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Neanderthals may have contributed a few genes to posterity after all Tantalising clues have been emerging for some time from human genomes that Neanderthals may have contributed a few genes to posterity after all. That `we’ mated with `them’ occasionally. The clues come in the form of widely differing DNA sequences that seem to converge […]

Shock news. Internet not all bad.   David Brooks in the New York Times has news of a contrarian finding about the internet: Gentzkow and Shapiro found that the Internet is actually more ideologically integrated than old-fashioned forms of face-to-face association – like meeting people at work, at church or through community groups. You’re more […]

The volcanic ash panic is just the latest example of risk misjudgment I am no expert on jet engines, but my suspicions from the very beginning that the European authorities were over-reacting to Iceland’s ash cloud are hardening with every day. Of course flying into an actual ash plume is dangerous, but that does not […]

Climate science inquiries are only exacerbating the damage to science’s reputation Bishop Hill is doing a great job of following the various inquiries into the climate emails. The unthoroughness, biased membership and gullibility of the Oxburgh and Russell inquiries has the effect on a lukewarmer like me of driving me further into the sceptical camp. […]

A rare glimpse into how pressure groups try to keep the good news off the front page One of the themes in my forthcoming book is that there are huge vested interests trying to prevent good news reaching the public. That is to say, in the ruthless free-market struggle that goes on between pressure groups for […]

Iceland’s volcanic cloud keeps the sky clear of planes: will that cause more nocturnal cooling? The sky’s bright blue right now, which is weird because I am looking up through a 5,000-metre thick plume of volcanic ash from Iceland. This has stopped all flights in the UK air space and much of northern Europe. (As […]

Bottom up thinking from a political party at last Tim Worstall’s commentary on the new Tory faith in volunteers is funny and perceptive. The main criticism people make of voluntarism is that people might not volunteer. Says Worstall: We currently have several armies’ worth of people whose paid job is to shepherd the proles into certain forms of organisation […]

Whatever your research, always try to mention climate change. That way lies attention A scientist does a study of how Arctic seabirds die. It’s not a bad idea: die they do, but not from the usual diseases and predators that kill birds in more temperate zones. So what does kill them? He pores over thousands of records […]

Spiritual DNA energy, the creation of the universe and flattened wheat Please look at these four objects below Are they: a) natural? b) evidence of supernatural forces? c) man-made? As some of you know, crop circles — those neat patterns that appear in British wheat fields in summer — did more than any other phenomena to convince methat […]

Life was more free in the past only for the elite — if at all I will have a lot to say in The Rational Optimist about golden-age nostalgia. It’s an easy trap, to think that the past was better or more free than the present. It’s not hard to show that the past was poorer […]