Painting Fakes

I've been busy so this article is a bit late, the Labor Party released its climate change policy back in December.  The election hasn't happened yet but it's already clear what Labor's strategy will be.  They will be just a little bit better than the Coalition.  This is not difficult, surely they can achieve it! In some areas it just involves being a little bit more competent at doing the same thing.  They would have ordered vaccines and RATS in time (we will never know).  They voted to pass the Government's Religious Discrimination Bill with a few amendments (proposed by independent members) to make it less crap enough for the Government to withdraw it.  On asylum seekers they promise to be better at trampling on people's human rights.   Meanwhile, on climate change they will be a little bit better at concealing the fact that they don't really give a s*** about climate change as long as fossil fuel companies keep those donations flowing.  Bu...

Did you know that over half the cells in your body are not actually human?  You and I contain masses of bacteria, fungi, viruses and archaea.  They live in every part of us - on our skin, in our hair, in our mouths, in our bloodstream, in our lungs, and most especially in our digestive tract.    Having just read Ed Yong's fascinating book, I Contain Multitudes , along with a few articles, I now have a much clearer idea of how much I don't know about this subject.  Of course, there are lots of people who know way more than me but I also have an idea of how little anyone  knows. For instance, how many non-human cells are there in our bodies?  One rather complicated article I read estimates the number is within the range of 3.8-10 13  - that is, somewhere between 38 and 100 trillion cells.  They estimate that the ratio of non-human to human cells in our bodies is somewhere around 1.3:1 in the 'average man', 2.2:1 in the 'average woman', and 2.3:...