Le Grammont is a mountain in the Chablais Alps in Western Switzerland situated at the south-east end of Lake Geneva, close to the Swiss-French border where the Rhône River flows into the lake. With a height of 2,172[…]
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Vienna by Night
Last night I took advantage of a temporary break in the extreme cold weather we’re experiencing this month, and went for a walk along the Ringstrasse in Vienna to take some shots of the various beautiful buildings located[…]
Read moreUpdate on Earth Activity Data
In a post just over a year ago, I presented data on earth activity (in particular earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tropical storms). Given all the buzz on the internet about an increased earth activity over the past several[…]
Read moreCastles, Canyons, and Caves
The historic city of Graz, in south-eastern Austria, was designated a UNESCO world cultural heritage site in 1999 for having “the best preserved city center of Central Europe”. It combines renaissance, gothic, baroque, and also modern architecture, and[…]
Read moreSpontaneous Spirals
Spirals are common in nature. We’ve all admired the beautiful spirals that occur on sea shells, we can find spirals in plants, and even in the arms of galaxies or weather patterns. There are also situations in which[…]
Read moreGrande Dixence: The Tallest Gravity Dam in the World
With a height of 285m, the Barrage de la Grande Dixence in Switzerland is the tallest gravity dam in the world. Its lake, Lac des Dix, can hold up to 400 billion litres of water. And not only[…]
Read moreThe Mathematics of Kindness
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is one of the most profound scientific theories to have ever been developed. However, there were several questions about evolution that Darwin himself could not answer. Not that he wasn’t[…]
Read moreEvolution: It’s As Real As Gravity
Evolution is still all too often (but wrongly) downplayed as “just a theory” in public discussions. This is partly due to an unfortunate misunderstanding of what a theory means in science, as opposed to its common language meaning.[…]
Read moreSummer Solstice Full Moon
Last night a rare event happened: the summer solstice and a full moon at the same time. So I went up Kahlenberg, a hill above the city of Vienna, to have a good view of this special full[…]
Read moreAutocatalytic Sets Arising
I’ve made a short movie showing autocatalytic sets arising in a dynamical simulation of a simple polymer model. It shows how autocatalytic subsets appear, one after another, and then grow in concentration. This provides a nice visual and[…]
Read morePreserving Species in the Face of Climate Change
A key result of last year’s UN climate change conference in Paris is that we now have a new international deal to curb climate change. However, it seems primarily focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit global[…]
Read moreHow a Game of Billiards Solved a Queueing Problem
“Please hold the line, your call is important to us.” It’s a sentence we’re all frustratingly familiar with. Just as familiar as we are with standing in line at the supermarket or post office, with the other queues[…]
Read moreLife: It’s Chemistry!
What is life? This question is still much debated in science. After the discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick in 1953, and the more recent advances in DNA sequencing technology, living organisms have become[…]
Read moreSunset in Lausanne
An absolutely fantastic sunset today, watched from the attic at home. Click any pic for a full-size view…
Read moreA Recent Increase in Earth Activity? The Data Provides Little Support.
The internet is buzzing with claims that there has been a significant recent increase in seismic, volcanic, and atmospheric activity on our planet, and there seems to be a specific emphasis on the years 2012 and beyond. Suggested[…]
Read moreSunset in Santiago
I’m in Santiago, Chile, for two weeks to provide some computing support for a colleague. Unfortunately this city is often covered in a blanket of smog (especially during the summer). As a consequence the Andes mountains, which are[…]
Read moreWatching the Perseid Meteor Shower
On the night of 12-13 August, I took some friends up to the top of a small mountain to watch the annual Perseid meteor shower. This year was predicted to be particularly good, largely due to the peak[…]
Read moreIncredible Croatia
I just spent six weeks (6 May – 16 June) traveling and hiking around in Croatia, and also a little bit in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro. An absolutely amazing trip! Stunning scenery, wonderful weather, and friendly folks. Below is[…]
Read moreThe Living Set
Life is a self-sustaining network of chemical reactions. A living system produces its own components from basic food sources in such a way that these components maintain and regulate the very chemical network that produced them. Based on this[…]
Read moreA Tale of Täufer and Thönen
In 1711, a man by the name of Hans Thönen left the small village of Frutigen in Switzerland, and traveled by boat along the Rhine river to The Netherlands, where he settled in the town of Kampen. He[…]
Read moreMysterious Dolmens
Holland is a very flat country without any mountains or rocky areas. Yet in the northern part of this little land you will find megalithic structures with big boulders, some weighing more than 20 tons, stacked on top[…]
Read moreIs the Mind Algorithmic? Confusing Science Speak with Layman Language
“Evolution is just a theory.” This claim, often made by creationists, is clearly based on a confusion of the scientific meaning of the word “theory” with its meaning in common language. We can forgive confused creationists, though, as[…]
Read moreFrom Salt to Salary: Linguists Take a Page from Science
Language is something we take for granted; we use it every day and could not live without it in today’s world. However, languages are not static but, rather, evolve. While the differences between American and British English are[…]
Read moreChamonix, the Cheap and Cheerful Way
Chamonix (France), at the foot of the highest mountain in the European Alps, is the perfect base for all kinds of outdoors adventures. Hiking, mountain biking, paragliding, and mountaineering in summer, and skiing, snowboarding, sledging, and snowshoeing in[…]
Read moreNESCent Closing its Doors: A Loss for Evolutionary Science & Education
Last week I received an email announcing that NESCent will be closing its doors in June of next year (2015). This will certainly be a big loss for evolutionary science and education.
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