Author Archives: Ron Miksha

About Ron Miksha

Ron Miksha is a bee ecologist working at the University of Calgary. He is also a geophysicist and does a bit of science writing and blogging. Ron has worked as a radio broadcaster, a beekeeper, and Earth scientist. (Ask him about seismic waves.) He's based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

How Naïve are Scientists?

Posted on April 26, 2017 by Ron Miksha

Originally posted on The Grumpy Geophysicist:
A FiveThirtyEight podcast recently included a segment with their senior science writer, Maggie Koerth-Baker, where she opined on what scientists were marching for, and in so doing she made the following comment (about 49 minutes…

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A Creationist Speaker Comes to Town

Posted on January 25, 2017 by Ron Miksha

Originally posted on Letters to Creationists:
By the early 1800s European geologists (many of them devout Christians) realized that the rock layers they observed had to be far older than the 6000 years allowed by a literal interpretation of Bible…

Posted in Geology, Philosophy, Reblogs, Religion, Science Education | Tagged | Leave a comment

The Center

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Ron Miksha

We love the superlative – biggest/smallest, widest/narrowest, and more often than not, the tallest, heaviest, strongest rather than the shortest, lightest, weakest.  Not many travel posters feature the ‘averagest’ waterfall, tree, or lake. So it might seem against human tendency … Continue reading →

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Earth-shaking Selfies

Posted on January 5, 2017 by Ron Miksha

MyShake is a phone app that can sense earthquakes. This is a cool idea, one that others have tried and failed to perfect, but now it seems to be living the promise. Folks at UCLA Berkeley 0ffer a free bit … Continue reading →

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Why Non-Experts are Experts

Posted on December 22, 2016 by Ron Miksha

It seems that youngsters who are not particularly gifted in science and math are more likely to want a science job later in life. Kids who excel in science are less likely to want to be scientists. At least, that’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Science Education | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

December 20: Light Up Day

Posted on December 20, 2016 by Ron Miksha

What are the odds that three important electricity developments should all occur on December 20th? Probably, statistically, rather good. So I’ll not make much of the coincidence. Impending winter darkness was not a likely motivator – in the case of … Continue reading →

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Naming Schools after Nobel Laureates

Posted on December 9, 2016 by Ron Miksha

The Washington Post recently ran a story about the late Abdus Salam, a physicist who won the Nobel Prize almost 40 years ago. The piece concerns the politics of naming a building at a Pakistani university in honour of a … Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Culture, History, People, Religion | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Geoscience Nobels?

Posted on October 5, 2016 by Ron Miksha

Originally posted on The Grumpy Geophysicist:
As long as we are on the subject, what sorts of things might be worth Nobel Prizes in geoscience?  There are two aspects of the Nobels that differ from most geoscience prizes: they are…

Posted in Reblogs, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Free course on remote sensing for water exploration

Posted on September 26, 2016 by Ron Miksha

250 million people who live in the drylands of Africa and Asia face a shortage of water for their entire lives. Hundreds of millions more in less drought-prone regions of the ‘Third World’ have to cope repeatedly with reduced supplies.…

Posted in Environment, Exploration, Geology, Reblogs, Science Education | Leave a comment

Horses, barns and earthquakes

Posted on September 7, 2016 by Ron Miksha

Originally posted on The Grumpy Geophysicist:
Well, it appears that the Oklahoma finally bought into the connection of earthquakes to deep injection wells as the recent M5.6 earthquake led them to shut down injection wells in the vicinity of the…

Posted in How Geophysics Works, Reblogs | Leave a comment