Okay, the official movie — featuring full slides and audio — has been made… Thanks to Chris Noone for the soundtrack (from the official PSI EGG talking-head version); background to the keynote as per here and […]
When I first sniffed the internet buzz surrounding a woman being attacked by a stampede of rabbits, I admit I was both confused and intrigued. But basically, this is what happened: And […]
Here’s this guy: I just wanted an excuse to post that Vine (on what is supposed to be a science blog). I was wondering what I could say. Then I looked up […]
Here is the spinning globe atop the University of São Paulo’s international webpage. Tut, tut, tut: I know what you’re thinking: “That’s the wrong direction of rotation! Why, if the Earth rotated […]
The week in six bits: 1. Self-tickling is impossible even if you think someone else is doing it. Allowing me to break new ground by posting a picture of a cat on the […]
The week in six bits: 1. What would it feel like to touch a human brain? We’re always told it’s jelly-like and yet, when I held it in my undergrad gross anatomy […]
Just a quick post today. This one’s especially for the arachnophobes. You know who you are. A popular scientific explanation for arachnophobia has been that it reflects an evolutionarily endowed avoidance of […]
Well, kind of. Here is a video of the keynote lecture I gave as part of the #celt12 ‘Written Word’ conference held last June in Galway, Ireland. Why not set aside 29 minutes […]
I am generally nonplussed by birthdays. And I realise that blog posts about blog posts can sometimes be boring. However, as I’m an obsessive hoarder and a data geek, in this case […]
My post on Dr Wendy Walsh — “Atheists die first”: CNN’s “expert” fights back — has been experiencing a spike in hits over the past day or so. It deals with the […]
Happy Solstice everybody! As James Brown (above) puts it, it’s time to hitch up your reindeer and go straight to the ghetto! This is because it’s time for Part 2 of my… …SCIENCE-OF-CHRISTMAS […]
It’s Christmas (kind of). This is a science blog (kind of). And so, therefore, I am obliged to offer you… …A SCIENCE-OF-CHRISTMAS SPECIAL! Woo-hoo! As with all Christmas-related activities, blogging about the […]
Sometimes I actually feel sorry for politicians. There, I’ve said it. The other week, when wannabe-POTUS Governor Richard “Rick” Perry suffered his spectacular live-TV retrieval failure in front of millions of people he was […]
When it comes to questionable science claims in advertising, you rarely need to look further than the cosmetics industry. Just two weeks ago, two magazine advertisements by French cosmetics giant L’Oréal were banned by […]
I’ve just returned from watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes at my local cinema, and I’m happy to report that there were no scientific shortcomings or flaws whatsoever in this movie. […]
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 […]
Have a look at this recently launched public health campaign, pithily titled “Stop the Spread“. It aims to address the problem of overweight in the general population. Co-ordinated by Safefood, the statutory […]
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, […]
This is a slightly unusual format for a post on this blog, but I thought it was worth recording for posterity. It concerns the rather bizarre suggestion made yesterday by some UK-based […]
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 […]
Last night I gave a public lecture in Dublin for the Irish Skeptics Society, entitled “The Babel Fish Dilemma: Talking Science with Non-Scientists“. The Irish Skeptics, under the leadership of psychologists Paul […]
This is psychologist, Dr Wendy Walsh, discussing the merits of religion on CNN. Rather melodramatically, she is focusing on the purported advantage of being religious during catastrophic survival situations. According to Walsh, […]
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 […]
Demonstrating that good people are capable of bad things, here is the BBC attempting to explain genetic engineering to its news audience. Most of what is presented is fine really. Except for […]
Okay, I’m pretty sure that many readers will already have seen this video, presenting a depiction of a “Homeopathic A&E” (i.e., ER) by comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb. After all, at […]
