Category Archives: environment

environment, history, links, medical, science

Monthly Links

And so we come inexorably to the end of another month, and our round-up of links to items you missed before and really don’t want to miss again. There’s lots in this month’s pack, so here goes …

Science, Technology, Natural World

DON’T PANIC! The massive star Betelgeuse could be 175m light years closer to us than was previously thought.

How does 2 meters of DNA fold up by a factor of 250,000 to fit in the cell nucleus (which has a diameter of around 10 millionths of a meter)? [LONG READ]

Who knew that the Victorians were into collecting and pressing seaweeds? Turns out to be a useful resource for studying the oceans.

Small bird flies 12,000km in 11 days, non-stop.

Why do some birds have a small downturned overhang on their bill?

Here’s a rather stunning chimera grosbeak – a half male, half female gynandromorph.

Health, Medicine

In a quick segue into the medical, a look at why scientists say bats are not to blame for Covid-19. [LONG READ]

Are we too anxious about the risks of nuclear power? [LONG READ]

Sexuality

Female journalist visits a sex doll factory and learns about male sexual desire. [LONG READ]

Environment

Why many dual-flush toilets waste more water than they save.

There’s often more tree cover in towns and cities than in the countryside.

Social Sciences, Business, Law

The airline industry has been hit hard by Covid-19. Samanth Subramanian in the Guardian takes a look. [LONG READ]

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

The giant geoglyphs of Peru’s Nazca Lines remain an enigma especially when researchers uncover a lounging cat! (Are we really sure it’s not April Fool’s Day?)

Sculpted head, possibly of Edward II, unearthed at Shaftesbury Abbey.

A look at the history of Waltham Abbey, from Saxon times to its destruction by Henry VIII. This is especially interesting for me as it is just across the marshes from where I grew up.

The myth of medieval Europe’s isolation from the Islamic world. [LONG READ]

The importance of Michaelmas in the medieval world. [LONG READ]

St Procopius of Sázava, a saint for Halloween.

On masculinity and the medieval theories of disease [LONG READ]

The British Library has released 18,000 maps from the Topographical Collection of King George III, free to download and with no copyright restrictions.

London

A London Inheritance takes a look at London’s long-lost Broad Street Station.

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Now here’s an interesting idea: when things look bleak, thinking in terms of “hope horizons” can help. [£££££]

And finally … If our scientific theories are correct you don’t have free will, and you can’t change it, so don’t worry about it. But believe in free will if you wish, because in the words of Edward N Lorenz:

We must wholeheartedly believe in free will. If free will is a reality, we shall have made the correct choice. If it is not, we shall still not have made an incorrect choice, because we shall not have made any choice at all, not having a free will to do so.

amusements, environment, history, links, medical, science

Monthly Links

Once more unto the breach, dear comrades, to bring you this month’s selection of links to items you may have missed the first time round. And an e-glass of e-ale to anyone who can knit the links into a coat of mail!

Science, Technology, Natural World

Let’s begin with another look at why wasps are so annoying, but yet so useful.

Oh and for anyone wanting to scare their visitors, you can buy a roughly five times life-size model of an Asian Giant Hornet (aka. “murder hornet”).

If you never understood why mathematics is so fascinating, take a look at odd perfect numbers. [LONG READ]

And changing topic again, scientists think they’ve found phosphine gas in Venus’ upper atmosphere, and say this could be a sign of life (albeit microbial life). Meanwhile Derek Lowe explains about phosphine but remains somewhat sceptical of the latest results.

Health, Medicine

The logistics around distribution of any vaccine (well any drug really) are complex, especially when one gets into the realm of Cold Chain Distribution.

But then we need to keep our feet in the real world as no vaccine will work by magic and return us to normality.

Girls: have you ever needed to pee standing up and envied us men our flexible hose? If so, the Shewee may be your friend.

Environment

Rewilding as an environment improvement method is taking time to get going, but not if one maverick Devon farmer has anything to do with it.

