Written by Stephen Wells
The general public don’t like mathematics. Maths is hard. Maths is boring. Put an equation in a book and you will half its sales for each one you are foolish enough to insert into the pages of it. Nobody want to read a book full of equations.
Written by University of Leeds
Astronomers have captured one of the most detailed views of a young star taken to date, and revealed an unexpected companion in orbit around it.
While observing the young star, astronomers led by Dr John Ilee from the University of Leeds discovered it was not in fact one star, but two.
Written by Dr Susan J Crockford
Over the weekend in Canada, the CBC ran a polar bear news feature that is now available online (“Polar bears in peril: the bleak future of Churchill bears,” The National, CBC, 3 December 2018).
Written by Chalmers University of Technology
(h/t Raining Sky) Organically farmed food has a bigger climate impact than conventionally farmed food, due to the greater areas of land required. This is the finding of a new international study involving Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, published in the journal Nature.
Written by Nafeez Ahmed
Rare earth metals are essential to solar panels and wind turbines—as well as electric cars and consumer electronics. We don’t recycle them, and there’s not enough to meet growing demand.
Written by Tracey Watson
No longer content to tinker with the genetic design of crops and humans, scientists – at the behest of the U.S. Military – are now turning their attention to the world’s oceans.
Written by Jack Guy
Humans have unusually globular (or round) skulls and brains compared to our ancient ancestors — including our closest extinct cousins the Neanderthals — and a new study provides a possible explanation as to why.
Written by Ashley Strickland
The Geminid meteor shower peaks this week, so hope for clear skies that will let you see a beautiful show of green fireballs on Thursday and Friday. This will be the last — and strongest — meteor shower of the year, according to NASA.
Written by www.world-nuclear.org
Molten salt reactors operated in the 1960s. They are seen as a promising technology today principally as a thorium fuel cycle prospect or for using spent LWR fuel.
A variety of designs is being developed, some as fast neutron types. Global research is currently led by China. Some have solid fuel similar to HTR fuel, others have fuel dissolved in the molten salt coolant.
Written by Thomas Corriher
As part of a lawsuit settlement with several consumer groups, the F.D.A. was finally forced to publicly admit that all “silver” dental filling are poisoned with mercury. These facts have been known, and covered up, for 30 years.
The dental amalgam attacks the brain as it is absorbed into the blood, and fumes that are emitted whenever one of its victims chews.
Written by Ashley Strickland
NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-REx, reached the asteroid Bennu only a week ago, but it’s already learning more about this time capsule from the early solar system.
Written by Dr Benny Peiser
Scientists have concluded that the Great Barrier Reef can no longer be saved because it is so damaged. The plight of the reef is partly due to the “extraordinary rapidity” of climate change, according to experts.
Written by Donald Scott
A new scientific paper attempts to explain a mystery at our planet’s South Pole.
A team of investigators from the British Antarctic Survey discovered a localized area where the Antarctic Ice sheet is melting “unexpectedly quickly.” Using radar, they found that some of the ice in a three kilometer thick layer appears to be missing.
Written by Jack Guy
The fearsome disease known as the plague might help explain a mystery that has puzzled scientists for years.
Written by Jamie Spry
The problem with lying or perpetuating a scam is that you have to be aware of the spin you’ve spun to get you there.
IN the realm of climate and weather, you pray to god (or Gaia) that the prognostications and rules, as laid out by the “97%” of ‘experts’, come to fruition or go close enough to bolster your position.
Written by Stephen Crothers
Contemporary astronomy and cosmology are so burdened with abstruse mathematics and bewildering ideas that it is not surprising that any interested person, student, professional, or layman alike, finds it well nigh impossible to navigate through the vast literature, let alone gain an understanding of it.