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Beware the number ‘13’ (Official Government Advice)

Earlier this year, I blogged about how an elected parliamentarian proposed that the Irish government make arrangements to move the country three inches to the left in order to avoid hitting a fairy. Well, nearly. He actually proposed that the government change the format of car registration (i.e., license) plates in […]

At last: “Science Bit–The MOVIE!”

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 or so of your life and watch something exciting, witty, and informative? Okay, shhh down the back. Get […]

Chief Scientific Advisor gets the chop: Getting DNA backwards not the reason

I have been reading a lot recently about the Irish Government’s decision to get rid of its Chief Scientific Adviser. My fellow blogger Maria Delaney has covered this well both on her award-winning Science Calling! blog and on Journal.ie. The story is that, due to budgetary cutbacks, the supposedly independent Adviser […]

Todd Akin’s empirical question

So, as you may have heard, Mr Akin, the Republican Party Senate candidate in Missouri (hi, Missouri!) has some weird views on rape, conception, and abortion. Basically, this is what the Todd Akin t-shirts are going to be saying this November: It seems to me, from what I understand from […]