Posts Tagged: science

  • Wife talking to WOTW man in Sydney restaurant. He imagines that he is being psychoanalysed because she is using psychobabble.

    Psychobabble—mental health jargon

    Psychobabble is psychological jargon used inaccurately and pretentiously that sometimes normalises unacceptable behaviour or criticises normal behaviour. It is also known as therapy-speak or pop psychology. A more specialised branch of psychobabble is neurobabble. It is the vocabulary of the consulting room that has escaped into everyday conversation—trauma, triggered, boundaries, validation, gaslighting. It turns the […]

  • A naturist (nudist) and a naturalist are attending the Cumbria Natrure Festival.

    Naturist versus naturalist

    There is a nature festival in Cumbria (North England) next week that has run into a small, although highly predictable problem. There are two groups of people buying tickets. One group will be dressing up sensibly to protect themselves as they creep through the undergrowth hoping to discover birds, insects and other interesting things. The […]

  • AI generated image of a Julie Andrew's parody or inspired image as if singing the Sound of Mucus

    The sound of mucus

    We all find it a bit difficult talking about the gunk we excrete when we are not well. When I went to see the doctor recently I prepared carefully to explain my symptoms. Our excellent, Old English word, snot, meaning the mucus from our nose is not a word you use to a highly trained […]

  • The Sydney Fatberg portrayed as a giant animal with eyes and a mouth called the Malaberg.

    Fatberg—The Malaberg

    In September 2017 Thames Water workers made a horrific discovery in one of their sewers during a routine inspection. It was a massive, solid mass of FOG (fats, oils and grease) held together with wet wipes, condoms, nappies and sanitary products. Its smell was variously compared to festival toilets, decaying meat or a rotting whale. […]

  • A young girl holding an educational plastic skeleton

    Anatomy—Male names for female anatomy

    Anatomical naming of the bones and organs of humans was nearly always done by men. The medical profession in the 19th century was almost entirely male so female anatomy was nearly always named by men. In a recent episode of the ABC’s Late Night Live (19 June) Dr Adam Taor (author of Bodypedia) and Dr […]

  • Tim Entwisle and John Entwisle at William Dalrymple at Sydney City Recital Hall 31 October 2024.

    Algorithm and algebra

    William Dalrymple and The Golden Road My younger son, John, recently (31 October 2024) took me to a lecture by the historian William Dalrymple, who was promoting his most recent book, The Golden Road. He tells the story of India’s role as a cultural and scientific superpower of the ancient world and as a major […]

  • Artificial Intelligence generated (and photoshopped) image of Father Time holding the Earth with a magnetic field in the background

    Chron—time for a change

    I am fascinated by the idea of the earth as a giant magnet for a couple of reasons. One is that what we call the North Pole is in fact the South Pole of the earth as a magnet (as you should know from school opposite poles attract and the north poles of magnets point […]

  • A phlebotomist's gloved hand holding a couple of vacuum tubes containing blood samples

    Phlebotomist—in a humorous vein

    I went out with an old university mate of mine this week. Margot works in the health industry and, as I have spent a fair bit of time in a hospital this week as my elderly mother has injured herself in a fall, the conversation inevitably went to our health. I complained that I have […]

  • Image created by Madrigal Communications modified from portraint of Robert Hanbury Brown from International Astronomical Union — the world's first boffin

    Australia’s best boffins

    I was delighted this week to see that ABC Radio’s The Science Show has created a list of the Top 100 Australian Scientists. The scientists are listed on their website. Amongst them is the world’s first boffin. Zoology boffins I studied zoology at the University of New South Wales so was pleased to see on […]

  • Tim Entwisle, Ken Buckley and two others at the Sydney Artisan Watchmakers trade show 2023 celebrating horology

    Tempus fugit—how time flies

    I was invited to the Sydney Artisan Watchmakers trade show by my watchmaker friend and his mates (2 November 2023). It did make me think about time and time passing and the meaning of horology. It is now November, and how the year has almost gone. The Romans also had an expression that we sometimes […]

  • The image I used is from the Neanderthal museum in Germany. It is a clever image really. Normally when they create pictures of primitive people they dress them in animal skins and give them rank hair. The Neanderthal were intelligent enough to care for each other and bury their brethren. Surely they would have spent some time in personal grooming? Your social Neanderthals may spend more time in grooming but less time caring for other people.

    Neanderthal—old humans that are new men

    I am fascinated by our relationship with Neanderthals. They were the unlucky branch of the hominin family—that disappeared about 28,000 years ago. Their name has a little irony in its creation that may be quite appropriate. Who were the neanderthals Neanderthals are our cousins. We had a common ancestor around 500,000 years ago. They likely […]

  • John McCarthy was an American computer scientist and cognitive scientist who is widely considered to be one of the pioneers of the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Image from https://blog.allganize.ai/john-mccarthy/

    Artificial intelligence making the news

    Everyone is talking about the free-access Chat GPT released in early December last year (2022). It uses artificial intelligence to generate reasonably sophisticated copy. One journalist wrote an article for the ABC that suggested it was good enough to pass some medical exams. Another from the Sydney Morning Herald got the bot to write the article. The […]