science

The centre of the Earth is younger than the surface

by

It sounds weird, and quite bizarre, but the core of our planet is younger than the surface. We know that planet earth is only 6,000 years old because the Bible says …. … nah, just kidding, we actually know that it is 4.54 × 109 years ± 1%. How do we know how old the earth actually … Read more

Homeopathy effective for 0 out of 68 illnesses, study finds

by

The British Humanist Association has posted to Facebook a link from the Independent that was published last February … It is estimated that the NHS spends about £5 million of taxpayers’ money each year on homeopathy – a long-discredited ‘treatment’ involving water and sugar pills devoid of any medicinal properties – at the same time … Read more

Robert De Niro Claim: ‘there is a link between vaccines and autism’

by

So once again the topic of vaccines and autism pops up and the media is running with it because somebody famous has said something utterly daft. To be fair, media outlets do often balance things, for example the UKs Telegraph has the story and does underline that his claim is not factual. Let’s cut to the actual text within … Read more

Hijacking Bill Nye

by

Rumours started flying that Bill Nye was going to debate Sara Palin on the topic of climate change. For example Breitbart ran the story … Sarah Palin is set to participate in a panel discussion in Washington, D.C. in May following the nationwide screening of the fact-based climate change documentary Climate Hustle. … Palin will reportedly appear … Read more

Breakthrough Starshot – Can we really get to Alpha Centauri in just 20 years?

by

So the news is that a very ambitious interstellar space mission to get to Alpha Centauri in just 20 years has been proposed and is being jointly promoted by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Professor Stephen Hawking, and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner. It sounded so far fetched that upon first hearing it I had to check the calendar and verify it … Read more

A New greatly extended tree of life has been published

by

What has become increasingly realised is that there is rather a lot of biological dark matter that we know simply nothing about at all and so the publication of a new tree of life (last Monday) that reveals quite a dramatically new picture of life is consequence of further insights. What has been happening is that a lot of new information was … Read more