I have heard it said as one of the reasons that people dismiss Global Warming as a serious threat, that the temperature measurements are made on the outskirts of expanding towns and cities. These Urban Heat Islands (or UHIs) have grown over time and so the temperature readings have increased as a result. The picture …
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Autumnwatch
This evening I saw some of Autumnwatch on the BBC. This is not my natural territory; too much rescuing foxes and squirrels for my liking. But something seems to have changed. Is there a whiff of real science here? Are they being a little more pragmatic and a little less sentimental? It certainly seems so. I …
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It’s Not Cool…
The Daily Mail yesterday repeated the myth that the planet has been cooling since 1998. The trouble with ‘man-made climate change’ is that it isn’t based on settled science, despite what the alarmists and their allies at the BBC would have us believe. There is a welter of countervailing evidence that, far from warming up …
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Moon Not Made Of Cheese…
Yesterday, NASA reported that their LCROSS mission to find water on the moon had been successful. They found lots of it, with about 100kg of water vapour and ice being thrown up as they crashed into the Cabeus crater near the moon’s south pole. “We are ecstatic,” said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator at …
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Chinese Proverb.pps…
In the last few days I have twice been sent an email with an attached PowerPoint presentation entitled ChineseProverb.pps which promises to bring good luck; how pleasant you may think. It is kind that people want me to have good luck and are thinking of me. How blessed I am. There is a problem, however. This unsolicited …
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ADE 651…
More about ‘Why Science Is Important’ with a story that is simultaneously very funny and utterly tragic. The picture below is of an ADE651™ explosives and drugs detection device. It is manufactured in Somerset by a company called ATSC Ltd and they have recently sold several (at £35,000 each) to the Iraqi government. The total …
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Thinking For Yourself…
As I think I mentioned in another post, thinking critically about the world around you is a fundamental scientific skill. It does not mean that you need to criticise everything, just that you consider the ‘credibility of evidence’. This means that you ask yourself how believable a story or a scientific claim is. When scientists look …
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They Might Be Giants…
I love They Might Be Giants so I thought I would post this video for one of their songs. Many of their songs are full of wonderful geeky science and this is no exception. It mentions that every element present in the sun is in a gaseous state because of the high temperatures. The sun is mostly made …
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Copenhagen…
Sorry, but this is a long and wordy one. Carbon dioxide makes up about 0.038% of dry air. When I left Marlborough in 1987 it was 0.035% of the atmosphere; when my father left the same establishment in 1958 the value was 0.031%. These changes might seem very small but CO2 has a remarkable ability …
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A Perfect Eggy…
JJP, CDJW and I are about to poach some eggs. A momentous occasion but a necessary part of tonight’s culinary experience (JJP has been watching too much Gordon Ramsay I think!). This got me thinking about what wonderful food eggs are. Eggs are about 12.5% protein, just over half found in the white part (albumen) …
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