Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
The World Wildlife Fund, the world’s largest conservation organization with over five million supporters, has published its 2018 Living Planet Report. It is quite frankly very dire reading and that has resulted in the media picking up the story and highlighting it … BBC: WWF report: Mass wildlife loss caused by human consumption CNN: This is the ‘last … Read more
This has popped into the news recently, but actually goes back about three years to 2015. As an echo our our relationship with wolves roughly about 40,000 years ago a band of Monkeys were observed to be forging an alliance with some wolves in Ethiopia. The Study: Solitary Ethiopian wolves increase predation success on rodents when … Read more
New Caledonian crows are smart, very very smart. Last January the BBC highlighted a study that illustrated their tool making ability. They were shaping hooks out of plant material that they then used to fish for insets. These were not simply random twigs, but consisted of hooks that were far more efficient. These crows are … Read more
Mammal extinction is not simply something from the dim and distant past. In 1680 Sir Ewen Cameron killed the last Scottish Wolf in Killiecrankie (Perthshire). In 1786, the last wolf was killed in Ireland. So what other mammals once existed in the British Isles and when did they go extinct? Here is a brief list (culled from here) … Read more
Today is officially International Darwin day. No seriously, it really is, I’m not making that up, the 12th February is officially Darwin day. It was chosen because Charles Darwin was born on 12th February 1809, and so it is celebrated all around the world today. Celebrating the life and works of Charles Darwin goes right … Read more
It’s an exciting new discovery, evidence that humans wandered out of Africa far earlier than has been previously appreciated. The media is quite rightly all over it, and has been trumpeting the details. For example … Washington Post – Scientists discover the oldest human fossils outside Africa BBC – Modern humans left Africa much earlier NPR – New … Read more