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The Sporadic Chronicle
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08 Feb 2010
Gallery of American space suits past and future:
spacesuit spacesuit spacesuit
03 Feb 2010
Ah good, Prince Charles has announced that nobody needs to take anything he ever says seriously ever again. Speaking at an architecture conference he said he's proud to be an enemy of the Enlightenment:
I was accused once of being the enemy of the Enlightenment. I felt rather proud. I thought, ‘Hang on a moment’. The Enlightenment started over 200 years ago. It might be time to think again and review it and question whether it is really effective in today’s conditions, faced as we are with huge challenges all over the world. It must be apparent to people deep down that we have to do something about it.
The Enlightenment: the idea that the universe can be methodically studied, its laws and processes understood, and that the world isn't made of magic. This has been a hugely productive approach which has advanced health and knowledge and happiness enormously. Notice how you're not having to scrape a living out the mud as a subsistence farmer before dying of smallpox? You can thank the Enlightenment for that, with all its sciencey goodness. But Prince Charles thinks it's somehow outdated. And this man gets to meet with members of the government. Hint to members of the government; just smile and nod politely until the old duffer goes away.
31 Jan 2010
The General Medical Council announce a verdict on the hopelessly poor research which sparked a decade of fearmongering about the MMR vaccine, research which was conducted "dishonestly and irresponsibly" and with "callous disregard" for the welfare of the children involved. Certain sections of the press - a press which took that initial story and whipped up the fear about a safe vaccine to such a degree that measles has become re-established in the country - still fail to understand. The Express devotes an entire article to quoting only Wakefield and his supporters. The Mirror lets a hack opine that Wakefield, far from engaging in bad research, was "just guilty of caring". But leave it to the Daily Mail, home of some the shrillest anti-MMR coverage over the years, to wheel out both Peter Hitchens and Amanda Platell to tell readers that Wakefield's a fine man being crushed under the heel of the establishment for the crime of being too caring. This made-up controversy has sold far too many newspapers to be allowed to go away.
No word on the subject from Melanie Phillips yet. Maybe she's taking the time to work herself into a properly spittle-flecked rage before gracing us with her insights.
27 Jan 2010
Too long without posting. Sciencey news catchup:
21 Dec 2009
Johnny Ball has a piece in the Express, in which he defends his dismissal of climate change (previous post). He makes three points, all of which are wrong: One by one: The "volcanoes emit more CO2 than industry" claim is a common one, and I was surprised at just how utterly wrong it is.
16 Dec 2009
Being a Briton of the age I am I was partly brought up on Johnny Ball's children's TV science program Think of a Number*, so I learn with deep sadness that Johnny Ball is actually a preposterous loon on the subject of climate change:
he claimed that CO2 levels are too negligible to cause warming, that water is a greater greenhouse glass and that in any case plants absorb excess CO2.
An article published on the New Scientist’s website yesterday provides a wealth of scientific evidence against such claims. Ball also made some less decipherable comments that insects’ and spiders’ natural emissions were more damaging to the climate than fossil fuels.
Noooooo! This is sad in a way I can't properly describe... like finding out that David Attenborough is actually a creationist. Even worse, he started out the gig so well, "singing a song about John Dalton’s atomic theory in the style of George Formby". Now that is the Johnny Ball I remember and want more of!

*Nostalgia!
07 Nov 2009
When people exploit the bereaved by claiming to speak on behalf of a dead loved one by "communicating with the spirit world" it's merely nauseating and distasteful. But now your inner accountant can also be calmly infuriated by the waste of public money after a police force heard from some delusional moron who had been "communicating with the spirit world":
A police force has defended spending £20,000 investigating a man's death after his ghost was said to have told psychics that gangsters had forced him to drink petrol and bleach. ... An inquest this week recorded a verdict of suicide after hearing there was no evidence of foul play. However the coroner, Peter Brunton, queried the murder inquiry held after mediums tipped off police, suggesting that the words "lion, a horse and a man called Tony Fox" were significant. "There was a great deal of communication between the mediums and the police," he said. "A great deal of effort was expended in following these leads up."
I'm with Charlie Brooker on this subject:
When it comes to psychics, my stance is hardcore: they must die alone in windowless cells

