A new alliance

BPSDB

 

The American Chemistry Society and the UK’s Royal Society of Chemistry have joined forces in a transatlantic venture to “help the general public better understand how the science of chemistry can help solve global challenges”.

The first step has just been launched – a pair of mirrored websites with contributions from both organisations. However this is just the beginning:

The Web sites are the first of several planned joint efforts by ACS and RSC to increase public understanding of the challenges facing Earth as well as the chemistry underlying these issues and their possible solutions. The societies also hope to inspire a new generation of scientists to explore solutions to these challenges, and promote the international cooperation that both organizations believe is necessary to sustain our environment and resources for future generations.

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Lords a’leaping

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“It’s beginning to look like a pattern…”

 

I’m sure that you’re all aware of the recent outcomes of the various “gates” in the recent past, but if you have missed them you can read Richard Black’s take on them here and here.

Of course there are anguished howls of “Whitewash!” reverberating around the blogosphere, but the mainstream media has largely lost interest. Maybe now we can get back to something approaching normality.

Maybe….

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303

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303 is the number of consecutive months we have now had with temperatures greater than the mean for the 20th Century.

303 months is a little over over 25 years, so it may sound impressive – but does it actually mean anything?

Well, yes. It means that the last 25 years have been warm, but then we already knew that. it tells us nothing about why it has been warm or what it is going to be like in the future. In isolation it is just a number, nothing more. And in a couple of weeks it will change to 304.

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