one million people off to colonize Mars. Not only is he being sincere about this ambition, but he also has a viable plan to get there. The astronomer Phil Plait has written a response to Mr Musk’s plans in Slate, and as you read it, you can almost hear … Read more
Back in December 2015 as many as 174 nations signed what is now known as the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, but that is simply ink on paper and is quite frankly meaningless in that it did not commit anybody to do anything. The far more important aspect is that it marked a beginning of a … Read more
And so today it is on to the third of the big three Nobel Prizes. The announcement of a Nobel award is always a surprise. If you ever hear about a claim that somebody was once nominated for a Nobel prize but did not actually win, then unless it was a nomination that is fifty … Read more