Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
Reuters reports (here today) that Two research papers, supposedly published in the journal Nature, have warned that the global temperature rise could exceed “safe” levels of two degrees Celsius in some parts of the world in many of our lifetimes if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase. It sounds credible, it sounds believable, it also … Read more
The news is out and many are reporting the details. Richard Black writes on the BBC … The Earth’s surface really is getting warmer, a new analysis by a US scientific group set up in the wake of the “Climategate” affair has concluded. The Berkeley Earth Project has used new methods and some new data, … Read more
Now this (for me at least) is cool … it is a video of some rather dramatic Coastal Erosion in Cornwall. The chap who took the video just happened to be in the right spot at just the right moment and caught 1000’s of tonnes of rock falling into the Atlantic!. The cameraman was on … Read more
Its Chemistry today. Past winners have included well-known names such as Ernest Rutherford, Marie Curie, and Linus Carl Pauling, so who has won and also why? The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011 was awarded to Dan Shechtman “for the discovery of quasicrystals”. Quasicrystals are structural forms that are ordered but not periodic. They form patterns that … Read more
Yesterday the medicine prize was awarded to Dr Steinman, and then it soon emerged that he had passed away days before. Now, since the prize rules state that they cannot be awarded posthumously, there was a bit of a fuss about what would they do? I speculated that they would let it stand, and guess what, … Read more
You have all heard of it, it is the “Nobel Prize“, the top award bestowed by some Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. But why does it get so much attention, and why is it the top prize when there are lots of other awards out there? Lets explore this a bit … Read more