Some people keep a old boot handy when watching TV - or is that a cartoonist's creation? Irrespective, I feel the need for a virtual old boot when perusing the media's handling of science. Think of this new blog on the block as that "old boot", but don't be surprised if some constructive comments creep in from time to time, or even new, highly questionable, indeed suspect hypotheses. What is science if it's not sticking one's head above the parapet?
Never is my spectator ire more keenly felt when there's no facility for readers to post responses, or when one's gems of wisdom/vitriol/jaundice fester unpublished in the moderator's in-tray during three-hour lunch breaks, or fail to appear at all.
Think of this, then, is a talking-shop for making sense - or nonsense- of the science we read on the main sites. The ones I track on a regular basis are the BBC, the Telegraph, The Times, The Independent and the Guardian. Yep, up-market anglocentric, I grant you, (do I hear groans) and I've no time for the dumbed-down underbelly. But I'll broaden my sweep if folk can suggest some wider reading which, in estate agents' argot "repays closer inspection".
About Me
- sciencebod
- Colin Berry, aka sciencebod, is a retired PhD researcher/teacher/academic who has worked in industry, medical schools, schools, food and biomedical research (mainly in the UK, but also in W.Africa and the United States). He's best known for his work on RESISTANT STARCH, recently described as "the trendiest form of dietary fibre".
See also his specialist Shroud of Turin blog on www.shroudofturinwithoutallthehype.wordpress.com
with over 350 postings to date. Oh, there's a second specialist site devoted to Stonehenge, Silbury Hill with some radical new thinking: https://sussingstonehenge.wordpress.com/
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Create one's own blog (age, class, gender no barrier)
It's really quite straightforward. All one has to do is to click on the photograph with that nice young man. One can then be part of the frightfully interesting Blogger community in just a couple of jiffs.
Acknowledgment
Image Courtesy, top row, from left: Reidar Hahn, Fermilab; BNL/STAR Collaboration; Kuhlman Laboratory, UNC; Fermilab; CERN; bottom row, from left: JHU; CERN; Fermilab; WRF; Shawn Rice, Purdue
What's the latest on the LHC?
LHC gets warning system upgrade : BBC 28 September 2009
Self-organization
From wiki entry on SELF ORGANIZATION: "As a result, processes considered part of thermodynamically open systems, such as biological processes that are constantly receiving, transforming and dissipating chemical energy (and even the earth itself which is constantly receiving and dissipating solar energy), can and do exhibit properties of self organization far from thermodynamic equilibrium."
How far away should your off-licence be for a bottle of wine to be energy-neutral?
Answer: about 3 miles, taken at standard walking pace (6 mile round trip)
What do these two have in common?
Answer: both arrived in this world about the same time. Sir Isaac Newton was born on 4th Jan 1643 (new style*). The Taj Mahal had a 20 year gestation period, centred on approximately the same year. Click on piccy for an older post .* Or Christmas Day, 1642, depending which dating system one uses.
Is interstellar space travel feasible?
The nearest star (more correctly, star system, since it's 3 stars, a binary and a smaller satellite star) is Alpha Centauri. The average distance from Earth is 4.3 light years. Suppose technology allows us one day to achieve an interstellar cruising speed of half the speed of light. A comfortable acceleration of g (simulating Earth's gravity) would take a year, with another year to slow down comfortably. The entire journey from Earth would take a minimum of 10 years approximately. Having arrived at one's destination, it would take 4.3 years to send a radio postcard (" Hello Mum and Dad. Have arrived safely, and am now looking for a habitable planet. Am hoping it's hiding behind Proxima. Have looked everywhere else... Would die for some Cheddar cheese... ")
What causes weather?
Could you answer that question in just 7 words, ie " weather is due to...? Need some help, " Weather is due to t- - u - - - - - - h - - - - - - o - t - - E- - - -'s s - - - - - - ." The National Curriculum (England and Wales) does have its uses, but there are many more such simple principles, expressed in a minimum of words, that could be usefully incorporated.
3 comments:
"0 comments" is what it says at the bottom. And there I was thinking the appearance of a new blog would precipitate an veritable avalanche of new visitors and their comments, all thirsting for new engagement and exchange of ideas ;-).
Seriously, I was looking for an "add your comment here" tab, and - failing to find one - decided out of desperation to click on "0 comments" which mercifully got me here. Are we all supposed to be hyperactive "click on everything in sight" desperados, who finally find through trial-and-error what they are looking for? Whatever happened to the concept of intuitive site design?
It's been some 18 months or more since I last blogged on this site, and I return to find that some of its less user-friendly features are still firmly in face. Is that not the curse of the internet - those fait accompli, read take-it-or-leave-it systems, set in stone, unresponsive to well-intentioned criticism - the constructive variety? Don't get me started...
Anyway, having primed my comments with one of my own, hopefully any chance visitors, maybe not old hands where blogspot and its foibles are concerned, will suss out where to click to add a comment.
Oops, that should have read "firmly in place". Where's the effing Edit facility for correcting/manicuring/ tarting-up one's own comments? A similar facility for you, dear reader? Kindly take your place in the queue. This is a guided democracy...
Having placed not just one, but now TWO comments no less to prime my own blog, I now find a pencil symbol against my first comment that allows me to edit it. I could swear it wasn't there when I wrote the second, bemoaning the absence of just such an Edit facility. Ah, the foibles of software-designed-by-other-people-less-empathetic-than-onself...
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