BBC News - 'Vital' science spared deep cuts

 

Well it looks like the science budget has not been cut as much as feared (BBC News - 'Vital' science spared deep cuts).

This is good news and will enable “science” to get on with the jobs that are vital to all our futures.  Expect to see a raft of new research programmes designed to better previous endeavours such as :

• Why flies have wings;
• Why wildebeests aren’t blue;
• Why cross-eyed lions can’t see straight;
• Why the tops of mountains are cold (this will examine the counterintuitive argument that things closer to the Sun are actually colder than those further away); and (not forgetting applied science):
• How to boil an egg on an electric guitar.

How the leopard got its spots

 

 

The BBC is carrying this astonishing story BBC News - On how the leopard got its spots

It seems, following a research programme, that leopards have spots so they can hide in trees and not be seen – Doh!

Now I guess everyone probably knows this because it is intuitively obvious.

Cutting the science budget is possibly no bad thing if it is spent on this sort of ridiculous research!

Fusion Salvation?

The BBC is running what might just be the most important story this year, maybe ever.  It is about a giant leap forward towards controllable fusion and limitless energy.  It's typical that the BBC, obsessed with getting their vengeance on Tony Blair, are not running it on the main news page but in Science and Technology.  Maybe they don't understand what its significance is. Call me an optimist but I reckon that this is the beginning of the end of our carbon dependence and so maybe global warming, resource wars, desertification and poverty.  Not there yet but watch this space!

Back

Out Across the Universe...

The Hubble Space Telescope has had an upgrade and is now producing more stunning imagery which can be seen at the Hubblesite.  These images serve to show us how insignificant and puny we are yet so important as the only known example of life capable of creating such wondrous images.  Here's an example:

Back