Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Category: Science

  • Stargazing in London

    I cursed the bastards at Madame Tussauds when they pulled the plug on the London Planetarium in favour of celebrity pursuit. However, Diamond Geezer warms the cockles of my heart by telling us that Greenwich has stepped up and filled the gap in London’s heart with the Peter Harrison Planetarium.

  • Wi-Fi Scaremongering

    The BBC has a current affairs programme that’s been running for decades: Panorama. Most of the time, the stories presented under the Panorama banner are worthy, interesting, and well researched. Just occasionally, however, one slips through that is so completely the opposite that one wonders what on earth the programme editors were thinking.
     
    We’ve just had a perfect example: Panorama’s programme on the "dangers" of Wi-Fi. A programme so full of bad science and selective use of data that it’s given Dr. Ben Goldacre, over at Bad Science, something to really get his teeth into.

  • Happy Belated Birthday, Carolus!

    I’ve been so busy, I forgot that on May 23rd, it was the 300th birthday of Carolus Linnaeus. Sorry about that. He deserves a tip of the hat for his achievements. I see that that the Linnean Society of London has published a major book – Order Out Of Chaos – on the day by way of celebration. I am salivating over this book, but at £80 a copy, that’s about all that I can afford to do…

  • Climate Change – Myths and Misconceptions

    I see that NewScientist has published a handy-dandy guide to the 26 most common myths and misconceptions about Climate Change. Very useful.

  • Dark Matter

    Phil, over at The Bad Astronomer, discusses some of the recent evidence to support the existence of Dark Matter in the universe. Pretty pictures, too.

  • Geoffroy St. Hilaire Was Right

    Back in the 19th century, Geoffroy St. Hilaire proposed that vertebrates and most invertebrates were inverted copies of each other. Vertebrates have a dorsal nerve cord and ventral heart, while an insect has a ventral nerve cord and dorsal heart. It was an idea that was dismissed at the time, but the latest advances in molecular biology seem to prove that he was actually right. PZ Myers has the full fascinating story over at Pharyngula.

  • The Science of Hypnosis

    Here’s a terrific site exploring the science that is known about hypnosis and suggestion.
     
    (hat tip to Mind Hacks for the link)

  • One Small Step

    There’s something about the current fad for celebrities wanting to spend $200,000 on a trip into space that I find faintly distasteful. Marina Hyde summed it up in her usual mordantly witty fashion here. However, I hold no such misgivings at the news that Stephen Hawking has recently taken the first step by experiencing a zero-G flight. He thoroughly deserves the experience.
     
     

  • Darwin vs. Design

    Zachary Moore has an excellent essay over at Goosing The Antithesis that crystallises his argument why Intelligent Design is philosophy, rather than the science that it purports to be. Worth reading.

  • Cat’s Cradle Discussed

    There’s a good article by AC Grayling, which has been reposted over at the New Humanist Editor’s Blog. Entitled What’s Up With Physics? it is a view of the debate in physics around string theory, set in the context of Lee Smolin’s new book. Excellent stuff, and makes me want to know more about the debate.
     
    Aad, this is probably of interest to you too. 

  • A Japanese Dr. Sarton

    I was reminded of Asimov’s Caves of Steel when I read this story in today’s Guardian. Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro has designed a humanoid robot in his own image, just like the Dr. Sarton of Asimov’s tale. The news story is quite interesting, although my eyebrows raised at this:
    The close similarity between Dr Ishiguro and his robotic replica has caused some curious psychological effects, he said. "When the body of Geminoid is touched by somebody, I get very similar feelings of being touched," he said.
    I think Dr. Ishiguro needs to get out more. 

  • Leaping Shampoo

    The Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society does it again. This time with a video that demonstrates the Kaye Effect using shampoo…

  • The Line…

    …between genius and madness is very fine indeed. Take the inestimable Dr. NakaMats, for example.

  • The Wonders of Science

    Sometimes, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It’s always best not to be in the vanguard, I feel. Although I do recall going into our local shoe shop as a child and seeing my feet illuminated with X-rays. Thankfully, we didn’t get new shoes all that often…

  • The Luck of the Draw

    Or, in this case, the non-luck of the draw. Ben Goldacre, over at Bad Science, draws our attention to the case of Lucia de Berk. 

  • Copernicus and the Pantheon

    There’s a fascinating interview with Walter Murch over at BLDBLOG. I strongly recommend that you go and read it. In it he explores the connections between the Pantheon in Rome and the heliocentric theory of Copernicus. It may all be fanciful, just a series of remarkable coincidences, but it’s a rattling good yarn, and it may even be true. Art and Astronomy combined.

  • The Mundaneum

    The Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society turns up another forgotten gem: the work of Paul Otlet and his Mundaneum. The forerunner of the World Wide Web – but built on index cards. I’ve just one quibble with the article in the Proceedings – it mistakenly confuses the Internet with the World Wide Web. It’s a common enough mistake, but it’s completely wrong to confuse the two, and it irritates the hell out of a pedant like me. Still, the article is worth reading, and particularly the referenced article from Boxes and Arrows.

  • The GP’s Brain Is Missing

    David Colquhoun has recently drawn attention to the shameful practice of some Universities offering BSc courses in homeopathy. Now, a doctor, Ann Robinson, responds in an article saying that there is no harm in it:  
    The big question here is not whether homeopathy works but whether it has enough of a scientific basis for it to be taught as a BSc degree course. I can’t really see the problem. We teach BA degree courses in media studies alongside traditional English literature. So why not homeopathy alongside medicine? 
    She clearly doesn’t understand the difference between a BA and a BSc – between the arts and science. Words fail me. However, allow me to quote one of the comments left by a reader of Ann Robinson’s article. "Medgirl" writes:
    "Says Ann Robinson: ‘Even the fiercest critics of homeopathy will agree that it does no harm – which is more than you can say about conventional pharmaceutical drugs.’
     
    I completely disagree with this statement. I studied medicine in India, where homeopathy is a very popular form of alternative medicine and has university-affiliated colleges offering degree courses. Students who cannot get into medical school often take up studies in homeopathic medicine.
     
    As an intern, I saw too many times the tragedies that homeopathic treatment led to. I can never forget a woman who was brought in on a stretcher to our surgical outpatient clinic. She was moments away from death and the most foul smell entered the room with her. When her relative lifted her sari, we could see one of her breasts had melted into a rotting mass, infested with maggots. The consultant, recognising yet another case of breast cancer left too long, said what had they been doing all this while, because this didn’t happen overnight. ‘She had a lump in her breast, and the homeopath treated it. He said it would get bigger, and then melt away, but with the melting she has become very ill.’ The surgeon told the family to take the woman back to the homeopath, that there was nothing we could do for her now.
     
    Maybe these cases were extreme examples, but I think conventional medicine has more of an ability to recognise its limitations."  

  • A Nice Analogy

    Skeptico has a post: How do you prove photography to a blind man? It is a particularly nice analogy to make to those who make claims that psychic phenomena actually exist.
     
    (hat tip to The Bad Astronomer for the link)

  • The Royal Society Videos

    I’ve just learned that The Royal Society has put some of its lectures on the web as video and audio streams. Here’s one: Professor Steve Jones talking about Why creationism is wrong and evolution is right. Terrific stuff.