Social Sciences, Business, Law

So who thinks Scottish bank notes are legal tender in England? Spoiler: they aren’t! And what is legal tender anyway?

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

There’s some new archaeology at Pompeii which is uncovering more of its past.

Medieval sermons were one of the most effective and wide-reaching forms of propaganda, but that only works if they are in the vernacular. [LONG READ]

The people of medieval Europe were devoted to their dogs. [LONG READ]

Transport until the early part of the 20th century was largely dependent on the horse: either being ridden or pulling a wagon of some description. Here’s a look at horse transport in Victorian times.

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Oliver Burkeman, writing his last regular column for the Guardian, talks about his eight secrets for a fulfilled life.

If you’re dreading a long, dark winter lockdown, then maybe the Norwegians have something for you.

So what does your cat mean by “miaow”? A Japanese vet is apparently earning a fortune telling people what their cats are saying. Personally I thought we had a fairly good idea!

Shock, Horror, Humour, Wow!

Magawa, an African giant pouched rat, has been awarded a gold medal for his work detecting landmines in Cambodia. I must say he’s a rather handsome animal, and well deserving of his apparently upcoming retirement.

And finally, what is the connexion between frozen shit and narcissists’ eyebrows? Yes, of course, it’s this year’s Ig Nobel prizes.

environment, science

Nuclear Power

Although I’ve not written about nuclear power for a long while, long-standing readers will know my conviction that we have to invest in nuclear technology. I see no other way in which we can generate sufficient electricity, even for reduced demand, from renewable resources – important though these are.

Now I would never pretend that nuclear power doesn’t have it’s challenges. Regardless of what type of reactor is chosen, the technology is hard, decommissioning is hugely expensive, and there is the problem of what to do with the nuclear waste. However these are largely soluble problems: see for instance my posts Nuclear Power Redux and Better Nuclear Power.

One thing nuclear doesn’t have, though, is an excess of deaths compared with any other power source. In fact nuclear power is the gold standard to be beaten.

Estimates from Europe Union, which account for immediate deaths
from accidents and projected deaths from exposure to pollutants.
(And this does not include fatality rates in countries like China where
cheap coal and poor regulation cause considerably more fatalities.)

A large part of the reluctance to embrace nuclear power is down to the fact that people are generally scared of it. Why? Because they can’t see it and they don’t understand it – so it is very scary! Back in the day people were frightened of electricity because they couldn’t see it and it appeared to be magic – see, for example, this from America in 1900.

It’s a bit like being in a strange, unlit, house overnight and hearing a very odd, creaky, noise. We’d all find that a bit scary. But if we can see the bedroom door swinging on its hinges in the draught it isn’t anywhere nearly as frightening.

So a couple of days ago I was interested to see a BBC News piece by their Chief Environment Correspondent, Justin Rowlatt, under the headline Nuclear power: Are we too anxious about the risks of radiation?. [See also this article from Harvard University (from which the above graphic is taken).]

In the article Rowlatt makes the case that nuclear energy is nothing like as dangerous as we think it is, even when we account for Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl and Fukushima. He ends by saying:

But here’s the thing: if we were a bit less concerned about the risks of low levels of radiation then maybe we could make a more balanced assessment of nuclear power.

Especially given that coal-fired power stations routinely release more radioactivity into the environment than nuclear power stations, thanks to the traces of uranium and thorium found in coal.

And, since we are talking about worrying about the right things, let’s not forget the environment.

Taking a more balanced view on the risks of radiation might help all those anxious climate scientists I mentioned at the start of this piece sleep a bit easier in their beds at night.

I’ll leave it up to you to read the rest of the article.

environment, natural history, photography

Jersey Tigers

As any of my readers who follow me on Facebook know, a few days ago I had a beautiful Jersey Tiger Moth (Euplagia quadripunctaria) in the garden; in fact feeding on our buddleia. As my photograph shows, these are very distinctive creatures.

Jersey Tiger Moth

I love seeing them, not just for their beauty but also because they are a success story of something extending its range.

