It’s not often that I come across a book which I think everyone should read. Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear, by Dan Gardner, is one such book. Risk tells us about how we are constantly misled in every day life about how dangerous things are — drugs, cancer, paedophiles, knife crime, terrorism — [...]

The BBC were doing some vox pops this morning to try and understand how well ‘the man in the street’ knows about science. I presume this somehow related to the news that the government are trying to stop people perceiving science as something ‘elitist’.. Unfortunately, they rather missed the boat on two points, the most [...]

I was just saying the other day about a sense of humour being necessary to get through life, and my suspicions that not only does a joke now and again help you get through life, but that life itself is the big cosmic joke. Only it turns out that there may well be more to [...]

It’s a God awful small affair To the girl with the mousey hair But her mummy is yelling, “No!” And her daddy has told her to goDavid Bowie Yes, that’s right. Suddenly with the discovery of methane, everyone seems caught up in a fever as to whether or not there is life on mars. Firstly, [...]

The humble computer mouse is now forty years old. Forty! It’s one of those things that you knew was obviously developed at some point, but the idea that the mouse was first used the year Yellow Submarine came out and before Neil Armstrong took one small step onto the moon seems a little odd. Also, [...]

We’ve had a trip to the opticians. As far as the family goes, we’re fairly crap, eyesight-wise. My wife wears glasses or contacts. My wife’s parents wear glasses. My parents wear glasses or contacts. I was prescribed glasses at around 14, but never wear them because I am only short-sighted (admittedly very short sighted) in [...]

This one has that certain ick factor to it. Researchers at the University of Virginia swabbed these common household surfaces [TV remote controls, bathroom taps and refrigerator doors] in 30 homes and found traces of rhinovirus 42% of the time… Infectious rhinovirus was detected on almost a quarter of subjects’ fingertips one hour after touching [...]

Not content with telling everyone that bendy buses and atheism are a danger to the public at large, Rentaquote Stephen Green from Christian Voice has been spouting more crapulence today. As an aside, it’s interesting how these people always claim to be speaking for their religion as a whole, despite the fact that most Christians [...]

Who stands to gain? What do they stand to gain? Let’s start with a biblical quote I came across the other day… For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be famines, plagues, and earthquakes in various places.Mark 13:8 This is then used by some people to justify that we [...]

Creationism should be discussed in school science lessons, rather than excluded, says the director of education at the Royal Society.BBC News I have no objection to people being ‘Creationists’ or proponents of ‘Intelligent Design’. It may indeed be that an almighty being has chosen — via whatever mechanism — to create man as he is [...]