Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
Starting today, with the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, the 2016 award announcements have commenced. Each day this week they announce a different one and so the schedule is as follows … Mon 2nd Oct – Physiology or Medicine Tues 3rd Oct – Physics Wed 4th Oct – Chemistry Thur 5th Oct – Normally this is … Read more
I appear to be falling into a habit of writing a not so serious posting for the weekend and so in keeping with that tradition, let’s start by taking a small ramble over the history of the very first live webcam. The Trojan Room Coffee Pot The world’s very first live WebCam emerged from the depths … Read more
Almost every Spring and Autumn for the past couple of years the UK’s Daily Express has run stories such as the above claiming that the season ahead is about to hit extremes. Instead of seeking guidance from a real meteorologist, their source is weather eccentric James Madden, forecaster for his one-man company Exacta Weather. Autumn is … Read more
This year’s Ig Nobel awards have been announced. No, not Nobel, but Ig Nobel, because these are spoof awards, but the research that gets an Ig Nobel is wholly real. The fact that the scientific community is prepared to both mock and laugh at itself is indeed both praiseworthy and truly entertaining as well. To qualify … Read more
Within the UK there is a political party known as UKIP (or UK Independence Party). It has developed a bit of a reputation over the years as a bastion of some rather odd ideas and so this is all about the latest example of such weirdness. A previous and rather famous example was David Silvester, a Ukip councillor for … Read more
John Kasich, the Ohio Governor and also former Presidential candidate, made a bit a news recently. While on a tour of downtown Exeter, he entered a bookstore, saw a Harry Potter book, and then commented … “You know that Daniel [Radcliffe] has declared himself an atheist?” Kasich said to no one in particular. “I’m serious. What a weird thing. Why … Read more