I found this article interesting – new research suggests that exposure to the absurd or irrational may provoke higher levels of thinking – for example, pattern recognition – in humans.  The theory appears to be that when confronted with input which breaches the predictive model that our brains have established, we go into overdrive seeking [...]

Shock, horror.
Kudos to Kelvin Thompson, federal Labor MP, for having the courage to stand up to the “eternal growth” fools who currently dictate economic and development policies in the western world and point out that excessive population growth is the root cause of most of our serious problems.
It is time for governments and policy makers [...]

Epic win:

You might recall this post from a couple of years back about water use in Australia – basically, the point was that as a matter of measurable, objective fact urban water use is utterly dwarfed by agricultural use, and if we are serious about changing our water consumption in this country the only realistic option [...]

Pictures like these seem like a good enough reason to continue exploring space – it’s an excellent tool for reflecting the utter triviality of the apparently significant matters with which we fill our days.
Now if only we could find one of those obelisks…

Uh oh: three+ cups of coffee a day increases the risk of hallucinations. Also:
In moderation, caffeine can increase the capacity for mental or physical labor, but when used in excess, it also can be intoxicating, causing nervousness, irritability, anxiety, muscle twitching, insomnia, headaches and heart palpitations, other studies have shown.
I wonder what my customary 4+ [...]

This is just awesome – we may not be all that far off being able to clone an actual wooly mammoth. Occasionally, despite our major effort to annihilate ourselves and the planet, humans do manage to do something which is really impressive. The usual chorus of “it’s impossible” is happening, but reading about [...]

The Age reports on the pressing issue of the growth of independent schools teaching from a faith-based curriculum in Australia.  Presenting religious indoctrination in the Howard era clothing of “choice”, some such schools are teaching creationism in science classes and directly counteracting government efforts to provide sex education to students.
For example, the principal of one [...]

There are increasing signs that Australia is going to go nuclear in the medium term.
First Thought
One way of looking at the benefits of nuclear power versus the risks is to consider the worst case scenario of an accident, rather than the base likelihood of an accident.
As an analogy, consider the difference between a plane and [...]

I’m sure you’re familiar with the old “homophobes are really closet gays” line of reasoning.  Interestingly, this research seems to confirm that theory. From the abstract:
The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals. Participants consisted of a group of homophobic men and a group [...]

This is a dangerous piece of circular reasoning: the solution to the problems created by an ageing population is to increase population growth.
The ‘logic’ employed appears to be that, in order to sustain the current number of wrinklies in their retirement, society requires a greater number of youngsters to be working, paying taxes, and generally [...]

I enjoyed this article about the teaching of physics to school children in the United Kingdom, and reforms which seem to be focused on teaching kids to talk “about” science rather that teaching kids science itself.
Perhaps the most startling point is that calculation has been removed from the physics syllabus. Everything must be [...]

This is the headline this afternoon from the ABC news website:

The headline is a reference to the proposal that Australia implement a carbon trading scheme to (finally) start doing something about our greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon trading works, in part, on the basis of charging businesses for the greenhouse gases they produce. [...]

You have probably heard about this by now: evangelical Christians will today open a “Creation Museum” (or, ‘moron magnet’, as this blog eloquently puts it) in the USA. Rather than being designed along the lines of a giant roach motel, as one might naturally assume, the ‘museum’ is actually dedicated to teaching people about [...]

You may or may not recall that over the last few years, the federal government has carefully stacked the ABC’s board with right wing nutcases, including Keith “we never did nuffink to the Aborigines, it was like that when we got here” Windschuttle and Janet “Islam promotes rape” Albrechtsen. The ABC later dropped a [...]