Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Emmett Macfarlane and Justin Ling both weigh in on the Cons’ newly-unveiled prostitution legislation – which seems downright calculated to exacerbate the…
science
Is silver safe as a medicine?
The short answer to that headline question – based on everything I’ve read of late – is no. It’s not that silver has no medical uses – one form has…
On the good news front—Experimental Lakes Area is open for business
Of all the victims of the federal government’s suppression of science, the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) was perhaps the most important. The ELA, comprised of 58 freshwater lakes along with…
The Statistically Fair Climate Change Debate
John Oliver has it right. Who “gives a shit” if 1 in 4 Americans are wrong about a fact? The “news” should stop polling to find out what proportion of…
Astrophotography ramps it up a notch
This is incredible! I didn't think this kind of astrophotography was going to be possible so soon! cbc.ca/news/technolog… #space— John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) May 13, 2014 The ability to photograph light…
Saturday At The Movies
The Choice.
How many chords?
How many chords does a musician need to know? How many does an amateur musician who plays mostly popular, folk and blues music, need to know? My first answer has…
Seeing evolution in action
The pop-science notion is that evolution takes a long time. Millennia, many millennia; even millions of years. But is that always true? Can one actually see and measure evolution in…
Lost Shakespeare play found?
Cardenio. Written by William Shakespeare. Based on an episode in Miguel Cervantes’ novel, Don Quixote. The novel was translated from Spanish into English in 1612. The play was known once,…
What do we know about Bell’s Palsy?
Bell’s Palsy is one of those rare ailments, and one that annoys more than threatens, but can be difficult and socially awkward for sufferers. It’s also one that still baffles…
The dangerous idiocy of the anti-vax movement
Measles is on the rise in Canada. There have already been many cases in 2014: in PEI, London, Ottawa, southern Alberta, Regina, Qu’Apelle, Calgary, Fraser Valley (320 cases), Hamilton, Halton,…
Is this the end of the gluten-free fad?
Last November, when I first wrote about the gluten-free diet fad, I bemoaned how an everyday protein, a staple in human diets for many millennia, had become demonized by…
Thinking about a new ukulele
I’ve been thinking seriously of adding another ukulele to the herd. A tenor resonator, or resophonic, like the Kala shown above. That’s the re-designed 2014 model. I’ve played earlier models,…
Stretched Thin, Part 1
As some of you may be aware, during my more prolific days on the ‘Kog, I decried the decline in the quality of journalism, a trend which I directly attributed…
Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Nafeez Ahmed writes about the dangers of combining growing inequality and increased resource extraction: By investigating the human-nature dynamics of these past cases…
I get email – Human rights and Climate change
Recently, I wrote about a ruling against APEGA, Alberta’s professional association for engineers, by the province’s Human Rights Tribunal. Low and behold, the defendant in the case, Ladislav Mihaly, emailed…
The Blustery Winds of Stupidity Hit Weyburn Hard #skpoli
At least 2 Weyburn City Councillors were not duped by anti-Wind propaganda that afflicts many municipalities. There’s probably no bylaw against this family running a noisy, polluting diesel generator in…
#Tarsands Polluting Groundwater and Rivers
As scientists have demonstrated in the past, the strip mining and tailing ponds employed on a Mordorific scale in northern Alberta are polluting ground and river waters. Sorry #tarsand shills,…
Nature blasts Swiss anti-immigration referendum
As part of Switzerland’s system of direct democracy, Swiss voters recently approved immigration caps by a narrow margin. This means that the country, which has remained independent of the European…
I Love Climate Scientists, Don’t You?
* Even as the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration climbs upward, some climate deniers are bent on attacking climate scientists’ reputations. That’s why it’s more important than ever that we empower…