What Happens If You Stick Your Head in a Particle Accelerator?

Particle Accelerator

This week Discover Magazine ran the story of what happened to Russian Scientist Anatoli Bugorski when he accidentally stuck his head inside a particle accelerator. It all happened back in 1978. This was in the Soviet Union at a time when talking about anything Nuclear related was not exactly encouraged, so he did not talk about … Read more

Drinking the Alt-Right Cool aid: Climate Science Daily Caller article

daily caller

Recently a right-wing Facebook “friend” shared an article from the Daily Caller that claimed that Satellite data showed no acceleration in warming for the past 23 years. Apart from the rather obvious “How did this guy get on my FB friends list?” question, I do actually find it fascinating to observe how such “truth” is … Read more

Did Dinosaurs really have feathers?

dinosaur feathers

The classical image of dinosaurs that we carry within our heads is that they were scaled up lizards. This is not simply a cultural view, but was the initial scientific one. Back in 1842 paleontologist Richard Owen coined the word dinosaur from Greek as a description of the term “fearsome lizard”. We perhaps still carry that … Read more

The most Accurate climate models are telling us frightening things

There is a meme going around that consists of a sweatshirt slogan that reads … This perhaps is the essence of climate modelling. Observations are made, and slowly slowly you build up a precise mathematical model that can be used to work out what comes next. Within such models you have the various drivers of … Read more

Polar Bears and Sea Ice – Science vs Fiction

climate change denial

A new scientific study published a few days ago within a reputable peer-reviewed journal by some leading Climate Science scientists has generated rather a lot of heat within the climate denial community. Entitled “Internet Blogs, Polar Bears, and Climate-Change Denial by Proxy” and published within BioScience, it examines the reporting of Arctic Sea Ice and … Read more

The 2017 John Maddox Prize Winner – Riko Muranaka

John Maddox Prize

Pictured above is Dr Riko Muranaka who has won the 2017 John Maddox prize. First, a bit of context – what is the John Maddox Prize? The John Maddox Prize is an annual award give by the UK based charity Sense about Science and has been running since 2012. John Maddox himself was a Biologist, … Read more