Category Archives: science

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?!

amusements, environment, history, links, medical, science

Monthly Links

And for the last time in 2019, here’s our monthly round-up of links to items you may have missed.

Science, Technology, Natural World

There are lots of Rose-Ringed Parakeets in London (far from their native home in Northern India). How did they get here? The legend is that they were released by Jimi Hendrix, but they’ve been around a lot longer than that. Two reports on the latest investigation from the BBC and The Oldie.

A fossil forest has been found in New York State, and it is the oldest one known.

Now to one of my favourite subjects: wasps. Just what is the point of wasps?

There’s a new formula for converting your dog’s age into human years. [£££]
But note: it is different for cats.

Health, Medicine

There is a significant resurgence of measles with a number of countries, including the UK, losing their measles-free status.

A very small number of people have a mystery illness which causes a fever every few weeks, but finally the cause has been identified. [£££]

In the stomach, the mind, or the brain? Migraine’s causes and remedies have been debated for 2,000 years. [LONG READ]

Medical science has traditionally neglected women’s health, and still does. Why does medicine have a gender problem?

Environment

Now here’s an idea: reintroduce national service and use the victims to do environmental and conservation work.

How often do you mow your lawn? There’s a good chance the answer is “too often”, because less frequent mowing can help wildlife.

Social Sciences, Business, Law

We’ve heard of environmental rewilding, well now here’s political rewilding: the antidote to our current malaise of the demagogues.

Art, Literature, Language

Japanese artist Masayo Fukuda hand-cuts intricate images from a single sheet of paper.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Here are ten English archaeological finds of the last decade.

Archaeologists do keep pushing the boundaries. In Indonesia they’ve now found the earliest known cave art by modern humans.

And in Greece archaeologists have unearthed gold-lined Mycenaean royal tombs.

2020 is the 850th anniversary of the assassination of Thomas Becket, and it will be a year of commemorative events, culminating in a major exhibition at the British Museum.

Prince Albert is usually blamed for introducing the Christmas tree, but it is likely to be much older than that. One early instance dates from 1419 in Freiburg.

So, apart from the obvious, what went on in a medieval brothel? Well, it often wasn’t pleasant. [LONG READ]

An academic has discovered annotations by Elizabeth I on a document in Lambeth Palace Library.

Religious and secular celebration of Christmas was forbidden by the English Puritan republic, but not entirely successfully. [LONG READ]

London

There’s a very elderly eagle in Croydon.

The Greek god Priapus, protector of gardens, fruit plants, livestock … and male genitals, is an unlikely subject for a statue in the discrete streets of Pimlico.

Food, Drink

Peru, as we all know, is the home of the potato, and they have a potato museum which conserves well over a thousand varieties and could be important in breeding the plants to handle climate change.

Haggis is a traditional Scots food. Or is it? [LONG READ]

Lifestyle, Personal Development

So how do couples stay together long-term? Understanding the other person is trying to do their best is important.

John Horgan in Scientific American investigates whether mysticism can help us solve the mind-body problem.

Naked therapy is a (non-sexual) treatment to help people become more comfortable with their bodies.

How the tattoo became fashionable in Victorian England. [LONG READ]

And, oh dear, it seems the codpiece is back in fashion.

Shock, Horror, Humour, Wow!

And finally … In Turkey there’s a bee which builds its nests out of flower petals. and they’re stunningly beautiful.

That’s all for now, folks. The Fates permitting, we’ll be back in January. Meanwhile a happy New Year to everyone!

amusements, arts, science

Advent Calendar 24


An Advent Calendar of Notable Scientists
Leonardo da Vinci


Image from Wikipedia

An Italian polymath of the Renaissance whose areas of interest included invention, drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, palaeontology, and cartography. He is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualized flying machines, a type of armoured fighting vehicle, concentrated solar power, an adding machine, and the double hull.

amusements, science

Advent Calendar 23


An Advent Calendar of Notable Scientists
Edmund Halley


Image from Wikipedia

English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed in 1720. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena, Halley recorded a transit of Mercury across the Sun, and realised a similar transit of Venus could be used to determine the size of the Solar System. From his September 1682 observations, he used the laws of motion to compute the periodicity of Halley’s Comet in his 1705 Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets; it was named after him upon its predicted return in 1758, which he did not live to see.

amusements, science

Advent Calendar 22


An Advent Calendar of Notable Scientists
Johannes Kepler


Image from Wikipedia

German astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer. He is a key figure in the 17th-century scientific revolution, best known for his laws of planetary motion, and his books Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae. These works also provided one of the foundations for Newton’s theory of universal gravitation.

amusements, science

Advent Calendar 21


An Advent Calendar of Notable Scientists
Edward Jenner


Image from Wikipedia

English physician and scientist who was the pioneer of smallpox vaccine, the world’s first vaccine. The terms vaccine and vaccination are derived from Variolae vaccinae (smallpox of the cow), the term devised by Jenner to denote cowpox. Jenner is often called “the father of immunology”, and his work is said to have “saved more lives than the work of any other human”

amusements, science

Advent Calendar 20


An Advent Calendar of Notable Scientists
Nicolaus Copernicus


Image from Wikipedia

Renaissance-era mathematician and astronomer, who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at the center of the universe. The publication of Copernicus’ model in his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, just before his death in 1543, was a major event in the history of science, triggering the Copernican Revolution and making a pioneering contribution to the Scientific Revolution.

amusements, science

Advent Calendar 19


An Advent Calendar of Notable Scientists
Max Planck


Image from Wikipedia

German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. Planck made many contributions to theoretical physics, but his fame as a physicist rests primarily on his role as the originator of quantum theory, which revolutionized human understanding of atomic and subatomic processes.

amusements, science

Advent Calendar 18


An Advent Calendar of Notable Scientists
Dorothy Hodgkin


Image from Wikipedia

British chemist who developed protein crystallography, for which she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964. She advanced the technique of X-ray crystallography, a method used to determine the three-dimensional structures of molecules. Among her most influential discoveries are the confirmation of the structure of penicillin, and the structure of vitamin B12. In 1969, after 35 years of work, Hodgkin was able to decipher the structure of insulin.

amusements, science

Advent Calendar 17


An Advent Calendar of Notable Scientists
James Clark Maxwell


Image from Wikipedia

Scottish scientist in the field of mathematical physics. His most notable achievement was to formulate the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, bringing together for the first time electricity, magnetism, and light as different manifestations of the same phenomenon. Maxwell’s equations for electromagnetism have been called the “second great unification in physics” after the first one realised by Isaac Newton.