The world of book publishing is a notoriously fraught business, with science and academic books suffering particularly badly in today’s marketplace. Where once books were sold primarily in specialist stores operated by sole traders, the emergence of the major book chains (whose retail philosophies emphasize bulk wholesale procurement) and the […]
Physics
Six odd Irish UFO sightings
Well, how about this then? Apparently, as well as undergoing simultaneous financial and banking crises on a scale almost never heretofore experienced by anyone, Ireland is experiencing a “UFO epidemic” in its skies. That’s according to the Irish-based franchise of the UK tabloid The Sun. Please note, The Sun are […]
This week’s carcinogen: Your mobile phone
So it looks as though we are all going to die. Again. This time it’s our mobile phones that are going to kill us. And who says so? Well, exactly. As in, the WHO says so. In a news story that has captured the imagination of cancer obsessives around the […]
Towards a quantum Theory of Everything (including dirty dishes)
Perhaps few words in contemporary science have been abused as much as “quantum”. Simply put, a quantum is the minimum amount of an entity that can actually do anything. One example is a photon, which is the minimum amount of light that can be involved in an electromagnetic interaction. The […]
“Radiation is good for Japan”: Coulter’s case dissected
Have a listen to Ann Coulter talking to Bill O’Reilly on Fox News last week (the show aired on St Patrick’s Day, hence O’Reilly’s green tie). Coulter is a social conservative columnist and lawyer, well known in the US for her right-wing diatribes. Here she is talking about recent events […]
When is a nuclear meltdown not a nuclear meltdown?
The horror of human suffering caused by the catastrophe in Japan is vicariously traumatic, and only compounded by the fearful prospect of mass radioactivity contamination. News organizations have a pivotal role when reporting such events in both informing and, if appropriate, reassuring a frightened public. In reality, of course, the […]