As you might guess from their name they originate (as far as the British are concerned) in the Channel Islands, although their range extends across much of Europe and western Asia.

Until relatively recently the moth was absent from the British Isles. However they are now found along the southern coast of England: first in Devon, then Cornwall. While some moths are likely migrants from the Continent (or Channel Islands), they clearly are now breeding here as they have extended their range to much of southern England and London.

The first one I saw was in Lyme Regis, on the border between Devon and Dorset. It was sitting, bold as brass, on a bedding plant in a park. This was in 2006. Since then I’ve seen an odd specimen most years here in west London, and this year I have a couple of other reports of the moth in the local area. On Twitter there are lots of recent reports of sightings from around southern England; I’ve even seen a mention by one enthusiast with a moth trap who had over 3 dozen trapped one night recently. (Of course I can’t now find that post!) They do seem to be becoming more common and spreading slowly northwards – too much for them all to be migrants.

For the UK they’re a fairly large moth, with a wingspan of 50-65mm. Like most moths they fly largely at night, although they do fly during the day. I spotted the one I photographed because of the movement of its flight. They do also seem to have a habit of resting in the open in rather conspicuous places on leaves, tree trunks etc.; presumably they rely on their warning colouring for protection, if not camouflage.

As well as the bold black and white forewings, their hind wings are a bright reddish-orange. There is though a colour morph with yellow hind wings; and a melanistic form with all black forewings.

Now instinct says that such a boldly coloured moth would be a garden pest, but actually they aren’t. The larvae feed on a wide variety of plants such a nettles, raspberries (OK not so good that one), dandelion, dead-nettle, ground ivy, groundsel, plantain, and more. The larvae are mostly black and (often gingery) brown and hairy. They overwinter as small larvae. The moths are generally on the wing from mid-July to early-September.

What I find interesting is that every image of a Jersey Tiger I’ve ever seen appears to be female. How do you sex a moth? Well with most species the males have frilly antennae to pick up the female’s pheromones – because shagging, y’know! But there are exceptions to the rule and wonder if the Jersey Tiger is one of them.

You would think that something this highly coloured and day-flying would be a butterfly. But no, there are day-flying moths. And there’s an easy way to tell a moth from a butterfly: butterflies have small knobs on the end of their antennae; moths don’t. Again I’ve no doubt there are exceptions, but I don’t off-hand know of one.

Don’t confuse the Jersey Tiger with the Garden Tiger Moth (right) which has more broken, less linear, patterning to the forewings and a brown furry head. The caterpillar of the Garden Tiger is what we always knew as kids as a Woolly Bear. Garden Tigers do seem to have become much less common over the last few decades. There’s also the Scarlet Tiger Moth in UK, but that is even more different, is around earlier in the year, and is quite locally distributed.

As always there is a lot more information on the internet and Wikipedia is as good a place as any to start.

environment, history, links, medical, natural history, science

Monthly Links

Here are our links to items you may have missed in the last month. There’s a lot this month, so let’s dive in.

Incidentally [£££] indicates the article may be behind a paywall, although most of these sites do offer a limited number of free articles so don’t ignore them.

Science, Technology, Natural World

First off, here’s an old article from New Scientist in which Roger Penrose asks What is Reality? [£££]

However there’s a warning that we should beware of Theories of Everything. [£££]

Meanwhile scientists have calculated the most likely number of alien civilisations we could contact. [Spoiler: it isn’t 42.]

Maybe the search for extraterrestrial life is why the Americans are embarking on another round of major upgrades to their U-2 spy plane. [£££]

But back to Earth … Researchers have used camera traps to complete a thorough survey of the inhabitants of African rainforest.

Surprisingly in this day and age we still don’t fully understand where eels come from. [£££]

Ecologists have tracked the astonishing migration of one particular European Cuckoo.

Equally astonishing, scientists have managed to record and translate the sounds made by honeybee queens.

After which we shouldn’t really be surprised that crows are aware of different human languages.

Health, Medicine

So out of the crow’s nest and into the fire … What you always thought you knew about why males are the taller sex is probably wrong.

