This is an entry about a peculiar variety of wasp. You'll be aware that there are more than a few varieties of parasitic wasp out there - they attack something, lay eggs in it, and let their larvae eat out the victim as it grows ( Read more... )

The Pope condemns the climate change prophets of doom

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.

Classic.

And from later:
The 80-year-old Pope said the world needed to care for the environment ( Read more... )

Can you spot the problem with this idea?

via cryptogram

Just ‮ testing ‭ something.

Edit: note to self, this one is 8238, and 'correcting' it is 8237
Edit 2: Now that's odd... this may take some practice.

I have a horrible cold at the moment ( Read more... )

This (also here) is not good news ( Read more... )

One has to snigger a bit at people who jump on a report based on the conclusions, without reading it.

But at the same time it's probably a good reminder for all of us, I suspect it's a trap a lot of us would fall into quite easily given the right material.

Hat tip to ukskeptic

So I'm about halfway through my trip to Australia. Observing is over, we got one clear (but not that great seeing) night yesterday, tonight is cloudy again, so we've gone to bed early as there's enough people there to take any data if it does clear, and we've a long drive tomorrow back to Sydney ( Read more... )

So, I'm a bit surprised the plane brought out all that discussion when the freaky backwards-in-time antics of photons didn't (although that's perhaps a bit more heavy going to decipher unless you're familiar with Young's slits).
( Click here for discussion of the plane. Probably best to skip down to my earlier entry if you've not already seen it. )

You have a plane.

It sits on a conveyor belt.

This conveyor belt is rather unusual. It moves backwards at the same speed the plane moves forwards.*

Poll Does the plane take off?

*there's some ambiguity there. I'm deliberately leaving it ambiguous