02 Nov 2009
I am grateful to David Tredinnick's office for getting back to me.
Further to your email to David Tredinnick MP, following his Adjournment Debate, he has asked me to send you details of the book he used in researching the topic to which you referred.
It is "Astrology and Compassion the Convenient Truth", by Roy Gillett, Kings Hart Books 2007, particularly paragraph 2, page 45.
I hope that is of assistance.
Very much so, thankyou. Now if only I could get my hands on a copy of this undoubtedly important tome of surgery and anatomy...
30 Oct 2009
It's been two weeks since I wrote to David Tredinnick asking him where he learned that surgeons don't operate during certain phases of the moon and I've heard nothing back. Maybe my e-mail didn't arrive properly because of the phase of the moon, so I've e-mailed him again.
30 Oct 2009
The Home Secretary's sacked the head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the body established to give the government evidence to guide drug policy, because the Home Secretary decided to ignore the evidence which the council is there to give:
In a letter, the home secretary wrote: "I cannot have public confusion between scientific advice and policy and have therefore lost confidence in your ability to advise me as Chair of the ACMD."
Of course one way of avoiding public confusion between scientific advice and policy would be to base policy on the evidence which the advisors give you. Another way which hadn't previously occurred to me is to ignore the evidence, then sack your advisor when they point out what you've done. One of these ways makes more sense than the other.
19 Oct 2009
To nobody's surprise, some engineers have done some tests and found that the laws of thermodynamics still apply and some miracle "fuel saving" device doesn't work:
A conversion kit claiming to allow vehicles to run more efficiently using water does not work, a BBC investigation has discovered ... Its main component is a stainless steel vessel containing water and electrodes. It generates bubbles of oxygen and hydrogen gas by electrolysis, using an electrical current. The device is fitted under the bonnet of the car and draws its power from the car battery. The mixture of oxygen and hydrogen is piped into the air intake of the engine and is supposed to add to the conventional fuel.
Which sounds clever but is nonsense and doesn't work. Best of all is the reaction of the man selling the thing, who has to be either delusional or a charlatan:
When confronted with the evidence, Steven Cordner of Hydro-Fuel Systems claimed the system worked but admitted he had no proof to show us. He said they had stopped selling the product.
So it really really does work but you haven't got any evidence for this and you'll stop selling it. Riiight.
19 Oct 2009
The Wellcome Collection has a couple of excellent 1890s adverts for implausible magnetic medical devices peddled by Mr Harness' Medical Battery Company. What's better is that PubMed has a copy of a British Medical Journal article from 1893 taking the Medical Battery Company to task in no uncertain terms:
THE MEDICAL BATTERY COMPANY, LIMITED, AND THE BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION
OUR readers may remember that in the issue of the BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL of November 12th last the following paragraph appeared:
"We have good grounds for stating that the Times has recently refused a four-column advertisment from the Harness Electropathic Belt Establishment, of the value of £80, a course worthy of the high and honorable traditions of the that journal"
The object and intention of the paragraph was, we now unreservedly state (as Mr Harness himself has put it in the action he brought against the JOURNAL), that the Medical Battery Company (that is, Mr Harness) "carried on so dishonest and disreputable a trade and business, and were so notorious and of such ill repute as a trading company, that it was discreditable and unworthy on the part of a newspaper proprietor of high position and standing to transact with the plaintiff company the ordinary business of newspaper proprietors with traders in accepting and inserting at all, or even upon more favorable terms, the plaintiffs' trade advertisements" ...
It's a great read, and all in moustache-quivering Victorian language. Long story short; the BMJ called Mr Harness out as a quack, he sued the BMJ, the BMJ stuck to their guns and the quack backed down.
Harness' Magnetic corsets Harness' Electropathic belts
Wellcome Collection's got a plethora of good images, and they all seem to be available as high quality prints at reasonable prices.
18 Oct 2009
David Tredinnick MP (Con, Bosworth) thinks the NHS should spend more on astrology and wants money spent on research into things like feng-shui and "remote energy healing". Among the torrent of brain-failure poured forth onto the floor of Parliament this really raised my eyebrows (the claim that scientists who disagree with him are ignorant and "deeply prejudiced, and racially prejudiced too" raised them a bit as well):
In 2001 I raised in the House the influence of the moon, on the basis of the evidence then that at certain phases of the moon there are more accidents. Surgeons will not operate because blood clotting is not effective and the police have to put more people on the street.
I've e-mailed him to ask where he learnt that blood doesn't clot, and surgeons won't operate, at certain phases of the moon. I'm not being mean; this really has massive implications for public safety, first aid, medical practice and related fields. Or is utter bollocks. One of the two.

