division6 » Science

Carl Sagan’s Apple Pie

Armand — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:05:10 +0000

Carl Sagan’s Apple Pie

Originally uploaded by Neven Mrgan

So I know I’ve been writing about food a lot, but I’m a science graduate and I absolutely love this.

Via @Jkottke, who explains the context way better.

Medical review request: The Last King of Scotland

Armand — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 10:18:38 +0000

In and amongst all the media madness this week, a brief return to my usual brand of randomness. I’d like to ask Mr Polite Dissent (aka Scott) if he’d do a medical review of The Last King of Scotland. Scott: enjoy your blog, and wonder what your thoughts on this film were. (Thanks to Dr Gil for pointing me to Polite Dissent).

In particular, could a freshly qualified doctor, at the ripe age of 22 (or thereabouts), cope with the conditions he encountered in Amin’s Uganda in 1970? Even a Scottish one?

Would he be as diagnostically astute and capable of delivering the appropriate level of treatment he’s portrayed as managing?

And would trapped gas, caused by the combination of beer and aspirin, cause a man to think he had been poisoned?

What poison pills was he dishing out?

And what ‘booster’ would make you feel ‘strong’?

I’m sure there’s more. Be interested to read your thoughts!

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Bad Science

Armand — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 09:07:06 +0000

I know the interweb’s a big place and all, but I can’t believe its taken me this long to find Bad Science (via Ben), a brilliant deconstruction of false, stupid, inaccurate representations of science in the media and the world at large.

The site, written by Dr Ben Goldacre, a “serious fcuk-off academic ninja,” includes his column from the Guardian (of the same name) alongside a bunch of bonus materials (correspondence with crackpot ‘scientists’ etc).

Worth reading for anyone with an interest in science, PR tactics that could go wrong, and people who think that equations about the popularity of TV programmes have any validity whatsoever.

Man, my Bloglines feed pool is getting big.

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Binary star system

Armand — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 20:09:10 +0000

I decided that the world of my novel was going to have a binary star system, but some initial trawls on Wikipedia (which is concerningly down at the moment) seem to indicate that, unless my characters are all Jovian-like balls of gas, that might not be possible.

But I may see if a different kind of binary system – a la Clarke’s 2063 world – would suit better…

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