TIZER'S SCIENCE NEWS

[Stanley]

It's a rare thing to find good news in the field of detoxifying land badly polluted by the oil industry so it is good to see this news about 'bioremediation' in the Niger Delta. This is the use of plants to neutralise the pollutants.
See THIS BBC report on the work.....

[Stanley]

See THIS report of a significant 'first'.
"The three ‘Norths’ are due to come together for the first time in Britain’s history this month and remain over the country for the next three and a half years. This means that true north, magnetic north and grid north will all line up, according to the national mapping service Ordnance Survey."
The three Nords will land at the village of Langton Maltravers west of Swanage in early November before slowly travelling up the country.

[plaques]

"The three ‘Norths’ are due to come together for the first time in Britain’s history this month and remain over the country for the next three and a half years. This means that true north, magnetic north and grid north will all line up, according to the national mapping service Ordnance Survey."

Does this mean I've got to adjust my sundial?

[Stanley]

[Tizer]

I hope the good people of Langton Maltravers have been warned of the impending flood - of journalists!
More here, with OS maps: OS
The village is the centre of the Purbeck Marble and Purbeck Limestone quarrying industry.

[Tripps]

Pedant's corner

It's actually Langton Matravers.

[Tizer]

Thank you for the correction of my typo. Having been there on holiday I should have spelt the name right!

[Stanley]

The Typo.... Put me down for that one, I changed it from the correct spelling in the original report because I thought they had made a mistake! Clever bugger Stanley strikes again.... Sorry about that and thanks for the correction David.

[Tizer]

I could have claimed a pedant's defence on my spelling of the village's name. It's one of those names combining Saxon with Norman and the second bit comes from the French `mal traverse'.

If you're ever in that area it's worth visiting Durlston Country Park. If you can't go there physically then make an online visit!... Durlston

[Tripps]

I spotted it because I was familiar with a similarly named place Lytchett Matravers on the road to Poole. It was referred to in the Mess as Mat Ravers to emphasise the matter. I think Maltravers sounds to be of French origin, and more likely. I guess it has changed over the centuries.

Evidence-
Oldham is however known to be a derivative of Aldehulme, undoubtedly an Old Norse name. It is believed to be derived from the Old English ald combined with the Old Norse holmi or holmr, meaning "promontory or outcrop", possibly describing the town's hilltop position.


Doesn't Stanley have a scholarly reference book of place names. I think so.

[Stanley]

I have several David.....
Eilert Ekwall in the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Place Names (How did a Norwegian get to be one of our foremost experts on place names?) says 'Aldholm in 1226-28 Fees and postulates it means 'Old Holm'. Holm being 'a piece of dry land in a fen partly surrounded by streams or a stream'.
'Matravers' is most likely a manor held by a man called Mautravers, a Norman surname.

[Tizer]

This has been announced as a `breakthrough' by our government. That seems a funny way to describe a deal with 1 European country when we've just ditched the deal with 27 others. Brexiteer's arithmetic, I guess..
`UK-Swiss science deal as both barred from EU scheme' LINK
`The UK and Switzerland are striking a deal on science collaboration as both countries continue to be blocked from a major EU scheme. Political tensions mean the two nations have been shut out from the EU's multi-billion pound Horizon programme...'.

[Stanley]

I heard the report and once again reflected on the total cock-up that is Brexit and all for the rabid Tories mythical sovereignty. Common sense says that at some point we'll re-enter the EU. Roll on the day!

[Tizer]

Businesses are worried too, not just about the Brexit calamity but also because we are falling behind other countries due to research cuts...
`Businesses warn research cuts will stall UK economy' LINK

[Stanley]

But listening to a man who is CEO of a chemical company in the Midlands yesterday on WATO one has to ask whether government has the knowledge to understand the problem. Mr Hanrahan thought not, he said that when he explained the problems to visitors from the government 'their eyes glazed over'.

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report that Leprosy bacteria may hold the secret to safely repairing and regenerating the body, researchers at the University of Edinburgh say.
I never fail to be amazed at the range of subjects the scientists investigate. I hope this proves to be correct.

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report on the outcome of the trial of Elizabeth Holmes for fraud.
"Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has been sentenced to over 11 years in prison for defrauding investors in her blood testing start-up that was once valued at $9bn (£7.5bn). The former Silicon Valley star falsely claimed the technology could diagnose disease with just a few drops of blood. "
Or, in Barlick terms.... up like a rocket, down like the stick. How else do you describe a fall in valuation from $9Bn to Zero.....

[Tripps]

I guess this belongs here. I've seen quite a few of Dr Nurse John's videos over the past couple of years. He always presented his material well, and seemed to have the famous 'ring of truth' about what he said. This video today shows he has changed his attitude to the whole pandemic episode. I offer it without comment. Worth a look I'd say.

It's those pesky F O I requests again. Blair said it was one of his biggest regrets that he allowed them through. I like them.

PS - Does this shed any light on the current enormous strict lockdowns we are seeing in recent days in China in pursuit of 'zero Covid' following just a few deaths in a vast population. I don't know.

[Stanley]

As you say David, he has the ring of truth and presents some devastating evidence.
However, like you and many others, whilst I believe scientists at this level I am always aware that even they can get it wrong or have their own agenda. I think of things like trying to avoid panic in the public etc. so I am not devastated by the fact that it seems we have been told less than the truth. I suspect that happens every day and we always have to moderate what we hear with our own knowledge and common sense.

[Cathy]

Thanks Tripps, very interesting and good to know.
I wonder what happened to the Wuhan scientists, do we know?

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report on the start of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) which will be the largest radio telescope in the world when completed in 2028.
Just before Janet was diagnosed with terminal cancer she told me that she had been invited to help on the software needed for the project. The thing that stuck in my mind is that she was talking about manipulating 'petabytes' of data, the first time I had encountered this mind boggling concept. (A petabyte is a measure of memory or data storage capacity that is equal to 2 to the 50th power of bytes. There are 1,024 terabytes (TB) in a petabyte -- )

[PanBiker]

The antennas they describe as "Christmas Trees" are circularly polarized Yagi arrays. What they are doing is effectively stacking and baying hundreds (thousands) of them but on a flat 2D plane, the increase in gain will be phenomenal which is the whole point of the project. The really clever bit is getting them all to talk talk to one another in phase, particularly between different sites, (continents).

[Stanley]

That was the bit Janet was going to work on, hence the Petabytes of data....

[plaques]

Spooky if that's the name for Radar. The Russian Duga, over the horizon radar system used masses of power and cause interference round the world nicknamed the Russian Woodpecker by amateur radio enthusiasts. Now replaced with satellite tracking. I wondered if Ian or Tripps ever came across this.

[Tripps]

I wondered if Ian or Tripps ever came across this.

Yes - I came across this regularly. Not just Russian either. It was all a long time ago.

A surprising amount of information on the subject now seems to be public knowledge. OTHR