18 Oct 2009
Sweden; partly fuelled by the burning corpses of adorable bunnies.
"It is a good system as it solves the problem of dealing with animal waste and it provides heat," said Mr Virta.
Yup.
28 Sept 2009
Someone died today, of a cause which is at yet unknown. For some reason this is considered newsworthy. Of course this has made the Daily Mail go into overdrive and seek out the wisdom of crazy pressure group Jabs, who've never been known to say anything even remotely sensible about any vaccine or infectious disease ever. Remember, Jabs are the pressure group who publish an article on their website stating that:
there is a theory that the emergence of the [HIV] virus in humans was itself caused by trials of the polio vaccine in Africa in the 1950s
Yes, there is such a theory, and it's right up there alongide its intellectual cousins such as "NASA faked the moon landings", "the government is spraying poisons disguised as aircraft vapour trails" and "the CIA hypnotised Elvis to shoot JFK".

The media stupid is making me unhappy. To help matters, I invite you to join me in watching Carl Sagan talk about about Science. There... isn't that better?

(Edited, 29th September, to add: the Daily Mail article has been greatly toned down since.)
27 Sept 2009
I made this:

As before, audio is taken from 'The Mystery of the Giant Brain' broadcast in 1945.
23 Sept 2009
San Diego zoo has a 7 week old panda cub, and you can see it live on pandacam.
Also, a group of snow monkeys hang out at a Japanese hot spring and you can see them on the hot spring monkeycam.
14 Sept 2009
"In praise of the sci-fi corridor" is the work of a true sci-fi corridor enthusiast. It features more science fiction corridors and thoughts about them than I'd ever have expected.
13 Sept 2009
I made this yesterday, mainly out of cardboard, glue and sticky tape:

