Livestock rearing accounts for 14.5 per cent of the world’s human-caused emissions, nearly half of that coming from growing and shipping the corn and soy that most of the animals eat. (UN Food and Agriculture Organization). A typical meat-eater’s diet is responsible for almost twice as much global warming as that of a vegetarian and almost …
Counterfeit drugs account for roughly $75 billion of the $900 billion global pharmaceutical market — and about 100,000 deaths a year in Africa alone. In Kenya, up to 30 percent of drugs on the market are counterfeit, according to the World Health Organization. Many “drugs” are no more than just chalk or water. Muhammad Zaman, …
Continue reading ‘Some encouraging news about bogus drugs’ »
Isaac Newton once said, “What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean.” He had a point. Some aspects of civilization had progressed considerably. But, despite advances in understanding of some fundamental principles, science was still in the Dark Ages. But what would Sir Isaac say now? What we now know …
Earth is on the verge of a mass extinction, the sixth of its kind in the planet’s 4.5 -billion–year history, and it’s all humanity’s fault. Thus a new study in the journal Science Advances (see below) which found that over the past century, 69 mammal species have gone extinct, along with some 400 other types of …
Continue reading ‘Maybe preaching to the choir, but here goes!’ »
The Italian philologist, Lorenzo Valla, studied the Latin document “The Donation of Constantine”, which purported to the legitimize the land grab of the Western Roman Empire by the Catholic Church. Using historical, linguistic and philological evidence in 1440, he pronounced it a fake. He found that words and constructions in the document could not possibly have …
A poll earlier this year showed that 32% of those polled believe it’s acceptable to legally avoid paying tax. Most of these are probably accountants. (YouGov/The Sunday Times) The UK Treasury and The Inland Revenue have been failing to prevent some of the 398 different tax reliefs being exploited by people making false claims. The cost …
Continue reading ‘Put accountants where they belong – in a back room!’ »
“For the media, climate change is Kryptonite. It fails to tick almost every one of the boxes that defines a story. It’s not new: it’s part of the background noise of 21st century life. It lacks a hard deadline. There seem to be summits coming up, but there have been summits before. The crisis also …
Dogs win our hearts by staring soulfully into our eyes. Researchers have discovered that when dogs have prolonged eye-to-eye contact with their owners, it causes a rush – in both man, and his best friend – of oxytocin, the “love hormone” believed to promote maternal-infant bonding. For the study, reported in the journal Science, animal …
The good news: Costa Rica has set a new world record by becoming the first country to rely solely on renewable energy for 75 consecutive days. Costa Rica derives four-fifths of its energy from hydroelectric sources – but has been able to dispense with fossil fuels entirely this year, owing to the heavy rain that …
Studies at the Minnesota Center for Twin and Family Research suggest that many of our traits are more than 50% inherited, including obedience to authority, vulnerability to stress and risk-seeking. Even in things like religion and politics our choices are much more determined by our genes than we think. However, in recent years faith in …
When I was a teenager I tried to read Bertrand Russell and could barely understand a word. However, I recently found this list of principles, extracted from Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell. They could be Epicurean: – Do not feel absolutely certain of anything. – Do not think it worthwhile to proceed by …
Continue reading ‘Bertrand Russell and some good, common sense’ »
“I believe in Spinoza’s god, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, not in a god who concerns himself in the fate and doings of mankind”. (Albert Einstein)
All the atoms in our own bodies used to exist in beings that are long dead. We are made of recycled atoms from the bodies of dead dynosaurs and other animals that no longer exist except as microscopic organisms – plants, bodies of water, heavenly bodies, all the way down to the stardust we originally …
“People think they know what happens when they die. They don’t”. (Bill Maher in the film “Religulous”)
If you have visited Herculaneum, one of the towns buried when Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, you will be familiar with the Villa of the Papyri, owned at the time by Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, a politician and father-in-law of Julius Caesar. It was a seaside villa on a palatial scale – the width of …
