180 MILLION YEAR OLD FOREST
New Zealand’s 180-million-year-old forest in Curio Bay was once part of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana. The petrified remnants of that forest is one of …
BATTERIES ARE THE BIGGEST PROBLEM
Batteries are the biggest problem facing the adoption of electric power on far broader scales than are presently feasible. Electric cars require large batteries to …
THE ROSETTA STONE
The discovery of the Rosetta Stone by Napoleon’s engineers, when they were renovating an Egyptian fort in 1798, enabled ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs to be deciphered …
CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a work relief program that gave millions of young men employment on environmental projects during the Great Depression. Considered …
GOLDEN FLEECE AWARD
I announced recently, on the opening page of this Blog site, that I would soon be initiating a new “Golden Fleece Award” on a fairly …
NORTHERN WHITE RHINO
Re-creating the Northern White Rhino sounds a bit like science fiction, but we have already cloned a sheep successfully and, if reports are to be …
DRONES KILLING HUMANS
Drones killing humans is a scenario we have been programmed to think will never happen. We think that all robots will have a built-in safety …
OUR ANCESTORS HAD TAILS
Millions of years ago our ancestors had tails. So, why don’t we? The short answer, of course, is that we’ve lost the ability, and …
WELSH MADE BUDWEISER
Welsh made Budweiser seems like a joke, but it’s a reality that may be on the forefront of technological advancement. Wales is about to get …
CONTRAILS ARE NOT BENIGN
Contrails are not benign. Those wispy white contrails that criss-cross the skies are far less benign than their fluffy patterns might suggest. Until now, …