It seems there is growing evidence that we should be taking seriously the potential of psychedelic drugs to treat depression. Well I’d certainly be up for trying it.

Tick-borne Lyme Disease can develop into a debilitating chronic condition. [£££] [LONG READ]

Have you ever wondered how medical students are trained to do those intimate examinations?

Environment

There’s a movement to establish fast-growing mini-forests to help fight the climate crisis.

Barn Owls are one of our most iconic species, and the good news is that they’re growing in numbers thnks to human help.

Here’s just one example of the huge amount of rarer elements in old computers which we need to recycle.

We’re used to places like Iceland using geothermal energy, but now there’s a plan to heat some UK homes using warm water from flooded mines.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Archaeologists have found clues to the earliest known bow-and-arrow hunting outside Africa.

DNA from the 5,200-year-old Newgrange passage tomb in Ireland hints at ancient royal incest.

And DNA is also being used to provide clues about the origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

On health and safety in the ancient world – or maybe the lack of it!

Religious iconography always was about marketing and PR.

The Medievals had notions about the ideal shape of women which curiously don’t coincide with our modern ideals. [LONG READ]

But then the Medievals lived in a world without police, and it wasn’t quite a brutal as one might think.

Archaeologists think they’ve found London’s earliest theatre, the Red Lion.

If we thought Medievals had odd ideas, then Enlightened Man (in 17th and 18th centuries) was in many ways stranger; shaving and periwigs were the least of it. [LONG READ]

London

On the first few hundred years of Westminster Abbey. [LONG READ]

From Tudor times Protestants have been intermittently persecuted in mainland Europe, and escaped to Britain. Here’s a piece on the history of the Huguenots in London. [LONG READ]

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Is it OK for your kids to see you naked? Here’s an uptight American article which nonetheless concludes it is OK, as we all know.

current affairs, environment, thoughts

Reforming Society

2 Comments

Following on from my post of some weeks back where I looked at a model for Environmental Reform, I’ve now had a go at writing flows for the other areas which need to be reformed together if we are to truly change the way our society works – and thus save ourselves and the planet.

As I see it, the four main arenas for reform are:

  1. Environmental
  2. Economic
  3. Political
  4. Social

They are, of course, highly interdependent.

The diagrams below are my attempt to capture and codify what needs doing.
You’ll see that I have marked with “IN” arrows those places which it seems to me are the simplest and most obvious starting points. Linkages between the areas are shown with lettered lightning flashes.

Click the images for larger views
Environmental Reform

Economic Reform

Political Reform

Social Reform

Yes, it’s very complex; and I don’t pretend I’ve yet got my head round it, nor that the models are necessarily complete. Others may very well disagree with me, be able to add key areas for attention, or linkages between items.

None of this is going to be easy. In fact even the “input points” are going to be fought over. There are too many vested interests amongst the “not-so-great and not-so-good” who hold all the wealth and power worldwide. But also because those of us in the western world have been (relatively) comfortable until now and embarking on this will both threaten that comfort and involve major change – neither of which mankind, as a species, is instinctively equipped to handle as over the aeons it would have been an evolutionary disadvantage. [See, inter alia, Ryback, Lee and Pianka.]

Well perhaps the Coronavirus pandemic can give us a kick start in helping us overcome our (now dangerous) instincts by showing at least the western (developed) world:

  • We can significantly reduce travel, especially air travel, for both business and leisure: business doesn’t need to do it and it will likely be neither affordable nor attractive for leisure.
  • We don’t all need to commute for 2+ hours a day to pile into an office. Sure, many jobs (eg. shops, manufacturing, farming) have to be done from your employer’s premises, but by far from all do.
  • We don’t need to consume stuff at the greedy rate we do (that too is no longer an evolutionary necessity); we can manage with less. Much (especially personal) technology is not essential, merely nice to have. We need to go back to “make do and mend” rather than “throw it away and buy a new one”. Most consumption (beyond the basics) is no more than “cake and circuses” which enriches the already wealthy.
  • There is more to life than earning ever more money; by working longer and longer hours; to show you think you’re two steps better than the guy next door; striving to continually climb the greasy pole; and kidding yourself you’re important. [See Hutnik.]
  • But perhaps most critically, we might come to understand how important it is to have open and ethical government – and that this is possible, though not inevitable. [See Mair.]

