EcoWarriorMe

That's a fact? According to environment secretary Owen Patterson, the time is right for GM crops and it is the duty of the British Government to convince the public that this is the case. He then said that GM crops are probably  safer than conventional crops and seven million children have gone blind or died over the past decade because attempts to grow a strain of GM rice ( Golden Rice ) commercially have been thwarted (implying, perhaps, by anti-GM campaigners and that there are no other solutions to malnutrition). The minister went on to back a scientific approach: "We need evidence-based regulation and decision-making in the EU. Consumers need accurate information in order to make informed choices. The market should then decide if a GM product is viable,"  A rigorous and transparent scientific evidence-based approach is to be welcomed,  although this goes a bit further than Mr Patterson's statement. Assuming that the evidence based regulation allows only GM...

We humans like round numbers.  We don't celebrate the 23rd annual summer fete or the 49th anniversary of an organisation but the 25th or 50th respectively. This is why the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has hit the headlines this week. The daily measurement at Mauna Loa on Hawaii has passed 400 ppm (parts per million) for the first time. Not so much a cause for celebration; more a cause for commiseration  The actual measurement was 400.03 but was subsequently revised down to 399.89 (but what is fourteen hundredths of a part per million between friends). Breaching this threshold was not particularly unexpected but it is symbolic in human terms; it is a memorable number. But what are the implications of exceeding a CO2 concentration of 400 ppm? Some climate change skeptics will be quick to highlight the scientific evidence that shows the atmospheric CO2 has been at this level and higher on the past. They are absolutely correct. Somewhere in the ...

What is the point of exams? Is it to test the candidate's knowledge of the subject or is it to test the candidate's skill in passing exams? In theory at least, it should be the former but when there is a lot riding on the result there is a tendency towards the latter with students placing more emphasis on training to pass the exam rather than gaining a deep understanding of the subject. The student may gain some knowledge of the subject, but only those parts that will gain most marks in the exam as part of a strategy to maximise the result for minimum effort. This doesn't only apply to academic exams.  Similar strategies can also be adopted for all sorts of tests.  For example, if a car maker wants their car to get a good fuel efficiency rating they can work on scoring better in the test, rather than improving the car's performance.  They can use non-standard high performance lubricants, disconnect the alternator, over inflate the tyres, remove door mirrors and ...