Ever seen a diagram of the geomagnetic field that looks something like this?

While I might technically be exaggerating, every deficiency of this diagram is something I have legitimately seen on the world wide web. In summary:

1. Field lines converge at poles

2. Those poles are the geographic poles

3. Field emanates from pole marked ‘S’ and converges at ‘N’

4. Field is parallel …

There’s a bit of a persistent rumour getting around on internet and extranet circles. Actually far too many, but today’s lucky topic is the notion that plants produce oxygen from carbon dioxide.

It’s a simple enough story. We know that photosynthesis consumes carbon dioxide, and produces surplus oxygen. Since CO₂ quite obviously contains O₂, well, there’s not even anything to question.

Except that photosynthesis has a few more aspects than just these two gases, and the whole system isn’t an atomic process.[1] Fortunately you don’t need to be within arm’s reach of …

Let’s suppose you have a box. Ideally this is no mere supposition but you actually have a box nearby right now. If you don’t, you’ve surely had one at some point, so in that case we’ll talk about that box.

Boxes are made for storing things. You can put all sorts of things inside your box. You could even put another box inside it.

And you needn’t stop there. Another box can go inside your boxed box, or you could even put multiple boxes alongside each other inside the original box. All manner of boxes …