Will any of that happen? I hope it will. But I fear it won’t. I suspect this current panic hasn’t hit nearly hard enough, so not enough people are sufficiently shit-scared (or dead), and so the will (or necessity) for change won’t be there. Even the Great Plague and Great Fire of London (1665 & 1666 respectively) didn’t really hit very hard (they were too localised); the two World Wars came somewhat closer; but only the real devastation of losing 30-50% of the population in the Black Death (1348-50) really caused major reform. And who remembers back 670 years?

The will for change may be there amongst (some of) those of us who think and care. However I suspect that after this current Coronavirus panic is over “the people” will go back to their old ways, rejoicing at having escaped the demon bug (‘cos it never happens to them!), demanding what they had before, and being as selfish as ever.

Judging by recent behaviour, the signs are not good.

environment, ramblings, science

Much More than Environmental Reform

My friend Ivan had recety started a new blog, Restored World. In Ivan’s words:

I have created this website to share my thoughts and reflections on how we might respond in new ways to the needs of our damaged, ailing world. What has led me to speak out here is my belief that our current way of thinking and doing things is not only inappropriate but continues to harm us.

It is clear from our collective struggles to even begin to address the climate emergency, the mass species extinction, increasing inequality, or other challenges such as the present spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, that we appear trapped … within an outdated mode of thinking that determines our functioning, a mode no longer appropriate to the immense challenges we face in the present global crisis.

We collectively all need renewal, myself included, if the world in which we live is to be restored. My hope is that this website, which is a personal account of my search for that renewal, can be a small contribution to our collective effort in imagining how we will restore our world.

Although Ivan and I are coming at the problem from different perspectives (and this blog is more wide-ranging) we seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet. Ivan is a thinker, and as a professional writer is much more eloquent in expressing his views than am I.

One thing reading Ivan’s thoughts has done is to goad me into finishing something I started long ago: encapsulating the way I see the complexity of environmental reform in a diagram.

Environmental Reform Diagram

Environmental reform isn’t easy. As the above diagram shows it involves a whole interdependent network of actions and effects which revolve around three core necessities:

  • Reform of Agriculture and Fisheries
  • Reform of Natural Resource Usage
  • Reform of Energy Production.

There are a number of obvious entry points to the network, although starting anywhere one can is better than not starting at all.

What this doesn’t show is the necessity to reduce our reliance on product, and reform both our dominant capitalist hegemony and our broken political system. Each will be another complex network and connecting these reform networks will be yet another level of interdependent network – and I haven’t thought about any of that, yet! We could start on this anywhere, in any of the networks, and hopefully actions in one place will flow through into the other networks.

None of this is easy. But we have to start somewhere and hopefully the current Coronavirus pandemic will trigger the paradigm shift we need, which will flow over into real action on climate change and global reform.

Wish us luck!

arts, environment, history, links, medical, science

Monthly Links

Once more (where is this year going; it’s already the end of February?) we bring you our monthly bumper bundle of links to items you will wish you hadn’t already missed. I’m ignoring Coronavirus per se for the simple reason that everything is moving too fast. Here goes …

Science, Technology, Natural World

One of our favourite physicists introduces the top 10 most important effects in physics.

Here’s an interesting idea about measurement: forget feet and meters there’s as more fundamental measurement for earthlings.

Anyone who is active in science, especially chemistry, will love The Pocket Chemist.

Male-male competition, and sometimes female preferences, have helped fashion the flashiest adornments. [LONG READ]

Health, Medicine

Do drugs deteriorate? Why are their use-by dates important?

Facemasks. Do they actually do any good against flu, coronavirus or pollution?

