Science
Was the Real Sodom and Gomorrah Destroyed by a Cosmic Bomb?
Sodom and Gomorrah are perhaps the best known of the five “cities of the plain” which feature so prominently in Genesis — and a byword for God’s destructive wrath. The historic city and location of the cities has long been debated. But, the Biblical and other Hebrew sources are clear
Was This the World’s First Predator?
It’s said that “Whenever something eats, something dies”. But this wasn’t always so: the earliest organisms were likely microbes that absorbed nutrients directly from their environment. Even today “extremophile” organisms feast on the chemical soup spewing out of deep-ocean volcanic vents. But, at some point in Earth’s
Can We Just Lay Off the Vax Wars Now?
Can we just lay off the vax wars now? We’ve got the vaxholes blaming the unvaccinated for rising Covid cases, while the anti-vaxxers shout back that it’s the vaccinated who are the real Covid Marys. Turns out they’re probably both wrong. A new study has examined the
Shock! Computer Models Wrong! Again!
Brace yourselves, readers, I’m about to deliver some shocking news: pandemic computer models were wrong! Again! Now that you’ve picked yourselves off the floor, let us share our astonishment. The models that were wrong about Covid in Britain, the US, and Australia. The self-same models that were completely
We Need Some Healthy Scepticism about Science and Medicine
Hendrik van der Breggen mercatornet.com Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is a retired philosopher who lives in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada. One of his interests is and has been the history and philosophy of science. He is double vaccinated, is inclined to think vaccinations are wise (depending on, in consultations
Earmuffs That Tell You When You’re Drunk
Michelle Wheeler particle.scitech.org.au Michelle is a former science and environment reporter for The West Australian. Her work has seen her visit a snake-infested island dubbed the most dangerous in the world, test great white shark detectors in a tinny and meet isolated tribes in the Malaysian jungle.
Are They Really Gene Therapies?
Marc Grey Many of the covid vaccines are made using completely new medical tech involving the use of genetic material instead of proteins from the appropriate virus. This has led to them being described as ‘gene therapies not vaccines’ in some circles. In this article, we discuss these new medical
When Dinosaurs Roamed the Arctic
Science is never “settled”. No matter how certain something might seem, its certainty is merely provisional. Whether it’s that everything in physics has already been discovered (as Lord Kelvin is apocryphally, but falsely, said to have proclaimed) or that a meteor impact wiped out the dinosaurs. However likely the
The Great Red Spot Isn’t Going Away Soon
Like the rings of Saturn, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is one of the most famous sights in the solar system. How long the Spot has existed is unknown, but observations from as early as the 17th century indicate that it may be at least nearly 400 years old. But
In the Beginning There Were Weapons
Marc Grey In previous articles, we have covered nuclear reactor designs, accidents and the mechanics of nuclear reaction physics. However, the way the nuclear industry got started was in the manufacture of nuclear weapons, not to provide nuclear power! In this article, we look at how the first nuclear weapons
Weather Eye with John Maunder
John Maunder Some of the answers to the complexities of the climate system are given in my recently published book “Fifteen shades of climate… the fall of the weather dice and the butterfly effect”. The following are extracts are from pages 10-14, and page 15. The following was published on
Mars: Still Very Far Away
Almost from the moment Neil Armstrong said, “That was one small step…”, people were asking, “So, when are we going to Mars?” Yet in the intervening half-century, we’ve gone more backwards from that goal than forwards. Sure, we’ve landed dozens of ever-more sophisticated robots and learned vastly more