Tag Archives: animals

Smoke and Monkeys

Posted on February 2, 2018 by Brian H. Gill

Folks in the United Kingdom may be changing their rules for wood and coal fires. Or maybe not. It depends on whether their rules match Europe’s. Volkswagen paid researchers to mistreat monkeys and people. Or maybe not. We know the … Continue reading →

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Swatting Fast Flies

Posted on October 27, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

We’re a lot smarter than flies, which probably helps us swat them. But the insects are very good at being somewhere else when the flyswatter or newspaper hits whatever they were on. I’ve run into a few reasonable speculations. One … Continue reading →

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A Mixed Bag

Posted on August 4, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

I picked a mix from ‘science news’ this week: tardigrade genes, fertility fears, and what is probably the world’s oldest living culture. Folks in Western civilization have known about our neighbors in Australia for about four centuries. Understanding their beliefs … Continue reading →

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Old Truths, New Aspects

Posted on June 23, 2017 by Brian H. Gill

The biggest critters with backbones are living today: baleen whales. Finding the largest of them started getting harder about a century back. We didn’t quite drive the blue and fin whales to extinction, happily. We’re learning when they got so … Continue reading →

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SETI: What If?

Posted on December 23, 2016 by Brian H. Gill

Contacting extraterrestrial intelligence, meeting people whose ancestors developed on another world, has been a staple of pulp fiction for generations. Lately, it’s become a matter for serious discussion. I’ll be looking at an op-ed’s take on how learning that we’re … Continue reading →

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