Climate Change is about Science, not Politics We start with a heartfelt plea to try to pull all of us-Conservatives, Centrists, Social Democrats, Leftists, Greens, Train Spotters, whatever-together in the face of what is fast becoming a real planetary emergency. Here’s Adam Ramsay, trying to be as emollient as he can for the Byline Times
Emotional Intelligence Ignaz Semmelweiss has always been one of he unsung heroes of public health. Yet he demonstrates the clear perils of being absolutely right, but not cutting through. Why? Because he seemed to specialise in rubbing people up the wrong way. Sometime emollience can be worth more than logic! Here’s Nature Briefings-why hand washing took a long time to catch on
Ignaz Semmelweis radically reduced rates of death in childbirth in the middle of the nineteenth century — by introducing hand washing. Yet, at the time, his ideas about infectious agents were rejected by the wider community. A play about Semmelweis now showing in London focuses on why his ideas failed to catch on. Although Dr Semmelweis acknowledges that the medical establishment was at fault for its resistance to change, it seems to place most of the blame on Semmelweis’s character, says reviewer and writer Georgina Ferry. Amid his struggle to save women’s lives, he offended his critics and fell out with even devoted supporters.Nature | 6 min read
Red Admirals Flutter by We’ve always had a soft spot for butterflies whose eye catching flights are synonymous with lazy summer days and things like Pimms, cricket and the smell of new mown hay. But their numbers are fluctuating wildly. The culprit? You guessedit- runaaway clime change. Not bad for the Mail!
Superconductivity-what is the current situation? There’s no doubt that achieving room temperature superconductivity would enormously cut our energy use. That’s why the whole field is so hotly contested, as this piece from the Conversation makes clear
well, there’s a raft of ideas for you. Before we go: Eurythmics were one those acts whose first two singles we loved, but never quite seemed to achieve the same special, almost neuralgic level again. Not for us anyway. Maybe you disagree. So to remind you of how good they were at the beginning, here’s Sweet Dreams.
Learning, Science and Society 