What can the medical profession do to help your back pain? It seems there’s not a lot in their toolkit which is of much help.

Retinal migraines are rare, but what are they like?

We all have left-right asymmetry (internally), but how do bodies map this out? [LONG READ]

And another biological conundrum … how do body parts grow to the right size? [LONG READ]

Apparently girls are beginning puberty a year earlier than they were 50 years ago.

Sexuality

Katherine Rowland talked to 120 women about their sex lives and desires.

As if we need an excuse, here are five ways to have more sex with your partner.

Here’s a review of Kate Lister’s new book A Curious History of Sex. I found it interesting and amusing. [Disclosure: I helped crowdfund it.]

An interesting look at parenting in a polyamorous relationship. There’s no evidence it’s any worse for children than any other style of relationship.

Meet some of Britain’s sex-positive influencers. [LONG READ]

Environment

Estate owners across UK are queueing up to reintroduce beavers.

Art, Literature, Language

Anglo-Saxon charters and place-names are an often-overlooked source of folklore and popular belief.

A portrait, long thought to be of Louis XIV’s son, turns out to be a late-17th century Lord Mayor of London.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

The records of the High Court of Chivalry (which still exists) reveal quite a lot about the life of 14th cetury soldiers.

The British Library has digitised a 15th century children’s guide to manners: Pyke notte thy nostrellys.

Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of the mysterious 14th century Bek’s Chapel, lost at the time of the Civil War.

Four secret societies whch operated in the London’s shadows.

A brief hiostory of the (somewhat disreputable) East India Company.

The vast collection of King George III’s military maps are now available online.

London

A secret passageway has been discovered in the Place of Westminster.

The V&A Museum of Childhood at Bethnal Green is to close in May for two years for a £13m revamp.

Lifestyle, Personal Development

Want to rewire your brain for clearer, calmer thinking? The case for Transcendental Meditation.

And finally … Women share their stories of celebrating their body hair.

We’ll have more next month!

environment, science

Fukushima’s Tritium

The Fukushima nuclear site is now overflowing with contaminated water (from cooling the remaining fuel cores to prevent further meltdown) which is being stored in huge tanks. Like they have almost 1.2 million tonnes of water from which the major radioactive contaminants have been removed (they say). And they’ve almost run out of space for more tanks.

However the stored water is still contaminated with tritium (3H), a rare radioactive isotope of hydrogen with a nucleus containing one proton and two neutrons, and a half-life of 12.32 years. Although radioactive, tritium is generally considered safe, at least externally (one common use is in luminous watches and displays).

But this presents a problem, because to even reduce the tritium level by 90% through natural decay will, I guestimate, take in the region of 40 years (something over 3 half-lives). Would that level of reduction be enough? I don’t know; I’ve not seen the data.

Extracting the tritium from the water is technically very difficult and there is no industrial-scale process available to do it.

So to solve their storage problem Tokyo Electric (Tepco) want dump the contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean. The alternative contending suggestion is to allow the water to evaporate into the atmosphere (taking the tritium with it); but this has been rejected.

Now I see the logic of dumping the water into the ocean. There is already a (low) level of tritium in seawater anyway; and most nuclear facilities use either seawater or river-water as a coolant, with the waste water flowing back into the river/ocean in real-time with low levels of contaminants (mostly tritium).

My reaction to this as a scientist is that dumping the water into the sea, over a period of years, and maybe from several sites separated by a distance, is likely the best solution; and not a solution that would, I think, worry me if it were “in my backyard”. On the other hand I do quite see, from an environmental viewpoint, why local people and nearby countries don’t like the idea.

It’s just a pity there isn’t an industrial-scale extraction process, because the tritium would be extremely valuable, even if it amounted to just a handful of grams. For one, the JET European Torus experimental nuclear fusion reactor is planning a run for late this year, and for that they need a few grams of tritium, which costs around $30,000 a gram. Surely there must be a way?

environment, history, links, medical, science, sexuality

Monthly Links

Welcome to thee first of our monthly links for 2020. Here are links to items you may have missed the first time round, but will be glad you’ve now found. We’ve collected a huge number of items this month, so lets get stuck in …

Science, Technology, Natural World

You may well poo-poo astrology (and who should blame you!) but there is an argument that it paved the way for predictive, analytical science.

