If you follow social media, you may have been alarmed by claims that today is the day Doc Brown traveled to at the end of Back to the Future, that comedy classic from 1985, approaches. To sum up the…

Another Poetic Interlude Language is my first love. When I discovered the joy of the scientific method I applied it to language. The study of linguistics can be incredibly boring or a source of great…

A Brit Celebrates July 4th I've only been writing here for just over a year.  From day one I have been made to feel very welcome, and I want to thank everyone here and all of my readers for that…

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is nothing but a plain disaster. It was of course a topic at ESA's Living Planet Symposium in Bergen this week, where use of satellites to help mitigate this…

Total Football Versus The Beautiful Game Anyone who predicted Brazil would not be the World Cup winner, much less get beaten in the quarter-finals, was just being contrarian.  Virtually no…

A subtle rainy morning of June sets in with enduring smell of the soil waking me up. A life of a scientist does not begin with a cup of coffee, but with engaging emails. Just back from a hectic work…

"It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts..." Sherlock Holmes

Today is the 2000th day of blogging for me. And this is my 2003rd post! It all started in December 2004, when I first learned about the existence of a thing called "blog". I had been contacted by…

As if a vaguely distant coach and a missing striker who doesn't like his fans is not bad enough, a new study says Scots are more patriotic than those in England.  Dr. Jackie Abell from Lancaster…

Okay, It has happened now.  I am starting to notice that there are some wonderful movies available on netflix that represent a much larger spectrum of life than I have found available on the…