Browsing Category
Environment
Dumb Bins to Smart Cities
The problem with the phrase Smart Cities is that it makes the rest of us sound dumb complained one of the speakers at the Pint of Science Smart Cities night. In fact, the audience were told that Ireland’s agriculture industry is as high…
Shots of Science – Plate Up for Food Psychology
NASA tackles climate change
NASA scientists have said that by 2040 the hole in the ozone layer, now 12 million square miles wide, will have shrunk by another 4 million square miles. By the end of the 21st century the hole should have…
Shots of Science – Asthma, Yellowstone & Rare Earth
New Asthma breakthrough
Asthmatics could soon see a major change in their treatment. To date asthma sufferers have been treated for their symptoms after they appear but a new paper published in Science Translational Medicine identified a…
The Power is Yours on Earth Day
April 22nd, is Earth Day. It is not just another Hallmark Holiday as the idea of killing trees to tell someone to do their bit for the environment is, unsurprisingly, against the whole ethos. Earth Day sprung from the 1970s environmental…
Shots of Science – Chimps obey Safe Cross Code
The Blob
It sounds like a bad sci-fi movie but in the Pacific ocean there is a patch scientists called ‘The Blob’ that is threatening marine life. 'The Blob' is a rough circle that is growing and now 100 metres deep and 2000 kms wide…
Earth observation 1: Forestry
I remember in my early years hearing about astronauts being able to read newspapers from space using huge telescopes. How the Great Wall of China was the only man made structure visible from space. Later, how the colour of soil related to…
A Digest: Our Living Planet
On September 30th the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) released a landmark report on the health of our planet, which presents many harsh realities about the impact the ballooning pressures our species has been putting on the Earth’s…
Rest In Pixels: How will you be remembered?
In Loving Memory
My great-grandfather lived and married in South Africa, where he made his fortune working in the diamond mines and building houses. Returning to Ireland, he founded two businesses. When he refused to remove the…
The Little Tern Conservation Project & Crow Crag Productions
I can remember when I was just a whipper-snapper, my Mam would have her book of garden birds and we would spend time staring out into the back garden pointing out the several different species that resided in our humble hedges and trees. I…
Why are there Poor People? Sam Bowles and the Poverty Dilemma
Professor Samuel Bowles has tried to change the conversation over human behaviour. But his battle has been a long and profound journey that spans continents. Francois Badenhorst went to Santa Fe, New Mexico to speak to the man and the…