Tag: diagram

  • The Fire at Notre Dame Cathedral

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    Brendan Barry
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    This was not what I was going to write about today, but the news of the fire that ravaged Notre Dame yesterday rightly dominated the news yesterday and this morning. However, while I found multiple articles dealing with photographic evidence of the damage, I did not see many that detailed the fire from an illustrative…

  • Demanding the Impossible

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    Brendan Barry
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    The key problem in the Brexit deal remains what to do with the Irish border. In essence, the UK faces the same trilemma it has since the beginning. It wants three things it cannot have at the same time: exiting the EU single market and customs union, so it can create a free and independent…

  • Building the Wall

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    Brendan Barry
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    Or at least a portion that was already funded back in March. If it was, in fact, a wall. This morning it appears as if President Trump will not scupper the funding agreement. It includes far less than the $5.7 billion he demanded, but do not forget back in March, Congress appropriated funds to construct…

  • Walnut Pancakes in Space

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    Brendan Barry
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    One of the really neat things about space exploration has been the New Horizons probe that raced past Pluto, giving us the image of the now famous heart shape on the dwarf planet. But as it raced past a Kuiper Belt object named Ultima Thule on New Year’s, we received some tantalising first images of…

  • Arctic Chill

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    Brendan Barry
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    The Arctic air mass that has frozen the Midwest continues to spread and so today will be a tad chilly in Philadelphia. Yesterday, however, the Guardian had a piece that used data from NASA to show how the air masses over the Northern Hemisphere have been disturbed by unusually warm air. One theory to how this…

  • The Atom

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    Brendan Barry
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    We made it to the end of the week, everyone. And that is worth celebrating. Today’s post is for all the scientists out there and anyone who has ever been interested in the atom. You know, the little things that make up matter. xkcd put together a chronological history of several different models of the…

  • What’s Next, Brexit?

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    Brendan Barry
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    A no confidence vote on Theresa May’s government, that’s what. For those not familiar with parliamentary democracies, basically a no confidence vote is held when a substantial number of members of parliament have just that, no confidence, in the government of the day. The legislative body then votes and if the government wins, the government…

  • The Brexit Deal Vote

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today’s (one of) the day(s). For those of you who haven’t followed Brexit, the British Parliament will vote this evening on whether to accept the deal Prime Minister Theresa May negotiated with the European Union…or not. And if not, well, the government now only has three—instead of the original 21—days to figure out a Plan…

  • New Plans for Old Subways

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    Brendan Barry
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    The New Yorkers among my readers know about the whole planned shutdown of the L train for repairs owing to Hurricane Sandy (tangentially mentioned in the graphic I commented upon yesterday). For those of you who don’t know, basically the salt water from the storm seriously damaged the tunnels and a whole lot of work…

  • Pulling Gene-ies Out of Bottles

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    I don’t always get to share more illustrative diagrams that explain things, but that’s what we have today from the Economist. It illustrated the concept of a gene drive by which a gene modified in one chromosome then modifies the remaining chromosome to insert itself there. Consequently it stands an almost 100% chance of being…