In the western world we do a lot to mask our body odour. Here’s some of the chemistry behind what we’re trying to mask.

Science’s theoretical models can be complex, however the most successful ones usually aren’t. [££££]

So how is it that some trees life 1000 years, apparently healthily?

Health, Medicine

I know my body temperature is naturally low, but it now seems that human body temperature is generally cooling over time. Two looks at this from New Scientist [££££] and Scientific American [££££]

Six curious facts about our sense of smell.

The whole situation around the new Chinese Coronavirus is moving so fast I’m not going there with blog posts. However here is something about the viruses which cause colds and flu.

While mentioning flu, researchers are now discovering that injecting the flu vaccine into a tumour stimulates the immune system to attack it.

Medics are coming to the opinion that many mental health conditions, from depression to dementia, are caused by inflammation.

The vaginal, uterine, cervical, clitoral, urinary, rectal, and muscular dimensions of the pelvis: the VAGGINA hypothesis.

Which takes us nicely on to …

Sexuality

Apparently almost half of British women have poor sexual health, around three times the rate for men.

Here’s something I didn’t know … One part of this is poor sexual health is that some women have incredibly painful orgasms. It’s not clear if this also affects men.

But men do have sexual problems too: it is thought that around 10% of men have Peyronie’s disease, which causes significant bending of the penis; it’s often painful and prevents sex.

One woman talks about how wanking brought her closer to her husband. [NSFW]

Environment

One UK scientist is suggesting that half the country’s farmland should be transformed into woodlands and natural habitat to fight the climate crisis and restore wildlife.

Following in the footsteps of the Woodland Trust, the National Trust to plant 20 million trees in the UK over the next decade as part of efforts to achieve net zero emissions by 2030.

It’s reported that London’s new year fireworks increased air pollution with a legacy of metal particles. Why is anyone surprised?

York is the latest city (following Bristol and Birmingham) to plan on banning private car journeys from the city centre.

I’ve been saying this for twenty years: the majority of business air travel is unnecessary; there are more environmentally, financially and employee friendly ways of doing business – and they’re just as effective. Why is there no will to grasp this?

Social Sciences, Business, Law

Hansard is the official record of business in the UK’s parliament. Here’s something on how their reporters handle getting to grips with an influx of new MPs.

Art, Literature, Language

OK, so who understands what sodomy actually is, at least according to the medieval world view. [LONG READ]

An Italian art gallery has discovered its stolen Gustav Klimt painting in a wall.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Archaeologists have found the graves of high-status Romans in Somerset.

Here’s a series of long reads from Going Medieval about medieval life …

The most maligned of creatures, since ancient times, the wolf has a central role in mythology. [LONG READ]

Medieval people were nicer to cows than we are now. [LONG READ]

Medieval courtly love was just as full of pick-up artists as other times. [LONG READ]

There’s a subset of society who (erroneously) believe the medieval Church was a shadowy organisation dedicated solely to suppressing knowledge and scientific advancement. [LONG READ]

No medieval people weren’t dirty. Yes, mediaval people bathed – a lot more than we think. They even invented soap! [LONG READ]

It’s interesting what you can find in the sludge of a London medieval cesspit.

Slightly nearer our own time, it seems that Columbus may well have been right in his claims of cannibals in the Caribbean.

Lifestyle, Personal Development

A Utah (think Salt Lake City and Mormons) court convicts a mother of lewd behaviour for bearing her breasts in front of her children. But is being naked around your own kids good for them? Spoiler: yes.

The “power of bad” and the “curse of good”. We’re living in a gilded age but can we defeat negativity?

There is some surprising psychology behind being perpetually late.

Shock, Horror, Humour, Wow!

And finally, the United Kingdom wins a Darwin Award for Brexit. Well who would have guessed?!