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Christmas Cheer 2018

Today is Christmas, and about this time folks in the New World may be thinking about breakfast...

Biological Xenophobia?

Emperor Meiji (明治天皇, the 122nd Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order...

恭賀新禧 And The Moon

To observers in much of North America and East Asia, on January 31st, the second full moon of the...

De Haut En Bas

Recently, in the New Statesman, under the headline David Attenborough: Brexiteers “probably don’t...

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Robert H OlleyRSS Feed of this column.

Until recently, I worked in the Polymer Physics Group of the Physics Department at the University of Reading.

I would describe myself as a Polymer Morphologist. I am not an astronaut,

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Is Betelgeuse A Cannibal Star?

Is Betelgeuse A Cannibal Star?

Jun 29 2017 | comment(s)

A day or two ago I came across this article

Rocket salad, enantiomers, and nomenclature

Rocket salad, enantiomers, and nomenclature

Apr 29 2017 | comment(s)

Yet another article in the Telegraph: this time Supermarket rocket salad healthier than homegrown. featuring the vegetable kingdom this time:

Muck and Medicine

Muck and Medicine

Apr 12 2017 | comment(s)

An article in The Federalist:

The Darwinism That Fuels Atheism Actually Favors Religiosity

 

contains a section based on a 2016 report

The First Known Deuterostome?

The First Known Deuterostome?

Feb 14 2017 | comment(s)

A few days ago I read an article in the Telegraph Humanity’s earliest known ancestor discovered - and it looks like a ‘wrinkled old sack’, featuring this creature:
 

 
Happy Chinese New Year 2017

Happy Chinese New Year 2017

Jan 28 2017 | comment(s)

Today is the first day of the Chinese Year of the Rooster, 2017.
 
I am addressing this in particular to North American friends, since yesterday evening on TV we saw Michael Portillo on one of his great railway journeys, travelling through the state of Kansas.  In one of his enounters, a young Native American man, in full costume, performed a “prairie chicken” dance from the Blackfeet of Montana.
 
Electromagnetic Mayhem

Electromagnetic Mayhem

Jan 11 2017 | comment(s)

Not long ago, I read an article Apocalypse now? Nuclear proliferation is the least of our worries, to which the sub-editor helpfully added the heading soon, a massive solar flare will bring the world to a halt claims the author of a new book.