Patter has been missing in action since the end of August. A bad case of blogging burn-out you might ask? Well, yes that’s true. I have been writing this patter thing for twelve years and I did have some doubts about whether I had anything left to say. I was finding writing the blog much […] … learn more→

The comet of the century arrived from beyond the sky in 2024, and it did so ahead of time. If Tsuchinshan-ATLAS had approached Earth at the dawn of Christmas, it would have been difficult to deny it a disturbingly random chance encounter. Tsuchinhan-ATLAS was three months early. Josep M. Trigo, principal investigator of the Meteorites, Minor […] … learn more→

We all know that time seems to pass at different speeds in different situations. For example, time appears to go slowly when we travel to unfamiliar places. A week in a foreign country seems much longer than week at home. Time also seems to pass slowly when we are bored, or in pain. It seems […] … learn more→

When your head reminds you of the excesses of the day before. Does the quality of the drink have an impact on the pain? Are there any remedies approved by science? Can you prevent a hangover? Since when do we have hangovers ( or “vesalgia” for scientists)? Probably for much longer than wine and other fermented drinks […] … learn more→

We receive so much stimuli and information every day through our digital devices that we often feel overwhelmed and overwhelmed. We have greater access to information than at any other time in history. Does this help us better understand the risks we face and the measures needed to tackle the climate crisis once and for […] … learn more→

Breathing is a thing we do without thinking; it keeps us alive. But there is far more to this most basic of biological functions. Conscious breathing can reduce stress, anxiety and depression and prevent insomnia. Christiane Brems, author and clinical professor in psychiatry and behavioural sciences, describes where to start if you’d like to develop a […] … learn more→

Men are dominant at most athletic events but ultra-endurance sports (exercising for six hours or more) represent a unique domain where the performance gap between men and women is narrowing significantly. In traditional endurance events like marathons, men consistently outperform women by about 10%. However, in ultra-distance competitions this disparity can be as small as 4%. In some […] … learn more→

Five years ago, I began a research project into emotional labour, compassion fatigue and burnout in Alberta’s educational workers. The results from the earliest study suggested a wide scope of emotional and mental distress among teachers, educational assistants, school leaders and support staff. This distress has been documented globally and across Canada, suggesting educator mental and emotional well-being continues to decline […] … learn more→

The European Parliament elections last June confirmed trends that had been observed in previous years: a shift to the right, polarisation and difficulty in forming governing majorities . Countries such as Austria , France and some German regions are evidence of these changes. These trends were also reflected in the US presidential elections on 5 November, where Donald Trump emerged as the clear winner . […] … learn more→

A new artificial intelligence (AI) model has just achieved human-level results on a test designed to measure “general intelligence”. On December 20, OpenAI’s o3 system scored 85% on the ARC-AGI benchmark, well above the previous AI best score of 55% and on par with the average human score. It also scored well on a very difficult mathematics test. […] … learn more→