Tag: BBC

  • Aircraft Cabin Flow

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today’s post looks at an illustration from the BBC about aircraft cabin flow. As I have flown on four aircraft in the last month—quite a lot for me—I do recall thinking during one particular flight just where the air intakes were on the aircraft. It never dawned on me that they were in the actual…

  • FIFA’s Revenue and Spending

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    Brendan Barry
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    If you did not hear about it the other day, the head of FIFA resigned. That is kind of a big deal because football (in the rest-of-the-world sense of the word) is kind of a big deal. But the organisation that runs it is generally seen as wholly corrupt. So this BBC piece takes a…

  • Mapping Migrant Deaths

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday we looked at a map of coal plants, with the dots sized by capacity. Today, we have a similar approach in a much smaller graphic about a much different topic. The BBC published this map yesterday in the context of an article about a report of the EU contacting Australia in regards to its…

  • Moon Bases

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today’s post falls somewhere between just for fun and science reality. Remember moon bases? Newt Gingrich’s ridiculed comment about a habitable moon base by 2020? Well, one problem with colonies on other planets—or even interstellar transport for that matter—is radiation. The moon has no magnetosphere and no atmosphere. So it can be bombarded by both…

  • Snow Accumulation in Boston

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    For those of you in the Northeast, you already know you are dealing with a little bit of snow. Thankfully the BBC put the amount received in Boston in context…of dogs. Credit for the piece goes to the BBC graphics department.

  • Boko Haram Attacks

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    For those of you don’t know, there is an Islamist group operating in northeastern Nigeria. And they have been for a few years now. But recently they devastated a town and killed somewhere between 150 and 2000 people. Now they have taken to kidnapping Cameroonians, who live across the border, but whose government has been…

  • Can You Land Philae

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today is Friday, so let’s take it a bit easy. You have heard of Philae and the comet landing. But we also know now that it bounced upon landing. But could you do any better? The BBC produced this game to let you try to do just that. Credit for the piece goes to the…

  • Ebola Treatment Centres

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Ebola is still a thing. And it is still getting worse. Or rather, with deaths and/or infections in both Europe and the United States, we are finally paying a bit more attention to it. We have no cure for Ebola, but we still need to treat people for symptoms, but most importantly we need to…

  • Scotland Votes

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    Brendan Barry
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    By the time this post goes live, Scotland will have already been voting on independence for several hours. At the time of writing this post, it appears more a toss-up than anything else. And so today we highlight a piece that is a little bit different than what I might normally cover. Here we have…

  • The Swiss and Immigration

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Last week, the Swiss people narrowly rejected the principle of freedom of movement. This principles serves as one of the foundations of the European Union. And while Switzerland does not belong to the EU, its economy benefits from access to the single market via that freedom of movement principle. That may be an oversimplification perhaps,…