Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
Jeffrey Mervis has an interesting article within Science all about the insights gained by listening to what Lamar Smith (R–TX) says when speaking to a room full of his own tribe. As chair of the U.S. House of Representatives science committee you might expect rationality and reason to prevail, but unfortunately he is very much a modern Republican, hence both … Read more
252 million years ago about 90% of life on planet earth died. This was known as the Permian–Triassic extinction event. OK, so let’s be a tad more precise about the percentages of what happened … The end Permian was the greatest natural catastrophe experienced by life on Earth with its impact recorded in terrestrial and marine rock … Read more
As described last week, this is my regular weekly hit list of weird religious news items. Many humans are religious. Holding a belief is a basic human right as is critiquing such beliefs, and also changing your belief to another belief or non-belief. Generally most also hold such beliefs for cultural or emotional reasons to a moderate … Read more
Towards the beginning of the month it looked as if we had indeed reached an astonishing new low ice extent record in the arctic, but it really was too early to make that cal then. Well the news is that the National Snow and Ice Data Centre have called it … Update 22nd March Arctic … Read more
A press release issued by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has generated a considerable quantity of media fodder. Stories have been popping up all over the place about the idea proposed, and some highly reputable sources have been joining in. For example New Scientist magazine jumped into the fray with this … Could fast radio bursts really be … Read more
Today, 23rd March, is World Meteorological Day. To mark the occasion the World Meteorological Organisation has issued an official statement regarding the state of the climate during 2016. It is not good. The content is not an option, nor a belief, or “conspiracy” by one specific organisation. Instead it is an evidence based statement that is firmly backed up … Read more