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Category Archives: The Science-Minded Citizen
A New Look at Animal Evolution
By Adam D.A. Manning (@AdamManning)
The evolution of life is an endlessly fascinating subject to study. The richness of the ever-changing chronicle of living things is part of the beauty of nature and in recent decades a new approach to viewing the evolution of the terrestrial vertebrates (that is the reptiles, birds, and mammals) has emerged which challenges our conventional categories.
Reptiles, birds, … Read more
Posted in The Science-Minded Citizen
Tagged birds, dimetrodon, Evolution, mammals, reptiles, synapsids
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The Facts About Theories
By Adam D.A. Manning (@AdamManning)
“Evolution is just a theory”, we sometimes hear, disapprovingly muttered.
“Climate change, it’s just a theory”, it is said, as if that was enough to stop the flood of evidence about our changing climate.
Calling something “just a theory” is often used as an easy way to belittle science. Referring to theories in this way makes it sound … Read more
Posted in The Science-Minded Citizen
Tagged einstein, Evolution, scientific, stephen jay gould, Theory
4 Comments
Standing Up for Sexual Selection in Human Evolution
Evolution by natural selection as set out in Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species from 1859 is often thought of as a constant and bloody struggle for survival. Here, living organisms are engaged in an incessant fight to survive long enough to reproduce and over the long stretches of geological time, species adapt to their environment so as to enhance … Read more
Posted in The Science-Minded Citizen
Tagged bipedalism, Evolution, human, selection, sexual
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Looking Back at the Millennium’s Eclipse
Disclaimer: Viewing a Solar Eclipse can be dangerous. Do not look directly at the Sun as this can cause pain, damage to your eyes and sight and even blindness
1999 always sounded like a momentous year growing up in the 70s and 80s; the last year with a 1 at the front (until 10,000 of course!), the last year of the … Read more
The Age of Dinosaurs – Today
“The dinosaurs are not extinct.”
Robert T. Bakker, Paleontologist.
Imagine the dinosaurs, imperiously soaring, loftily above lowly, scurrying mammals. They are the rulers of all they survey from one horizon to the other. Is this hierarchy confined to a prehistoric scene, 100 million years ago? No. This is our world, today.
The name “dinosauria” was first used by biologist Richard Owen … Read more
It Really Is Rocket Science
Space has long been a wonderful source of inspiration for many people. Numerous scientists and engineers have pursued careers from having the touchpaper of their imagination lit by the thrill of exploring Space, whether that be in the context of science fiction such as Buck Rogers or Star Trek or the real deal, such as the Apollo moon missions.
Even those, … Read more
Posted in The Science-Minded Citizen
Tagged bis, children, education, learning, space
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Space Law and Extraterrestrial Resources – Who Owns the Moon?
The legal aspects of the ownership and use of lunar and other extraterrestrial resource, such as asteroids, and their implications for endeavours of this sort are important in considering how space development may proceed. The law will have an influence on such efforts, particularly if they are private and commercial, as the nature of ownership will directly influence how they … Read more
Climate Change – What Happens Next?
As a possible apocalyptic scenario, climate change is sometimes ranked alongside, or even superior to, nuclear war in severity. Headlines tell us that the ever escalating concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will relentlessly push the temperature higher, unleashing all manner of dangers and adversity, threatening our way of life and harming Earth’s ecosystems. Sometimes it seems so terrifying that … Read more
Posted in The Science-Minded Citizen
Tagged children, climate change, drought, emissions, epa, flooding, Met Office, United Nations
4 Comments
Space Based Solar Power – the key to a bright future?
Solar energy directly beamed to Earth’s surface from space has for over fifty years been proposed as a cheap and endless source of energy. In more recent years, this Space Based Solar Energy (SBSP) has also been suggested as a way to tackle climate change by weaning us away from fossil fuels. Yet for all its perceived usefulness, the practical implementation … Read more
Wildlife in your Neighbourhood
It’s all too easy to think of wildlife as something that lives somewhere else. Living in a built up area, we can imagines ourselves as inhabitants of an artificial, purely human environment. Yet nature is all round us all the time, no matter where we are and even in urban areas, there is often a great deal of non-human living matter, … Read more
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