It is well established that people in stable relationships tend to have better mental and physical health than singletons. Now, scientists have discovered a possible explanation for this: it seems that sharing a bed promotes good sleep. Humans sleep in cycles, shifting between rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep – during which vivid dreams occur – and non-REM …
Information collected by a University of Ottawa team using data collected over a 115 year period and covering 66 bumblebee species, show that bumblebees are in drastic decline across Western Europe and North America, owing to higher and more extreme variations in temperature. The likelihood of the bee population surviving has declined by 30% in …
By the end of the century, polar bears will have largely disappeared from the Arctic, a study published in Nature suggests. The authors examined the possible impact on the bears of two climate change scenarios: a “business-as-usual” one, in which greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at their present rate; and a second in which …
A record number of people are giving up their US citizenship, according to analysis by a New York accountancy firm. More than 5,800 Americans renounced their citizenship in the first six months of 2020, Bambridge Accountants reports, a 1,210% increase on the six months to December 2019. The US’s global tax reporting requirements are a …
To The Economist Artificial intelligence is an oxymoron. Intelligence is an attribute of living things, and can best be defined as the use of information to further survival and reproduction. When a computer resists being switched off, or a robot worries about the future for its children, then, and only then, may intelligence flow. I …
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To The Economist Limiting temperature rises to 2°C above pre-industrial norms would still leave atmospheric carbon dioxide at well over 450 parts per million (ppm). We evolved – and until less than a century ago, lived – on a 300ppm planet. We need to return the Earth’s climate to its pre-industrial state, without doing the …
Verkhoyansk, Russia The highest temperature ever seen in the Arctic circle – 38°C – has been recorded in a town in Siberia. Scientists had previously predicted that the Arctic circle would not experience temperatures like that until 2100. A small town with a population of 1,000, some 3,000 miles east of Moscow, Verkhoyansk is known …
Continue reading ‘Meanwhile, the world temperatures are rising…….’ »
A chunk of Neanderthal DNA carried by some people living today appears to reduce the chance of miscarriage and promote fertility. The finding is the latest evidence that Homo sapiens benefitted from Stone Age sexual encounters with other human species. Genetic studies suggest that people of non-African modern humans descent carry about 1 – 2% …
“If I wanted to be buried so that I was eventually fossilised, for possible discovery in the far future, where would be the best location on Earth to do this?” (Jonathan Wallace, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK) If your aim is to be fossilised after you die, I would suggest that you ask your relatives to sink …
Continue reading ‘A weird question to the New Scientist, plus two answers’ »
The Trump administration has announced it is partnering with drugmaker AstraZeneca for at least 300 million doses of a corona virus vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, and is committing up to $1.2 billion to the effort. As an alumnus of Oxford I am naturally proud that my alma mater is at the forefront of …
Recently, the World Economic Forum launched 1t.org, a plan to plant a trillion trees. Even Donald Trump, who has withdrawn the US from the Paris agreement, has backed the initiative. But can trees store enough carbon to buy us time to act on climate change? A recent paper said 0.9 billion hectares could lock up …
Jeff Bezos is donating $10bn of his personal wealth to help “save Earth”. The Amazon chief executive said he would fund “any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world”. (The Week 21 Feb 2020) On this blog I have, for what it’s worth, criticized the richest man in …
The outlook for wildlife would be grim even if the planet were not warming. According to a major report last year, 1 million species could soon be wiped out – a sixth mass extinction. The main cause at present is the loss of habitat, but over this century the changing climate is expected to push …
Common bottle nose Dolphins have a dominant right-hand side according to research by naturalists. About 90% of all humans are also right- handed as are gorillas. It appears, however, that a “right- hand” bias is stronger in dolphins than in humans. Wow! The ice is melting, the seas are rising, the volcanos are doing what …
Far from being an indefinable concept, a single measure of intelligence underpins our problem-solving, musicality and even creativity and emotional skills When researchers talk about intelligence, they are referring to a specific set of skills that includes the abilities to reason, learn, plan and solve problems. The interesting thing is that people who are good …
Kefalonia We came, we saw, we sunbathed Odysseus, who came from Ithaca, just next door, Found Kefalonia a bore. No dragons, no beasties, no Charybdis or Scyllas, Just a load of young Brits drinking beer in their villas. From the earliest moment when he was a boy, He wanted adventures, like leveling Troy. But …
Soon, most of us will stop eating beef, and it won’t be because we’ll all agree with vegans that meat is murder. It’ll be due to the logic of advanced capitalism. The alternatives to meat now being developed – plant-based substitutes and vat-grown meat produced from cultured animal cells – will taste the same as …
Continue reading ‘Time to say farewell to steak and chips (fries)’ »
The following is an excerpt from the New Scientist: “The Hubble constant may not be that constant after all. Something is wrong with the expansion of the universe. Nearby galaxies seem to be moving away from one another too fast, we don’t know why, and every new set of data just seems to make the …
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If you know where to look in academic journals, it turns out there is indeed lots of good evidence to suggest that some organically grown crops can be higher in certain vitamins and minerals. The tricky thing is, there are also lots of studies that suggest the exact opposite is the case. The more you …
Walter Isaacson, biographer ofAlbert Einstein, writes the following (page 550): Perhaps the most important aspect of his personality was his willingness to be non- conformist. “The theme I recognise in Galileo’s work” , he said, “ is the passionate fight against any kind of dogma based on authority”. Plank, Poincare and Lorentz all came close …
From Scott McNeil, Banstead, Surrey, UK In your article about the Greenland ice sheet melting, you mention how “bad news begins to wash over you” . I spend time in parts of the US that have a lot of climate change sceptics. Discussing evidence and reasoning is often met with suspicion, or even outright derision, …
From time to time I publish, or re-publish, some basic background information about Epicurean science. Epicurus reached twelve conclusions of particular importance, provable through firm evidence and reasoning. The three faculties being given us by Nature to deduce this evidence are (1) our five senses, (2) our faculty of perceiving “anticipations,” and (3) our faculty of “feeling” …
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Dr. Brett Helms. who heads up a team of scientists, has announced that he has discovered a way of making scrap plastic indefinitely re- recyclable able. Plastic material can be recycled, but because its quality degrades during the recycling process, even the stuff that makes it as far as a recycling plant (which is …
Continue reading ‘Re-cycling, Part 2: Endlessly recyclable plastic’ »
Microplastics have been found dropping from the sky in a remote stretch of the high Pyrenees – a stark illustration of the way that the pollutants, carried on the winds, have the potential to accumulate “anywhere and everywhere”. Humans and other animals are consuming microplastics via food and water (including tap water), and there is …
Continue reading ‘What a mess we are making of our planet!’ »
This planet of ours is beginning to burn — and not just last week or month either. It’s been smoldering for decades now. Last summer, for instance, amid global heat records (Ouargla, Algeria, 124 degrees Fahrenheit; Hong Kong, over 91 degrees Fahrenheit for 16 straight days; Nawabsha, Pakistan, 122 degrees Fahrenheit; Oslo, Norway, over 86 …
