Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
“The world’s oldest example of cave art” exclaims some of the headlines and associated media clips. So what is this about? Since the 1990s, caves in the remote and rugged mountains of East Kalimantan, an Indonesian province of Borneo, have been known to contain prehistoric paintings, drawings, and other imagery, including thousands of depictions of … Read more
Rather like weather, a great deal of uncertainty prevails regarding what comes next. Well yes, I know I know, that applies to rather a lot of things such as #brexit, or the firing of Sessions, and much more. I am however thinking through the implications of the arrival of a democratic House. That outcome does … Read more
The bait was offered and various sections of the media rapidly pounced on Oumuamua and devoured it with relish. We are awash with stories such as this … Express: Mysterious interstellar object Oumuamua ‘SENT BY ALIENS’ to survey galaxy – Harvard .. and also the slightly more factually correct variations … Sky News: Cigar-shaped object could be alien spacecraft, … Read more
I was listening to a BBC presenter quip the other day that the UK’s weather is always like this at this time of year, and yet if you look back over the actual data regarding extreme weather in the UK then what you discover is that the climate really is changing. The UK’s Met Office … Read more
Freak weather has perhaps always been an aspect of weather, and yet the freakiness of the weather is clearly becoming a tad more common. To be specific droughts, floods and heatwaves are becoming more common. Why is it like this? The answer rests with the behaviour of the jet streams. Circling the globe are rivers … Read more
New research reveals that we do not have as much time as we previously though we had. The study published in Nature lays out the evidence for Earth’s oceans soaking up about 60% more heat that had been previously estimated. Let’s take a look. Quantification of ocean heat uptake from changes in atmospheric O2 and … Read more