Questioning Novak Djokovic’s Covid tests, based on data

Tennis player Novak Djokovic is not vaccinated against the coronavirus, and as a result, was not allowed to compete in the Australian Open. Data collated by the BBC suggests that Djokovic lied about his Covid-19 test results in an attempt to get around rules:

The confirmation codes in all cases slotted into the same chronological timeline as our initial batch sent by BBC colleagues and showed that the earlier the test result date, the lower the confirmation code.

The only outlier of all the confirmation codes we’ve plotted was Mr Djokovic’s positive test on 16 December.

See also Zerforschung’s questioning from earlier this month.

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Scale of the bigger, more detailed universe

We’ve learned more about the universe since Charles and Ray Eames produced Powers of Ten in 1977, so the BBC made an homage to the film, updating with what we know now. Spoiler alert: the universe is still big.

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Misinterpreted or misleading fire maps

With all of the maps of fire in Australia, be sure to check out this piece by Georgina Rannard for BBC News on how some of the maps can easily be misinterpreted when seen out of context.

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How much warmer your city will get

BBC News asks a straightforward question: How much warmer is your city? Enter your country and then your city. You get a time series along with projections. It reminds me of The New York Times piece from a few years ago, but the BBC one uses more recent data and covers major cities worldwide.

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Posted by in BBC, Infographics, snow

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Tortoise vs Hare, but in a vacuum this time

We all know how gravity is supposed to work. Without air resistance, a feather and a bowling ball (the standardized materials for all gravitational tests) should accelerate toward the center of the Earth at the same rate, thus striking the ground at the same time. Humans have tested this. It works.

Although we know this thing, it is so far removed from our daily experience that it is still stunning to watch it happen. This fundamental principle is nicely illustrated in this video from the BBC. The video also nicely shows how amazed a roomful of individuals who know how the experiment will work can be when the experiment works exactly as expected.

That is why we need the scientific method to rigorously test hypotheses and incrementally build our knowledge of how the universe works. Our day-to-day experience of and intuition about the world is extremely valuable, but also extremely deceptive.

For the record, the tortoise vs hare in a vacuum race I alluded to in the title would be incredibly inhumane and disappointing, in addition to having no winner – unless, UNLESS we had the tortoise and hare race in spacesuits. Why aren’t we racing animals in spacesuits?

HT: Jared Heidinger


Filed under: Curiosities of Nature Tagged: BBC, Brian Cox, gravity, Jared Heidinger, Physics, scientific method

Your life on Earth

Your life on earth

The BBC has a fun piece that shows changes over your lifetime. Enter your date of birth, gender, and height, and you get personalized data nuggets, categorized by how you changed, how the world changed, and how people changed the world during your years on this planet.

For me: 161 major volcano eruptions, 72 solar eclipses, and a 2.7 billion increase in global population.

Naturally, as with most global numbers, these are based on estimates from a wide range of sources, so keep that in the back of your mind as you scroll.

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Dinosaurs versus airplane

Dinosaurs versus airplane

Scientists found the fossils of a giant dinosaur that they estimate was 26 meters long and 60 tons heavy. How much is that really? BBC News provided a simple chart to put size into perspective. They compared dinosaur sizes to a moose, African Elephant, and a Boeing 737-900.

Impressive. Although not as impressive as Mega Shark. [Thanks, Jim]

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