U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced yet another challenge from within his own Conservative Party when Brexit Minister David Frost resigned effective immediately from Johnson’s cabinet Saturday. Frost, a member of the House of Lords, had planned to resign next month, but moved his timetable up to protest Johnson’s new COVID restrictions. Instead of implementing …
Continue reading ‘Careless of lives or just plain stupid?’ »
Tropical storm Wanda was the 21st named storm in the Atlantic season in 2021. All the names on the official storm list were used this year, making it the Atlantic’s third most active year for tropical storms and hurricanes on record. (Bloomberg.com) Comment: Expect more of the same. Every year. (it must be a hard …
Speculation has emerged that penguins may be aliens after scientists found traces of a chemical from Venus in their droppings. Experts are struggling to explain how phosphine exists on Earth – 38 million miles away from Venus. Scientists in the UK who believe alien life forms may have already been detected say studying penguins could …
In their first abortion case since Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the Supreme Court, the justices reinstated a requirement that women seeking medication abortions pick up a pill in person.” On its way out the door, the Trump administration made its anti-abortion agenda a priority, and Trump’s loyalist 6-3 majority in the Supreme Court will …
Scientists have recorded the first known instance of a duck that has learned to mimic human speech. The duck, called Ripper, lives in Australia. It is quoted as saying: “You bloody fool.” Parrots, songbirds and hummingbirds were thought to be the only birds thought to be able to mimic human speech, though several mammals such …
The number of confirmed exoplanets stands at 3,500, of which, scientists believe, at least some are potential Earths, with very similar characteristics. This poses a theological and philosophical conundrum for many religions, especially Christianity, which focuses on mankind and teaches that God created man in his own image, exclusively on our one small planet. So …
Continue reading ‘Religion and little people from strange planets’ »
“I can’t be a pessimist, because I am alive. To be a pessimist means that you have agreed that human life is an academic matter”. (James Baldwin, quoted on NPR.org) My comment: I spent some time thinking about this, and concluded that I didn’t agree with it. Being a realist (another way of saying a …
The British philosopher and author Prof AC Grayling comments that “Passion suggests something active to us,” he says. “But if you look at the etymology of the term, it’s passive – it’s something that happens to you – like love or anger or lust – that was visited on you by the gods. Unlike passion, …
A wildfire that forced residents to flee the small town of Lytton in British Columbia continued to burn out of control last Thursday, fueled by three days of record high temperatures in Canada. The town’s inhabitants were told to abandon their homes with just minutes’ notice on Wednesday after a day when the temperature soared …
Continue reading ‘Climate change: Canadian town destroyed by fire’ »
Tropical Storm Claudette was moving through southeastern Louisiana yesterday (Saturday) morning. It’s bringing heavy rain and high winds, and coastal Mississippi and Alabama, as well as the western Florida Panhandle are at risk of flash floods later in the day, the National Hurricane Center said. By Sunday, Claudette is expected to become post-tropical. Meanwhile, the …
Recently, the tipping point concept has found a new application in climate science as a way to explain, and possibly engineer, social change. The way changes in attitude creep along at a glacial pace before suddenly bursting forth to take root across society is a classic tipping point. This process is useful because it moves …
John Ratcliffe, Donald Trump’s former intelligence director, recently said: “There are a lot more sightings of UFOs than have been made public.” He continued that in some of the cases “we don’t have good explanations” about what the UFOs might have been, adding: “I actually wanted to get this information out and declassify it before …
500,000. This is the number of electric battery – powered cars sold in Europe in 2020, a year on year increase of about 40%, and a milestone in the industry’s move away from fossil fuels. My comment: Of course electric batteries and charging points have other snags for the environment – the electricity has to …
Every lion has its own individual roar. A lion’s roar is an impressive sound: it can be as loud as 114 decibels (equivalent to a chainsaw), and the creatures can recognise the roars of other individuals, even when they are several miles apart. Now a team of scientists has used sophisticated recording devices to pinpoint …
The wealthiest 1% of the world’s population were responsible for the emission of more than twice as much carbon dioxide as the poorer half of the world between 1990 and 2015, according to Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute. Carbon dioxide emissions rose by 60% over the 25 year period, but the increase in emissions …
