Eating carrots won’t improve your eyesight. That is, unless you have vitamin A deficiency which causes a condition known as nyctalopia (or night blindness). People suffering from this condition are less able to see in low light levels. In extreme cases it may lead to poor vision in the light as well. Nyctalopia is not …
Continue reading I Can See Clearly Now…
Category:Scepticism
Tryptophan…
I go on about amino acids a lot. Sorry about that! If you click here you will be logged into Focus eLearning (come straight back!), then if you click here you will be taken to a nice page about how the digestive enzyme pepsin breaks a protein molecule in your food down into individual amino …
Continue reading Tryptophan…
Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes…
Not really magic – it is science but optical illusions so magic-adjacent. I thought about this because of a question on a Winchester Election paper about strobe lighting. They are two quite long videos but I thought they were worth sharing, particularly for those who like optical illusions. They left me baffled but delighted. . .. If you …
Continue reading Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes…
Oily Fish…
I have eaten a lot of tinned sardines this week. Call me crazy but a warm baguette filled with good cheese and four oily sardines makes a great lunchtime snack. I prefer the ones packed in oil to the ones packed in tomato sauce but I am prepared to be open-minded on the issue. As …
Continue reading Oily Fish…
Symphony Of Science…
I was browsing the Symphony Of Science website and thought I would put one of the songs on here. They are videos of scientists talking about “Life, the Universe and Everything” but put to music. A program called Auto-Tune is used to turn normal spoken English into sung lyrics. It is the same technology that …
Continue reading Symphony Of Science…
Alkali Metal Error…
For a few years now I have been showing a clip from Brainiac when discussing the reaction of alkali metals with water. I can remember as a boy watching the following clip and being delighted when a piece of caesium was dropped into the water (that bowl is called a pneumatic trough by the way). I …
Continue reading Alkali Metal Error…
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 …
Continue reading Global Warning…
That Is, Like, SO Unfair…
I have noticed an occasional confusion over the phrase ‘fair test’ and I am even ashamed to say that I have allowed it to appear in one of my booklets in an incorrect context. It is an important phrase so I would like to offer a brief explanation. In an experiment, it is important only …
Continue reading That Is, Like, SO Unfair…
Equivocation…
A fallacy of ambiguity. 1. Having science lessons with HCTR is better than nothing. 2. Nothing is better than World Peace. 3. Therefore having science lessons with HCTR is better than World Peace! Equivocation is an error (or more commonly a trick) of reasoning in which the same word is used to mean two different things within the …
Continue reading Equivocation…
Logical Fallacies…
As a follow-up to a General Lesson I had with 8D, here is a little stuff about Logical Fallacies. This post will attempt to explain the concept (as I understand it) and later ones will focus on different specific types of fallacy. Hopefully, I will be able to include some good real-world examples with video …
Continue reading Logical Fallacies…