In yet another signal that COVID-19 remains a dominant factor in our lives, Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s Deputy Chief Public Heath Officer and adviser to the World Health Organization, said on August 12, 2021, that “a fourth wave is under way in Canada.” She reported that active cases in the country have doubled in the last two weeks to 13,000. How does this information fit into what we know about vaccine rates, herd immunity, and the reproductive...
Several months ago, a friend posted on his Facebook page a math question that he had found on a geophysics blog. I love these kinds of quizzes and since I thought the answer was obvious, I jumped in with my answer. The problem was that my answer was wrong! Another friend of my friend set me straight. Here is the story of my humbling experience:
It took some time to be convinced that I was...
A July 29, 2021, report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus may be as transmissible as chickenpox. The internal report, obtained and published by the Washington Post, claims that the variant is likely more severe, may be more transmissible by the vaccinated than expected, and advises that certain restrictions be reconsidered.
The report also discusses the importance of understanding vaccine effectiveness (VE) and breakthrough...
Canada – and variously, the world – is in the midst of a drive to vaccinate against the COVID-19 virus (COVID) and all of its variants. Eradication of the disease, it seems, will only be made possible when enough of the worldwide population is immunized, either through vaccination or through infection and survival of COVID. At that point, the world will have reached so-called herd immunity. Many parts of the world currently lack vaccine doses,...
We hear a lot these days about the importance of critical thinking. We are told we need to think critically in order to make sense of the complicated world around us, and to decide which of the many different claims, assertions, theories, and “facts” that constantly bombard us are real. Educators are charged with teaching their students critical thinking skills, not just lists of facts and figures.
So what is critical thinking, and why is...
Probabilities are tricky things to wrap your head around, and they are often not entirely intuitive. When a media report says that a COVID-19 test is 80% accurate or a vaccine is 95% effective, how do we know if that is good news? How reliable are those numbers, and how do we put them in context? Because our intuition can fail us, we need to rely on mathematics. Face your fear (of math), and...
Sir Richard Branson, aka “Astronaut 001 (License to Thrill)” became a spaceman today with a crew of five others aboard his own spaceship, the VSS Unity.
Unlike other space launches, from teeth-rattling explosive vertical rocket-boosted liftoffs, this one began as an ordinary flight. Takeoff was the same as in the cabin (luxury first class, mind you) of a normal aircraft from a normal runway. This is where the similarity ends, however. Branson and his crew...
Some sciences capture the public imagination, others don’t. Sadly, geology seems to fall into the latter category. The monotonous cycles of erosion and deposition are quite boring, and the interminable timeframes involved in geological processes are quite difficult for people to truly comprehend.
What people don’t realize, however, is that many of the events they find most interesting and exciting – volcanic eruptions, landslides, floods, and other natural disasters – are actually geological processes, altering...
(With files from Laurie Weston)
Let’s suppose that your medical doctor finds something of concern and suspects that you may have cancer. Your doctor’s first step is to send you for some type of non-invasive test, such as an X-ray or MRI. A few days later, you receive a phone call from your doctor, and you get the news you have been dreading. Your test is positive.
So, how concerned should you be? Although you should...
On June 23, Bill C-36 was given first reading in Canada’s House of Commons. Concerning hate crime, speech, and propaganda, this bill proposes amendments to the Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA). The federal government claims that the bill is being proposed to help reduce the rise in hate crimes and make online spaces “safe.”Concerned citizens may reasonably ask if this bill will effectively reduce and redress hate crime, or if it...
