Author Archives: Bruno Van de Casteele

About Bruno Van de Casteele

Philosopher by education, IT'er by trade. Allround Armchair Skeptic, History Enthousiast, Father of Three. Twitter @brunovdc Personal website: www.puam.be

3.10.2013

Telescope in the sky

Imagine that you can get your hands on a Boeing 747. What would you do? Well, probably not what NASA did: they cut a 10-by-10 foot hole in the back of the airplane, and installed a big telescope in it.

3.3.2013

Mobile learning

When do you listen to podcasts such as Skeptoid? I listed to my favorite science and skeptical podcasts in my car, when commuting. I’ve heard that others do it while jogging or cycling, or just before falling asleep (I’m assuming / read more…

6 Comments

Posted in Science / TV & Media

2.24.2013

There are more things in heaven and earth …

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Hamlet, to Horatio Ah, Shakespeare. I’m not a native English speaker, so I probably missed out on

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Posted in Nature / Science / Space

2.17.2013

oh Dogon it!

It’s a weird “credit”, but one of the persons who brought me into skepticism, was Von Däniken, the Swiss guy claiming that we have been visited in the past by alien civilizations, and that proof of this can be found / read more…

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Posted in Conspiracy Theories / Pseudoscience

2.10.2013

Voices from the past

Recently, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has resurrected a very old recording from 1878. Not the oldest recording ever (dating from 1860), but it seems the oldest in the States. PBS has a nice, although long-winded, segment on it, after the / read more…

5 Comments

Posted in Cool Stuff / Science / Technology

2.3.2013

The standard that needs some cleaning

One of the last “arbitrary” standards in physics is securely stored in a lab in Paris. I say “arbitrary” as it is not based on a physical constant. Instead it is “just” a chunk of platinum, or more correctly, a / read more…

6 Comments

Posted in Science

1.27.2013

“Hello, this is Antarctica calling”

Most of you are probably aware of the Arecibo observatory, world’s largest single-dish radio telescope. Constructed in a natural valley in Puerto Rico, it is still one of the work horses in radio astronomy. But a proposal from 1960, which / read more…

1.20.2013

Warning! Icky post

Last year I heard for the first time about something that sounds (and feels) “icky”, but that on second reflection sounds logical: fecal transplants. Or basically, transplanting stool from someone to someone else. This is nothing to laugh about. Patients / read more…

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Posted in Health / Science

1.13.2013

Epigenetics model for homosexuality, but don’t get too excited …

Sometimes science too has its “fashion trends”. One of them, in my opinion, is epigenetics, according to Wikipedia the study of heritable changes without any changes to the DNA itself. These changes are then visible through gene expression or the / read more…

1.6.2013

Rescue Dog Re-Use

I guess archeologists are very much underfunded … at least it shows in the re-use they make of tools in other disciplines. I have heard about archeology departments accepting with great pleasure “old” CT scanners from hospitals. These scanners still / read more…

2 Comments