Bruno's Mauritian Blog

124 cases since beginning 2010 and 1 death on Saturday the 10th of July, H1N1 – no more referred to as the swine flu – is back in the limelight. Are we brassing ourselves for the massive hysteria of 2009 yet again? I don’t think so!

Les manifestes des deux blocs disputant les élections du 5 mai 2010 ont été publiés. Nous pouvons maintenant les décortiquer et connaitre qui de l’Alliance du Coeur ou de l’Alliance de l’Avenir propose le meilleur programme pour les 5 années à venir. Auparavant, nous devons faire ressortir que les manifestes ne comptent que pour une infime partie des swing votes, puisque les élections se jouent sur l’émotion à Maurice, pas sur la raison. Mais que cela ne nous empêche pas d’essayer de faire un choix éclairé pour cette joute.

A vaccine against the dreaded Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is nearly there! A team of scientists from the USA have discovered a virus-like particle that mimics the CHIKV. CHIKV is a very infectious virus transmitted to humans via some species of mosquitoes. The re-emergence of the virus in Kenya, 2004, lead to widespread infection within the [...]

Peter Backus, a PhD candidate at the University of Warwick, modified the Drake equation to obtain an estimate of the odds of finding a girlfriend in the UK. I will adapt his method to determine the odds of finding an Asian-looking girlfriend in Mauritius. The Drake equation is used to find a serious estimate of [...]

The safe upper limit for atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) is 350 parts per million. The current level is 390 ppm, which is way too high. This dangerous level leads to ice melting, climate disruption and ocean acidification. Scientists are urging decision makers to act and bring the level down to 350 ppm.

The media is treating climate change more as a political issue rather than a scientific one. The presentation of the subject is therefore “balanced”, even though there is overwhelming scientific evidence that the planet is dangerously warming up. Worse, science is losing the media war to conservative lobbies.

Climate change is happening, and its impact will be disastrous for the planet. The global mean temperature of the planet is bound to increase by 2°C or more unless global greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by at least 50% of the 1990 level by 2050. However, there are no plausible reason to believe that we [...]