Rights v. Morality (2013) A lot of people seem to think that a law is a-okay as long as most people agree that the law is moral. Never mind the fact that it’s unconstitutional. E.g. “we can ban sodomy because it’s immoral. Never mind the 9th amendment and the precedent in Griswold v Connecticut.” Now, Constitutionality and morality often DO overlap (e.g. murder, theft, etc), so I understand why so many people mistakenly believe that morality is the standard for legality instead of the […]

Since Barack Obama became President, I’ve beaten up on him for being so hawkish, for perpetuating U.S. militarism–and hence militarism in general—as a way to solve conflicts. In a major speech yesterday at the National Defense University in McNair, Virginia, Obama took a few tiny steps toward becoming the Peace President many voters hoped he [...]

Enough wind energy to power about 85,000 homes in Pacific Northwest each month could be stored in porous rocks deep underground for later use, according to a new, comprehensive study. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Bonneville Power Administration identified two unique methods for this energy storage approach and two eastern Washington locations to put them into practice. Read more »

As Bluetongue virus 8 was making its way to the UK in 2007 I was asked by a farmer whether or not he should vaccinate when the vaccine became available. 100% yes was the answer, and would be now. BTV-8 was a particularly virulent strain, resulting in mass death in sheep and even (unusually for BTV) causing disease and deaths in cattle. Bluetongue had never before been to the UK, so the entire herd was susceptible to the virus. The result was that, whilst East Anglia experienced a few outbreaks […]

Lego's life-size X-wing fighter Dan Bracaglia 5.3 million: the number of Lego bricks used to build the world's largest Lego model, a life-size X-wing fighter complete with Lego Luke Skywalker 40,000: the planned population for Masdar City, a solar-powered eco-metropolis in the middle of the Arabian desert and the world's most ambitious eco-city 15 days: the time it took the journal Cell to accept and publish last week's study on the first cloned human embryo. An anonymous online […]