All posts tagged: Richard

‘Categorically wrong’: Scientists condemn comments by Reform’s Richard Tice that man-made climate change is ‘garbage’ | Science, Climate & Tech News

‘Categorically wrong’: Scientists condemn comments by Reform’s Richard Tice that man-made climate change is ‘garbage’ | Science, Climate & Tech News

Scientists have spoken out after Reform UK’s deputy leader dismissed scientific consensus on man-made climate as “garbage”. Richard Tice MP told Sky’s political correspondent Ali Fortescue: “There’s no evidence that man-made CO2 is going to change climate change. Given that it’s gone on for millions of years, it will go on for millions of years.” Fortescue challenged him with the findings of more than 200 international scientists that humans activities like burning fossil fuels are to blame for the recent hotter climate. Image: Richard Tice claimed there are “thousands” of scientists who agreed with him Pic: PA Human influence is “unequivocal”, said the report, which was signed off by all governments, including fossil-fuel-rich Russia, USA and Saudi Arabia. “No, that’s absolute garbage,” Mr Tice said. “The climate changed for millions of years before man-made CO2.” Dr George Adamson from King’s College London said the idea that Richard Tice had “discovered something that climate scientists don’t know about is of course preposterous”. The climate did change for years before humans began burning fossil fuels at scale. …

BOOK CLUB 2025 | Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science

BOOK CLUB 2025 | Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science

This is the 2025 follow-on from the 2023 BOOK CLUB thread, which is now closed, though you can easily refer back to earlier discussions by clicking on the link. BOOK CLUB 2025 has been created to provide a dedicated space for the discussion of books. Pretty much any kind of book – it doesn’t have to be about atheism or religion or science or politics. It doesn’t even have to be non-fiction. All we ask is that, whatever the topic or genre, the books are stimulating, intelligent and thoughtful, so that they are actually worth discussing, and that you post any recommendations along with a commentary giving a bit of background and explaining why you’re recommending it. Clearly “worth discussing” is open to interpretation, but hopefully you get the idea. Books originally in a language other than English are fine too, provided an English translation is available. The only real restriction is that, in keeping with our Comment Policy, users should not use this thread to promote any books they may have written themselves or  …

Harlan Coben: How the best-selling crime writer became a Netflix sensation – with the help of Richard Armitage | Ents & Arts News

Harlan Coben: How the best-selling crime writer became a Netflix sensation – with the help of Richard Armitage | Ents & Arts News

“If somebody tells you they don’t care how their show or book is received, they’re just flat out lying to you.” Harlan Coben – one of the world’s most successful crime writers – doesn’t mince his words: “Every writer you’ve ever interviewed wants two things, better reviews and a bigger audience.” The 62-year-old American author has published 37 books and sold more than 80 million copies in 46 languages since his debut nearly 35 years ago, and he is not too proud to admit he’s enjoying his success. Coben tells Sky News: “It’s thrilling to know this many people are watching your shows or reading your books, to deny that is stupid and silly.” Utterly binge-able, his tales of ordinary people thrust into extraordinary situations have found a home on Netflix, neatly curated as the Harlan Coben Collection. With nine shows and counting, last year’s breakout hit Fool Me Once was Netflix’s most-watched series of 2024. His next adaptation, I Will Find You, was green lit earlier this year. This year’s offering, Missing You, premiering …

Music producer Richard Perry, who worked with Ringo Starr, Barbra Streisand and Rod Stewart, dies | Ents & Arts News

Music producer Richard Perry, who worked with Ringo Starr, Barbra Streisand and Rod Stewart, dies | Ents & Arts News

