Being in palaeontology, I have joined a couple of palaeontologically oriented groups on Facebook. However, the ‘Paleontology’ groups isn’t one of them. However, someone I am ‘friends’ with on Facebook…
Read More
In recent years, there have been all sorts of bizarre conspiracy theories floating around, many of which have been instigated by a person or persons referred to as Q, whose…
I recently read a fascinating book by Simon Winchester entitled ‘Knowing what we know’1,2. I have a soft spot for Winchester, as he also wrote the book ‘The map that…
Four and a half years ago, I wrote a piece about how advances in battery design were increasing the energy density of batteries. Energy density is measured in Watt-hours per…
The idea that the poor should have leisure and a holiday from work has always been shocking to the rich. In the early nineteenth century, fifteen hours was the ordinary day's work for a man; children sometimes did as much, and very commonly did twelve hours a day. When meddlesome busybodies suggested that perhaps these hours were rather long, they were told that work kept adults from drink and children from mischief. When I was a child, shortly after urban working men had acquired the vote, certain public holidays were established by law, to the great indignation of the upper classes. I remember hearing an old Duchess say: 'What do the poor want with holidays? They ought to work.' People nowadays are less frank, but the sentiment persists, and is the source of much of our economic confusion.
Earlier this year, I wrote an article about the 1961 Drake Equation. This is the equation which is used to estimate the number of advanced civilisations in the Milky Way…
Israel knew Hamas’ battle plan for the October 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened; this is shown by documents, emails and interviews obtained by Israel’s Channel…