This is being carried in the journal Science today on the intruiging story of whether or not DNA has been fraudlently published on the subject of DNA damage caused by mobile phones.  It also has a lot of implications for the funding of scientific research.
Broken connection. A university investigation found that data in two papers […]

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Elan, the pharmaceutical company that is part-based in Ireland has had a colourful few years.  It’s share price was up around 70Euro about five years ago and now it is worth about 10 Euro, having been worth less than one Euro at one point.
Soe of their troubles can be traced to some funny accountancy practices […]

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According to the Central Statistics Office, the number of people moving to Ireland last year  dropped.  A little more than 80,000 people moved here in the 12 months to April 2008, which was down from the 100,000+ that moved here in the 12 months previous to that.
The number of people leaving the country is estimated […]

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OK. Oil prices have fallen to $110 per barrel.
When oil prices were $147 a barrel, the price was €1.35 per litre at the pump.
So, if $147 per barrel equals €1.34 per litre at the pump.  Then $110 per barrel is equal to 1 Euro at the pump.
All right, so the price of the oil is […]

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I have been thinking about the Irish educational system and in particular the leaving certificate.  The figures came out last week and it seems that 70% of our students are getting private education as well as public education.  This means that in the evenings and weekends, 70% of the students are going to private tutors […]

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So, Usain Bolt smashed the world 100 M sprint record with a run that saw him inexplicably slow down with about 30 metres to go, rather than really smash the world record by half a second - which would be the biggest smashing of any record in the history of record smashing.
It was unbelievable.
Really unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
Naturally, […]

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Well Ronnie Drew has died.  He didn’t have the voice of an angel, indeed, it has been given a number of unkind descriptions in its time - I think somebody once described it as the noise a piece of broken glass would make if it was caught under a door as the door was being […]

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See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

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The leaving cert results are out today and once again there is concern about the numbers of people studying maths and science.  Low numbers and unusual results.  The result seems to be that while for most subjects, there is a bell curve in the results (i.e. a normal distribution, most people reaching something in the […]

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I have written about this before and I will say it again.  One of the worst things to ever happen to education in Ireland was when Niamh Breathnach as minister for education abolished fees.
Ostensibly, this was to benefit the lower paid, but the lower paid were already in receipt of government grants.  It did nothing […]

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