Science

Created
Sun, 01/06/2025 - 03:53
Unemployed, I spent a week in April digging a small pond in our back yard. At the time, it was a distraction. Now it is… actually, a different sort of distraction. Because although it’s not a very big pond — about 3 meters by 2, maximum depth about 70 cm — it has very quickly […]
Created
Thu, 05/06/2025 - 17:39
So a few days ago I posted about newts, and I mentioned that there was an American newt that was ridiculously toxic. But then (I said) there wasn’t space or time to go into why.  And of course I was immediately bombarded by many* comments and e-mails asking why.  *three Well, fine.  The world’s most toxic […]
Created
Sat, 15/03/2025 - 03:55
The blue-ringed octopus! An elegant little creature, native to the southwest Pacific, particularly the waters around Australia. Pretty to look at… but mostly famous for being very, very venomous. The blue-ring’s bite is deadly.  A single sharp nip can kill an adult human in minutes. But why? The blue-ring is a modest little creature that […]
Created
Fri, 21/02/2025 - 02:11
Trump’s assaults on governance could trigger systemic collapse. Here’s how it might happen, and how we can prepare. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian  18th February 2025 Though we might find it hard to imagine, we cannot now rule it out: the possibility of systemic collapse in the United States. The degradation of federal […]
Created
Mon, 03/02/2025 - 10:59
The notion of the Anthropocene was first proposed twenty-four years ago by the atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen. It denotes a geological epoch defined by human activity, and remains an unofficial designation, with the International Commission on Stratigraphy—whose processes appear to be geologically slow—yet to approve it for technical use. Nevertheless, in that quarter of a […]