Some of you will know that cows are my favourite animals so you can imagine how delighted I was to see a headline a few years ago in the Telegraph… “McDonald’s launches study into flatulent cows used in its burgers” This seems to include several of my favourite scientific themes; namely cows, the scientific method, food and burping (eructation). What …
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Category:Climate Change
Global Warning…
[This was first published on 5th October 2009] Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean north of mainland Europe, about midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. The glacier in the picture below is called the Austfonna ice cap. The striking photo was taken by Michael Nolan during his annual voyage to observe the glacier and its surrounding …
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It’s Never The Ozone Layer…
Earth’s twin planet in the Solar System, Venus, has an ozone layer. The Venus Express space craft detected the signature of ozone about 100 km up in Venus’s atmosphere. Ozone is a molecule of oxygen containing three atoms of oxygen (O3) rather than the normal two (O2) that we breathe. It forms when ultra-violet light acts …
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OK Pinheads, How’d The Moon Get There?
One of the reasons I love science so much is that it gives you the tools to find answers to questions. Asking good questions is one of the most important skills a scientist will learn. A scientific question is one that can be investigated; one that has the possibility of being answered. A question that …
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Jolly Hockey Sticks…
Science involves a process called peer review. When a scientist wants to publish his experiment report in a journal for others to read, it has to be submitted to a few other experts in the field who check that the basic science is sound. If they feel that a good job has been done with …
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