Tutankhamun had iron dagger! Meteoritic iron, easier to work than normal iron. Copper & tin for making bronze are both rare, found only in a few select areas, hence complex trade/exchange routes evolved (as already existed for handaxes). Iron by contrast is relatively common. No new techniques needed to extract and work it, but somehow…

… was over 200% of the average. As anyone who has been here knows, the average is already pretty wet. Surprisingly, the temperatures and sunshine were not much different from usual, so I must retract some of my gloomy opinions. Watch this space though, the temperature during the day this last week has been 8…

I get to vote in Scottish elections, although disappointingly, I wasn’t allowed to vote in the AV referendum. Was really hoping for a change in the system, at least a small one, along the lines of Dan Plesch’s Beauty Queen’s Guide to World Peace. My work colleague who said a few weeks ago that she…

2011 is the 100th anniversary of the first paper describing the use of extracts to treat allergy. It was in the Lancet, and the allergy was hay fever. And still we can only offer it for a few special cases (and in my case, I can’t offer it at all). The author was Leonard Noon.

MORE than 1500 children per year had to be treated by paramedics as a result of alcohol-related incidents in the past two years. Either from taking alcohol themselves or because they came to harm as a result of action/inaction by someone else who had been drinking. The Scots total equates to an average of four…

Victorian social reformer, supported in her early years by John Ruskin as her own family was bankrupt. By working closely with slum dwellers in London, like a prototype social worker, she improved housing conditions for 3000 families. Insisted on strict rental agreements and a commitment to self improvement, hated “alms giving”. Creating green spaces was…

According to Brian Belton, researcher in Gypsy culture, this Channel 4 series has set back public attitudes to Gypsy culture by 40 years… Yes, it was very entertaining, and eye opening, but it was not representative of what Gypsy life is like in the UK. Most Gypsy families live in houses, not caravans. Literacy is…

Collected Reuben from his Gaelic nursery, thought I had better learn a few basic words myself so found nice BBC website – but it looks really hard! The pronunciation bears little relationship to the written word, but not only that, there are a lot of unusual sounds. According to Wikipedia, “Most consonants have both palatal…

I’m a gadget geek, but even I have been struggling to understand the mysteries of television cables. I managed to work out that audio can go digitally by coax or optical, but the HDMI thing is really complicated and noone seems to want to make life easier, even the people selling the things. So it…

We pressed on with IVF for years in the belief that it did not cause long term harm. In retrospect, I wonder if this was a bit naive. As the BMJ editorial (2011;342:d436) explains, maternal mortality in the UK, US and various other developed countries has been increasing over the last 20 years, and IVF…