Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
And so today it is on to the third of the big three Nobel Prizes. The announcement of a Nobel award is always a surprise. If you ever hear about a claim that somebody was once nominated for a Nobel prize but did not actually win, then unless it was a nomination that is fifty … Read more
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
September 2016 now marks the point at which the carbon dioxide levels failed to drop below the 400 parts per million (ppm) measurement for the first time ever. The Mauna Loa Observatory has been the official recorder of the the levels of carbon dioxide because they are located far out in the Pacific on Hawaii far from the … Read more
A new and quite impressive paper has been published in Nature that lays out about two million years of climate history. What has happened in the past is a rather obviously valuable tool because it also enables us to understand the future we face. Prior to this specific paper only small windows of specific periods … 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