Apparently, the fear of breasts is resulting in women receiving inferior CPR and is endangering lives. Something different is actually going on, here is information on the case. There is a petition in the United Kingdom to “Require female CPR manikins in all certified first aid training programs”.  The problem this petition is claiming to solve is to make the public more comfortable with female anatomy so that CPR can be more reliably effective on both men and women. This pet

Slightly embarrassed, a young reader asked “what is global warming?”. It is possible that while much of science has determined it to be a basic reality, there may be a transition towards no-longer explaining the reasoning behind it. With that in mind, here is a breakdown of the basics of global warming and some of the science that informs said basics: Firstly, what is global warming broadly? Global warming broadly refers to how a planet (the Earth in our case) has a worldwide

Getting the power back on is often one of the first objectives in a disaster. Many communication systems are dependent on it, and in general, quickly restoring order during chaos over a large area tends to require it. At a minimum, having access to energy infrastructure makes things substantially easier. One idea that has been explored in the area of energy is local power generation and the use of small-scale electrical grids. What is this and how does it potentially help us

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) has a campaign about the idea that there is “no such thing as natural disasters”, there was a request for thoughts and insight. There are several ways in which this concept is viewed and it is actually more complicated than one might initially assume. Much of this also happens to be fairly esoteric or ‘inside baseball’. Due to how this is viewed from multiple angles, it is easier to go over these one at a time. Fir

Three years ago, I wrote a column titled “A radical proposal for solving Canada’s housing crisis”. Given how radical the proposal was, I received much more positive feedback than expected. Since that time, many consultations have been had, the idea has been fleshed out, its potential impact on other areas of society, explored. It is looking more and more like this idea, simple in concept but complex in impact, might actually work. When I initially had this idea, I thought: ‘t

A Canadian citizen has no pathway to voluntarily anonymously donate sperm. Donor sperm is necessary for IVF (In Vitro Fertilization). If a couple or an individual has a fertility challenge donor sperm may be required to conceive a child. The main cause for this is a lack of interested donors, exacerbated by a regulation change, resulted in all donor recruitment processes basically collapsing. In August 2025, the last remaining company (Origin) that had a process setup for don

There is overwhelming evidence that human activity is largely responsible for climate change. But where does the scientific consensus that experts talk about come from, and what can people do with this information? Over 10,000 studies, with one particularly famous one published in 2013 is the source of the, now dated, 97% scientific consensus (current evidence shows it is greater than 99%). This study was not just any study though, it was a study of studies. The terms ‘global

There has been a lot of news about Iran recently. Several readers have asked some version of “what is going on with Iran?” With that in mind here is some context and history which may be helpful and/or informative. Three major topics which relate to each other help provide this context. The first is a broad history of Iranian leadership. The second is how Iran is viewed from the perspective of the ‘west’. The third are broad geopolitical realities that relate to topic one and

An interested reader asked for my opinion on the ‘Bibby Barge’, happy to oblige. For context, the Bibby Barge refers to the Bibby Stockholm barge. A barge is an engineless ship. Barges like this one are used for a variety of things, this one in particular has been used for high density housing. This barge has been used in multiple locations around the world, often as part of a housing solution for refugees. It has been the case that when discussing issues around housing, peop