Science & Society

Recently I have watched a number of interesting series videos on the topic of nuclear physics, and its applications in peace and war. China Is Building a Thorium Molten Salt Reactor – Here’s Why It Matters - YouTube This is one of Anton Petrov’s videos which I follow to get news of what going on in science, especially astronomy. I have learnt quite a bit from this one, where in regard to history it comes across that The Oak Ridge Laboratory was working on thorium reactors, but because of the Cold War the funding was directed to fast breeder uranium reactors to produce plutonium for bombs. It…

Subway Brand Ambassador and soccer star Megan Rapinoe kneeled during the national anthem at the Tokyo Olympics and Twitter did what Twitter was designed to do and went into spasms, despite that being about as edgy and controversial as endorsing clean water in 2021. Subway still had reason to worry. How will it affect sandwiches?  That is what they need to know, because selling sandwiches to 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans is better than selling sandwiches to 2 Democrats, no matter how you spin the math. Brand research company Piplsay surveyed 30,790 Americans and found out that not much…

China has a lot of people and a proportional amount of very talented people. So does India, so does the USA. We should work with China but not be worked by the CCP. The Peoples Republic of China lead by the Chinese Communist Party has taken actions which have given researchers around the world reason to be cautious about sharing information with them. This is a huge problem for all of humanity since open science has led to great global advancement. This should not be used as a reason not to work with scientist of visible Chinese or broadly Asian descent or who are in fact immigrants from…

Recently I watched this video: The MONSTER That Devours Russia - YouTube From the rubric to the video: Modern Russia has a lot of problems on their hands, you can probably name them all. But there's one big problem that is really, REALLY different from all other. Heracleum sosnowskyi, Sosnowsky's hogweed, or as we call it, Борщевик Сосновского. This plant was brought to Russia from Caucasus by Soviet scientists and was used as silage for many years. How did an ordinary agricultural weed transform into a nationwide hazard? Let's find out. The video is well worth watching, containing much…

The international Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in France was once one of the most respected epidemiology groups in the world. Today, their reputation is in a shambles. They'd like to fix that, and to humanize their group they have created one of those 'get to know us' things. It's a fine publicity stunt but it does not mask the real problem; they do not want to inform public health, they no longer find carcinogens - they manufacture them. This esteemed body was once so prestigious that California voters abdicated their own rights and declared that if IARC listed something as a…

Though we're at the tail end of the third coronavirus pandemic of the last 18 years, and a billion people in the world still use wood and dung for energy, and some people still starve, things are better than ever before.  The mountains and valleys of feast and famine have tapered into gentle hills and science has made it possible for previously inhospitable regions to grow food.  That has meant prosperity. A decade ago the World Health Organisation set targets for income among the poorest, and those targets were met far ahead of schedule.  One thing is true throughout history.…

Are you a white person who believes you have a moral imperative to introduce your superior belief system to brown and black people in other countries who have not yet been converted? No, you're not a 19th century European missionary, you work at a modern European environmental NGO. That reads provocative, even inflammatory, but it may be happening. And agroecology academics want to stop it before it is too late. Europe has made it plain that they want European laws to be earth's laws. If a developing nation uses a safe pesticide that Europe has still chosen to ban, Europe will put them…

Space agencies like NASA define astronaut based on whether someone as completed the training to be an astronaut.  NASA also recognizes Astronauts who have flown missions with a gold pin instead of a silver one.   This is standard across government space agencies.  This is the only reasonable definition of an astronaut.   By this definition anyone who must meet any degree of physical, mental, and training standards to fly is an astronaut. This will always be the case since the acceleration and kinetic energy imparted to the body will always put stresses on the…

"Shark Week" is a Discovery Channel event each summer, unsurprisingly about sharks. It came into existence because "Jaws" the book and then the film were huge hits and they never left the public consciousness after that. Now Shark Week is much the same, a part of the cultural lexicon. They used to market it, one year they even killed me off in a shark attack as part of their promotional stunt, but now I bet they don't have to do much at all. Yet when you grow to be important, you are going to those who want to bring you down a little. Big tree fall hard, as the saying goes. See, chum means…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, wealthier people had the money to stay home and order online. Not so for poor people, who instead made more trips to local dollar stores and small groceries to get their family's food. Why is that bad? It isn't at face value, supporting local businesses is an aspirational claim for many, but a group of academics claim that without equal incomes and equal access to buying in bulk, poor people were worse off when it comes to making healthy food choices. That is like arguing muffin in a local bodega is bad while a muffin in a Whole Foods is good, when experts know…