More Expert Bullshit

Oh, how we laughed:

It’s a mystery that has puzzled scientists for years, but one scientist believes he may finally know what’s behind the Bermuda Triangle disappearances.

The Bermuda Triangle is an area of the North Atlantic ocean near Bermuda, where several ships have disappeared over the years. Some have claimed that there’s a whirlpool hidden there, while others suggest that aliens may be to blame for the disappearances. But one expert claims that rocks may explain the mystery.

Speaking in a Channel 5 documentary, Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle, Nick Hutchings, a mineral prospector, explained: “Bermuda’s basically a sea mountain – it’s an underwater volcano. 30 million years ago, it was sticking up above sea level. It has now eroded away and we’re left with the top of a volcano. We have a few core samples, which have magnetite in them. It’s the most magnetic naturally occurring material on Earth.”

On the programme, Mr Hutchings then conducted an experiment using some of the rock and a compass. When the rock was placed on a flat surface and the compass was moved over it, the needle went crazy. This is due to the fact the rocks contain magnetite. Mr Hutchings added: “You can just imagine the ancient mariners sailing past Bermuda. It would be very disconcerting.”

…especially as said ancient mariners would have been sailing in wooden ships.

Not Trusted

Like we didn’t know this before:

The former head of the MI6 who was in charge during the UK’s invasion of Iraq has claimed scientists’ warnings about the dangers of artificial intelligence can necessarily be trusted because of incorrect claims they made about Covid-19.

Sir Richard Dearlove said that as ‘brilliant’ scientists had gone ‘off piste’ during the pandemic, he was sceptical of experts telling him AI will destroy humanity.

Uh huh.

But to take this to its Schrodingian feline conclusion:

I don’t believe what spooks tell me either.

See how that works?

Give ‘Em An Inch

…and they’ll take 1.6 kilometers.  Or not.

Longtime Readers will all know the hatred I have for the putrid metric system, whereby commonsense units of measure (inches, yards or feet) got turned into incomprehensible gibberish by (of course) the French, who shouldn’t be entrusted with anything other than perhaps wine- or cheesemaking, let alone a new universal system of measurement.

Here’s a lovely old article which goes into more depth on the topic.

And a miss is not as good as a thousand meters.

Wait A Minute

So we have this breathless headline:

MIT scientists filed two patents on a new, 2D material that’s stronger than steel

Ummm… I always thought that two dimensions (length and width) mean that in mathematical and scientific terms the figure has no thickness — no matter how thin, the third dimension must exist for the figure to have substance — otherwise, it’s just a drawing.

And the explanation in the article doesn’t help:

“Instead of making a spaghetti-like molecule, we can make a sheet-like molecular plane, where we get molecules to hook themselves together in two dimensions,” said Strano, in the MIT blog post. “This mechanism happens spontaneously in solution, and after we synthesize the material, we can easily spin-coat thin films that are extraordinarily strong.”

It doesn’t matter if the third dimension (of the “thin film”) is only a trillionth of a micron thick, or the thickness of a molecule, it’s still >0.

Is this some kind of new math, or did somebody send out a memo redefining the dimensions?

I’m relying on a Reader Of Greater Brain than I to explain this to me.

Oh Noes

More from the world of dietary science:

Regular meat-eaters are more likely to suffer from chronic health conditions than those who shun or ration animal products, a study from the University of Oxford has found.
The research found a meat-lover who eats 70 grams of meat — processed or unprocessed — more than a peer is at 15 per cent higher risk of heart disease, 30 per cent more likely to get diabetes and almost a third (31 per cent) more likely to develop pneumonia in the future.

I did the work so you don’t have to:  70 grams is about 2.5 oz…

Whatever.  According to this lot, I should have died about 15 years ago, given that my daily breakfast contains inter alia  a large piece of boerewors.

And yet, here we are.