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a weekly look at stories which stood out
Know your enemy Overseas readers may have missed it, but UK media this week were treated to the spectacle of an angry crowd of anti-vaccination activists and COVID deniers storming what they took to be the Headquarters of the BBC. Except the corporation had moved out eight years before. The few remaining studios were leased to rival broadcasters ITV, who use them for worthy things like afternoon women’s programmes. Surely the anti-vaxxers can’t object to that? It got a lot of ribald coverage. We chose this link from The London Economic because of the droll tweets it lists:
Green light to fly? Thoughtful people may be genuinely worried that their jet powered holiday to Marbella may be bad for the planet. Fair comment. Now a team at Cranfield University led by Professor Bobby Sethi is on the brink of developing a practicable hydrogen fuel. Here’s a quote from the article by Gwyn Topham for The Guardian as Sethi describes a breakthrough afternoon in the Lab
“……we were almost certainly the only people in the world right then burning anything without producing CO2.”
intriguing or what?
The New Snobbery The moment Labour lost it was in 2010 with the hapless Gordon Brown‘s contemptuous dismissal of the concerns of a voter in front of the TV cameras. It exposed deep fault lines between the educated and those who are less so. The phenomenon is not confined to Britain. At the real premises of the BBC, Brian Wheeler looks at the work of David Skelton, who thinks it is the key political divide of our times.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58186519
Know when the game’s up Fans of LSS will know we are big fans of the great Amy Chua, whose searing analysis of ethnic hatred Political Tribes exposed cataclysmic flaws in US policy in both Vietnam and Afghanistan. Whatever the cost in human rights, the West was never going to win in Afghanistan, as Natasha Lindstaedt explains in The Conversation. The USSR thought they were bringing progress there too-remember what happened next? Putin may gloat that he no longer has NATO forces somewhere under his southern flank. But how long can he keep the Chinese out of Central Asia? Good luck with that one, drhoogh!
Well done to Nature A few years ago Nature, the foremost scientific journal in the world commissioned Flora Graham to bring its massive learning to the ordinary Joe. The result was Nature Briefings, a marvellous dispatch from the cutting edge of science, geared down so that anyone can understand it in their coffee break. Today they celebrate a collection of their very best, as voted by their readers. If you have followed LSS to any extent, that means you. Enjoy
briefing@nature.com
#antivaccination #conspiracy #hydrogenfuel #greenaviation #education #brexit #nature
Learning, Science and Society 