Audio is a snippet from the wonderfully cheesy 'The Mystery of the Giant Brain' broadcast in 1945. Many other vintage delights can be found at Old Time Radio.
07 Sept 2009
Well that was distressing; I just watched '102 Minutes that Changed America' on Channel 4, bringing back various memories.
Anyway, so far so upsetting. Then the credits rolled and I noticed that among the dozens of people in "Contributors of footage" it said...
Neil DeGrasse Tyson
"Oh my", I thought. "Neil de Grasse Tyson? You mean the Neil de Grasse Tyson; astronomer, astrophysicist, planetarium director, explainer of strange things, all-round renaissance man and possibly the best candidate to inherit the mantle of Carl Sagan?" Why yes, exactly that Neil de Grasse Tyson.
05 Sept 2009
Adventures In Nonsense is excellent throughout, but I think this is outstanding. Well played, sir.
04 Sept 2009
The Onion, as so often, can be extrememly funny:
Conspiracy Theorist Convinces Neil Armstrong Moon Landing Was Faked
But not as funny as newspapers not realising that the Onion's a satire website, and reporting the story as fact:
Two Bangladeshi newspapers have apologised after publishing an article taken from a satirical US website which claimed the Moon landings were faked. ... Neither [the Daily Manab Zamin] nor the New Nation, which later picked up the story, realised the Onion was not a genuine news site. Both have now apologised to their readers for not checking the story. ...
Whoops.
03 Sept 2009
Deary me, long time no posting. Recent things:
09 Aug 2009
Was a belief in biblical prophecy part of Bush's motivation for invading Iraq?
Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled... This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”
If even remotely true this is more disturbing than words can adequately convey.
09 Aug 2009
News:
05 Aug 2009
Blimey, these official residences in the Houses of Parliament mustn't be very well built; the new Speaker's having to spend £20,000 doing up his flat just after the previous Speaker spent £724,600 on what I don't doubt was essential maintenance over 8 years.
03 Aug 2009
Uh-oh, this'll cause trouble:
A haggis recipe was published in an English book almost two hundred years before any evidence of the dish in Scotland, an historian has claimed. ...
Mmmm, haggis.
02 Aug 2009
Just finished reading Charlatan: The Fraudulent Life of John Brinkley. The tale of a 1920s quack who made millions by transplanting goat testicles and worse into anyone with the money for his miracle cure and left a trail of maimed and gangrenous victims behind him as he wriggled through regulatory cracks. Naturally, despite the damage he was doing Brinkley could always produce testimonials from satisfied customers and attracted a horde of zealous supporters.
20 July 2009
Forty years ago today:
Buzz Aldrin, on moon Buzz Aldrin, on moon Neil Armstrong, in Lunar Module on moon
(Pictures from NASA's Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, the place for all your moon picture needs)
09 July 2009
Captain Blackshirt's donning a pirate eyepatch and waving his cutlass:
The EU should sink boats carrying illegal immigrants to prevent them entering Europe, British National Party leader Nick Griffin has told the BBC. [...] Pressed on what should happen to those on board, he said: "Throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya".
The policy suggestion hints at an interesting solution to the BNP; if they're ever on a boat together maybe some navy should come along and sink it, leaving them with a life raft so they can go back to wherever they came from.
06 July 2009
When chimpanzees escape:
An investigation is under way into how 30 chimpanzees escaped their enclosure at Chester Zoo, forcing its evacuation.
I think what happened is pretty obvious. The chimps started 3 tunnels, disguising excavated soil by dispersing it in their compound using a shuffling gait, then made their bid for freedom. I bet one of them's half way to Switzerland on a motorbike by now.
02 July 2009
As swine flu becomes more widespread a world leading consumer health protector explains that it was engineered in a lab as part of a corporate plan for genocide. And by "consumer health protector" I mean "loon". Nice sweater, though.
27 June 2009
When I heard that Michael Jackson had died I wondered how long it would take for someone to spin a conspiracy theory about the government bumping him off. How long? Not long at all:
FSB sources are reporting to President Medvedev today that American pop icon Michael Jackson was “most assuredly” assassinated by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) after an examination of data transmitted by a Russian Military’s Kosmos 2450 satellite show “conclusively” that immediately prior to the music stars death in Los Angeles an electromagnetic pulse consistent in pattern to EMR weapons looted from the former Soviet Union by the United States was employed at the “exact coordinates” of the rock stars home.
And why did the CIA fire an electromagnetic pulse which killed Michael Jackson but somehow left everyone else in the house unharmed, you wonder?
To the reason behind the CIA needing to assassinate Michael Jackson, these reports continue, was an out of court settlement the pop icon signed with son of the king of Bahrain, Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Khalifa, this past November in London, and which stated, in part, that in exchange for millions of dollars previously lent to Mr. Jackson by the Sheikh, Mr. Jackson would allow his sold-out United Kingdom concerts to be a “platform” for warning the World of a soon to occur mass genocide event.
Of course! Michael Jackson was zapped with a CIA Death Beam to stop him from warning the world about impending genocide. It's all so obvious...
26 June 2009
Angry mobs of villagers identify and burning witches is all well and good for a joke, but not funny when it happens for real:
Suddenly an old woman breaks from the crowd, screaming for mercy. Three or four people go after her, beat her and drag her back, pushing her onto - what I can now see - is a raging fire. [...] Village youths who took part in the killings told me that the five victims had to die because they had bewitched a young boy. "Of course some people have been burned. But there is proof of witchcraft," said one youth.
In the 21st Century. *sigh*
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