Ed Davey, I assume.
Flawless wielding of Occam’s Razor right there
Exec summary: Because there are multiple conflicting theories (and theoreticians) but hardly any reliable data to prove which of them is right or wrong (see Early Universe Cosmology, The Dark Matter Problem, etc, etc).
Yes
I almost posted a TLDR note ‘Nobody knows’
Some time in the early 1980’s I bumped into my ex-tutor, Neil Tanner, on Parks Rd in Oxford. It was a time when a new type of subatomic particle - the axion - had been proposed. Neil’s specialist area was the physics of the atomic nucleus, so axions were close to what he knew about.
I remember him saying that there was speculation then that they might have a significant magnetic moment and he was wondering whether they might become trapped in the earth’s core, line up in some sort of ferromagnetic way and thus account for the earth’s magnetic field. He said he’d spent a couple of days trying to get his head around the traditional explanation for the earth’s magnetism - circulating electric currents in the liquid core - and that the more he read the more it sounded just too implausible for words.
I think the circulating currents people have refined their theories over the last 40 years and no-one really argues with them now. And still no-one’s ever seen an axion.
Pretty sure I saw one in an old Doctor Who episode…
Creationists: “There’s no such thing as ‘evilution’! ”
Chalkhill Blue Butterfly: “Fuck you and your Bronze Age superstition! ”
Genuinely good to hear the enthusiasm and to see the funding. But where are we with this exactly ? In an early para it says
Scientists have developed a “holy grail” insulin that responds to changing blood sugar levels in real-time … (my bold)
A few paras further on we have
Scientists behind the smart insulins have been awarded millions of pounds in grants to fast-track their development …
and even further on
Therefore, these research projects, if successful, might do no less than heralding a new era in insulin therapy …
I was promised Islets of Langerhans in an immune-protected bag which would give me glucose control as good as non-diabetics with just one injection a month. And that was about 30 years ago. This scheme at least has the advantage that it won’t put big pharma out of business which, it seems, can be a serious obstacle to development.
I’ll be overjoyed if it works. Really I will. But I’ll believe it when I’m spiking it into my leg.
Boeing has said repeatedly that it has full confidence that Starliner can bring the two astronauts safely home.
Yeah right , given their inability to tell the truth in the past and bullshit about aircraft safety I’m not surprised NASA are looking at SpaceX instead.
This is what a fossilised earthquake looks like:
Yes, really. More technically it’s a discrete sedimentary body comprising a large-scale turbidite resuling from substrate liquefaction and large-scale undersea slumping precipitated by a tectonic event.
So an underwater landslide caused by an earthquake, and then preserved in sediments approximately 2 milion years ago.
It was in a road-cutting on the Boso Peninsula, Japan. The rocks are not hard enough for it to have been left exposed as seen here in 2005.
If you happen to like this sort of a thing, it’s fucking magnificent!
I am slumping right now. Love it.