Richard Perry, a hitmaking record producer who worked with Carly Simon, Rod Stewart, Ringo Starr and the Beatles, has died aged 82. Perry, a recipient of a Grammys Trustee Award in 2015, died on Tuesday at a Los Angeles hospital after suffering cardiac arrest, friend Daphna Kastner said. “He maximised his time here,” said Ms Kastner, who called him a “father friend” and said he was godfather to her son. “He was generous, fun, sweet and made the world a better place. The world is a little less sweeter without him here. But it’s a little bit sweeter in heaven.” Perry, who dated celebrities such as Jane Fonda and Elizabeth Taylor, was widely known as a “musician’s producer”. Singers turned to him for a variety of reasons, including to try to update their sound, as in Barbra Streisand’s case, or to revive their career, like for Fats Domino. “Richard had a knack for matching the right song to the right artist,” Streisand wrote in her 2023 memoir, My Name is Barbra. Starr’s album Ringo, released …

Richard Feynman Enthusiastically Explains How to Think Like a Physicist in His Series Fun to Imagine (1983)

Richard Feynman Enthusiastically Explains How to Think Like a Physicist in His Series Fun to Imagine (1983)

“It’s inter­est­ing that some peo­ple find sci­ence so easy, and oth­ers find it kind of dull and dif­fi­cult,” says Richard Feyn­man at the begin­ning of his 1983 BBC series Fun to Imag­ine. “One of the things that makes it very dif­fi­cult is that it takes a lot of imag­i­na­tion. It’s very hard to imag­ine all the crazy things that things real­ly are like.” A true sci­en­tist accepts that noth­ing is as it seems, in that noth­ing, when you zoom in close enough or zoom out far enough, behaves in a way that accords with our every­day expe­ri­ence. Even the nec­es­sary scales — in which, for exam­ple, an atom is to an apple as an apple is to Earth itself — are dif­fi­cult to con­ceive. Despite his much-cel­e­brat­ed bril­liance as a physi­cist, Feyn­man also admit­ted to find­ing the quan­ti­ties with which he had to work unfath­omable, at least when exam­ined out­side their par­tic­u­lar con­texts. At the atom­ic lev­el, he explains, “you’re just think­ing of small balls, but you don’t try to think of exact­ly how small …

The Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants: Explore the 1977 Illustrated Guide Created by Harvard’s Groundbreaking Ethnobotanist Richard Evan Schultes

The Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants: Explore the 1977 Illustrated Guide Created by Harvard’s Groundbreaking Ethnobotanist Richard Evan Schultes

I mean, the idea that you would give a psychedelic—in this case, mag­ic mush­rooms or the chem­i­cal called psilo­cy­bin that’s derived from mag­ic mushrooms—to peo­ple dying of can­cer, peo­ple with ter­mi­nal diag­noses, to help them deal with their — what’s called exis­ten­tial dis­tress. And this seemed like such a crazy idea that I began look­ing into it. Why should a drug from a mush­room help peo­ple deal with their mor­tal­i­ty? –Michael Pol­lan in an inter­view with Ter­ry Gross, “‘Reluc­tant Psy­cho­naut’ Michael Pol­lan Embraces ‘New Sci­ence’ Of Psy­che­delics” Around the same time Albert Hof­mann syn­the­sized LSD in the ear­ly 1940s, a pio­neer­ing eth­nob­otanist, writer, and pho­tog­ra­ph­er named Richard Evan Schultes set out “on a mis­sion to study how indige­nous peo­ples” in the Ama­zon rain­for­est “used plants for med­i­c­i­nal, rit­u­al and prac­ti­cal pur­pos­es,” as an exten­sive his­to­ry of Schultes’ trav­els notes. “He went on to spend over a decade immersed in near-con­tin­u­ous field­work, col­lect­ing more than 24,000 species of plants includ­ing some 300 species new to sci­ence.” Described by Jonathan Kan­dell as “swash­buck­ling” in a 2001 New …

Gratitude and Renewed Commitment | Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science

Gratitude and Renewed Commitment | Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science

