Category Archives: Other Writing

Glyphosate, how you torture me

By Benjah-bmm27 (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
By Benjah-bmm27 (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
I’m a gardener, and spent years studying chemistry so this subject interests me. Therefore I am going to inflict it on you.

Chemicals are scary if you don’t understand them, and people especially get worried by the ones we use regularly on food plants and in horticulture, pesticides and herbicides. I want to concentrate on just one, Glyphosate; it is used in 750 different products worldwide and is the most popular herbicide in the world [1]. It’s a broad spectrum herbicide used in domestic, agricultural and forestry settings and by every council in the country to keep the paths tidy and cut the lines in to football and cricket pitches (except in Bristol, where they’ve experimented with vinegar after a successful campaign by local campaigners to ban the use of glyphosate there by the council).

Continue reading “Glyphosate, how you torture me”

Update: This weekend

I will mostly be doing nothing, since I’m exhausted. I went to bed 11 p.m. Thursday night and woke up at 11.30 p.m. on Friday night, with a four hour gap in the afternoon. This is what happens when I have a busy week. I don’t know how I will cope next week, I’m even busier and it’s my birthday next Friday. I don’t particularly want to spend my birthday sleeping.

I haven’t managed to get much reading done, except reading New Scientist and Jo Brand’s second book of memoirs obviously, because I’m tired and my eyes are playing up because my glasses broke on Tuesday so I’m using my old pair. I’m going to collect my repaired glasses in the morning, before I go and visit the library before it closes to move in to the building. Since I haven’t been able to read much I haven’t got any book reviews for you this weekend.

Instead, I hope to be up to writing about glyphosate, a blog post I meant to write last weekend, but I got distracted trying to sort out my holiday this year.

I should probably go back to bed.

New book cover website and novel news

A friend of mine is a photographer and has started a business providing ebook covers. She’s a fantastic photographer and I’m considering using her images for the covers of the novels.

http://ebookcovers.online/

Talking of the novels, book two is finished, the first two chapters of the third novel have been written. I will be working more on them tomorrow and over the weekend.

The Deepest Black Book Release Tour

new release rk

Today, we’re celebrating the release of THE DEEPEST BLACK by USA Today Bestselling author Rainy Kaye. THE DEEPEST BLACK is 99 cents for a limited time! Check it out, then scroll all the way down to enter to win a $10 Amazon gift card!

 

 

the_deepest_blackEmber has a little problem…fairies want her dead.

Ember spends her Friday nights lurking in the bad parts of town, killing fairies. It’s either that, or become a victim to their flesh-eating hunger.

Then she meets Remy, a fae who, despite getting on her nerves, isn’t evil. He tells her that a shadow has been consuming his world, changing its inhabitants and letting destructive beasts into his city. He is searching for his brother who went missing during the catastrophe.

When a team of mercenaries come for Ember, she has little choice but to join Remy in his quest. Together, they decide to bait a trap. What they find reveals the destruction of the fae world means the end of the human world, too–and it’s Ember’s fault.

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Rainy Kaye writes paranormal novels from her lair somewhere in Phoenix, Arizona. She is represented by Rossano Trentin of TZLA, and her Summoned series was acquired by Bastei Lübbe. In 2014, she reached the USA Today Bestseller list. Today, she’s taking care of her small zoo of furry animals and trying to remember where she left her coffee.

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My book review of ‘The Deepest Black’ by Rainy Kaye coming soonhttps://widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js

Update

Evening, it’d be much more pleasant out if the wind would drop so I’m sat indoors reading instead of being outside enjoying my new garden chairs. I have a fire pit too, I need to get burny-burny things so I can set fire to marsh mallows and toast my toes in an evening.Continue reading “Update”

‘Special K’ metabolite may provide a new drug to treat depression

The drug ketamine (a club drug sometimes called ‘Special K’) is legally used as an animal tranquilliser and illegally used to get high. Recent work has shown it also has a antidepressant effect. Continue reading “‘Special K’ metabolite may provide a new drug to treat depression”

Comparing the research paper to the popular press: depression

Last week an old school friend shared this article about depression, on Facebook; being me I decided to find the original paper it’s based on. Luckily, there was a link to the paper in the article itself. The article was written, or published 4th May 2016, whereas the research paper was published 30th June 2016. Reading the article made me itch at it’s stupidity, mainly because they tried to hook their ‘positive outlook’ on to a meta-analysis of brain MRI data. So, today I thought I’d read through both the paper and the article and compare the two. What I learnt was that the paper is more interesting than the article, and that people will always try to use the results to support their position, even when it doesn’t.

Continue reading “Comparing the research paper to the popular press: depression”

Mumsy and the age of fossils

When we watched a programme about the evolution of life on Earth, Mumsy asked how geologists knew how old the rocks with the fossils in them were. I said ‘isotopes’, she said ‘what?’ This is my attempt to explain radiometric dating and some of it’s uses.

We’re going to have to start at the beginning, with atoms.

Continue reading “Mumsy and the age of fossils”

Update on sickness and book reviews

I am still coughing badly but I managed to sit outside for 20 minutes this morning. I’ve been struggling with breathing and stairs but at least I managed to spend most of the day awake, though I’m going to bed soon.

Book reviews: due to not being able to do much other than sleep and read I am now on my forth book and will therefore have four reviews for you to enjoy, just as soon as I can breathe properly and form coherent thoughts.