This story from The Maldives is more than a little disturbing. “Protesters calling for religious tolerance attacked with stones, threatened with death” A group of protesters, demanding religious tolerance in the Muslim country, were attacked by locals, hit in the head with bricks, and threatened with death if they didn’t stop their protest. The protest group is called Silent Solidarity, whose mission was to “make the...

Just a quick note today, as I am busier than a hummingbird this weekend. I saw an article circulating the rounds this week about a Muslim cleric in Cairo that sought to ban certain vegetables from markets where women shop based on their shape, that being basically any vegetable with a shape being vaguely cylindrical. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that the shapes of these vegetables, at least in the mind of the cleric, are vaguely...

On the 28th of November, the Mail Online reported that students in a medical course are boycotting certain parts of the syllabus because the views presented clash with some of the beliefs upheld by the Koran. These classes were teaching Darwinian evolution, a key part in any biology-based study. The article itself with the history and subsequent worry associated with the problem. In fact I won’t go into that too much. Read the article for...

Steven Pinker, one of the world’s most exciting public thinkers, presents a radical re-assessment of human progress. In this 22 minute talk, Pinker gives good evidence that violence among people is actually on the decline. I know many believe otherwise, but if we take into account the much more immediate and widespread availability of information in this age, we have access to news of violence more-so than ever before so it only seems much...

The Bristlecone Pine is a species of pine found in the USA that lives just below the treeline in the mountains of south-western USA. It survives in some of the harshest conditions encountered by any plant species; shallow soil, whipping winds, low rainfall, low temperatures. Despite this, the Bristlecone Pine is known to have the single oldest individual, non-clonal organisms in the world. There are specimens of Brisltecone pines that are...

On my recent trip to Sydney, I had a significant amount of time on my hands before my flight home after finishing the job I had to do there. I usually buy New Scientist mag on short interstate trips, but I had already devoured the current issue on the flight up the previous day, so following my yearning for interesting reading material, I went to the airport bookstore and picked up a copy of New Scientist’s book “Why Are Orangutans...