From the Richard Dawkins Foundation Newsletter. Subscribe here. Hello! It is Thanksgiving week here in the U.S., and I could not be more grateful to be part of such an active and wonderful global community of people dedicated to advocating on behalf of science and secular policy. The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science is not just an organization; it’s a community. And it’s one that I’m incredibly thankful to be part of, especially now. Goodness knows, we appear to have our work cut out for us … If one were to try and imagine or create a character from scratch who was totally unqualified to oversee America’s public health infrastructure, it would be hard to top Robert F. Kennedy Jr. While his nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services will not be formally taken up until the new Congress convenes in January, we are not waiting. CFI and the Richard Dawkins Foundation are calling on all of our U.S. supporters to speak up now and tell their Senators to reject Kennedy’s …

We Solve Murders by Richard Osman demonstrates the impact of ChatGPT on forensic linguistics

We Solve Murders by Richard Osman demonstrates the impact of ChatGPT on forensic linguistics

This article contains spoilers for We Solve Murders. We Solve Murders is the latest crime novel from Richard Osman, bestselling author of The Thursday Murder Club series. The story follows Amy Wheeler, a bodyguard for the security firm Maximum Impact, and her father-in-law, Steve Wheeler, a former London detective now handling small-town investigations in rural England. Amy’s latest assignment is to protect Rosie D’Antonio, the world’s most famous author (“if you don’t count Lee Child”). However, what begins as a routine assignment takes a dangerous turn when Amy becomes the target of François Loubet, a dangerous criminal picking off the associates of Maximum Impact. François pulls the strings of his operation from afar via email. He uses a unique communication method which involves running his messages through ChatGPT with the prompt: “ChatGPT, rewrite in the style of a friendly English gentleman, please.” As a result, his messages – whether they be to Maximum Impact’s CEO, or his own hitmen – adopt a distinctive linguistic style, marked by old-fashioned adjectives (“jolly”, “marvellous”, “blasted”), nouns (“luncheon”), address …

Playground by Richard Powers – A Dive in Humanity’s Next Frontier

Playground by Richard Powers – A Dive in Humanity’s Next Frontier

You ever have one of those dreams where you’re swimming underwater and suddenly realize you can breathe? That’s what reading Richard Powers’ “Playground” feels like—a breathtaking plunge into the depths of human experience, where the impossible becomes not just possible, but inevitable. A Masterful Confluence of Streams Richard Powers, known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Overstory” and the mind-bending “Bewilderment,” has outdone himself with “Playground.” It’s a sweeping, ambitious novel that weaves together four seemingly disparate lives into a tapestry as vast and mysterious as the ocean itself. The Players in Powers’ Grand Game Evie Beaulieu: A 12-year-old girl who discovers a whole new world beneath the surface of a Montreal swimming pool in the 1950s. Ina Aroita: An artist adrift, raised on naval bases across the Pacific, searching for a place to call home. Rafi Young: A literature-loving, game-playing prodigy from Chicago’s South Side. Todd Keane: Rafi’s unlikely friend and future tech mogul, whose AI breakthrough will change everything. These four lives converge on Makatea, a tiny atoll in French Polynesia with a tumultuous …

Singer Richard Marx accidentally ignores Prince Harry at Kevin Costner’s charity event

Singer Richard Marx accidentally ignores Prince Harry at Kevin Costner’s charity event

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Richard Marx recently had an awkward moment with the Duke of Sussex. The “Don’t Mean Nothing” singer was performing at the One805!Live concert on Friday, a charity event hosted by Kevin Costner, when he ended up accidentally missed Prince Harry’s attempt to congratulate him. As he was exiting the stage, Marx almost walked right past the royal before someone got his attention. Marx’s wife, Daisy Fuentes, posted a clip of the interaction to her Instagram story. “Richard? Prince Harry,” a person can be heard saying, introducing the pair. The two are then seen shaking hands as Harry can be heard saying: “Hey! Well done” before the clip ends. Fuentes also posted two photos on her Instagram story of the “Right Here Waiting” singer speaking …