JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
Jo appreciates your support to help her keep doing what she does. This blog is funded by donations. Thanks!
Follow Jo's Tweets To report "lost" comments or defamatory and offensive remarks, email the moderators at: support.jonova AT proton.me
Statistics
In another stupid and self-destructive act by Australia, the valuable biological samples, with genomic data, 10,600, of the QoVax study to study the effectiveness or otherwise of Covid “vaccines” and treatments are about to be destroyed. It’s an extremely valuable resource for future research and cost the taxpayer $20 million. The study was stopped without notice.
Dr John Campbell discusses this scientific vandalism as he calls it:
There was also a petition to the Queensland Parliament, no longer active, to stop this destruction.
https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Work-of-the-Assembly/Petitions/Petition-Details?id=4234
502
Clarification, these samples were from 10,600 people and there are about 100,000 samples.
282
The destruction of the Australian data is corrupt and sad, but the Amish have come to the rescue showing that the Covid vaccines had negative effectiveness.
Both Kennedy and Steve Kirsch have pointed out that the best data available to compare the vaccinated with the unvaccinated is the hidden CDC data on the 344,670 US-Amish population. At the moment, only ‘four’ Amish are known to have died with Covid and none are known to have died from mRNA Covid vaccine injury.
According to the Journal of Plain Anabaptist Communities, only 3 Amish Covid deaths are recorded amongst a population of 344,670. A fourth and only other officially recorded Amish death from Covid came from the CDC which stated that an Amish adult in Ohio with cancer, became symptomatic May 16, received a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result May 18, and died May 21. Then Steve Kirsch asked “Can you name five unvaxxed Amish who died from Covid?”.
Also there are no reports of unvaxxed Amish dying from vaccine injuries or unvaxxed Amish among the 1,233 deaths in the Cumulative Analysis of Post-authorisation Adverse Event Reports, submitted by Pfizer.
Autism, ADHD, and autoimmune diseases are almost unheard of in this population. However out of three known cases, one had received the MMR vaccine, and the two others had an unknown vaccine status.
The book “Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak” by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. compares one hundred studies in the peer-reviewed literature that consider vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations. The conclusion is that the vaccinated are twice as likely to die from the disease they are protected from, and that the unvaccinated are better protected from a disease by not getting vaccinated against it.
In 2021, the Amish are known to have bought lots of weapons due to fears that the Democrats were planning to raid their homes and forcibly vaccinate their children. However this threat made them come out and vote for Donald Trump in unprecedented numbers.
542
Paul Cottingham,
The problem with using the Amish as a “control group” is that the difference between them and the general population is not restricted to COVID vaccination. How many of them smoke? How many of them drink alcohol? How many of them have eaten themselves into gross obesity — or even to moderate overweight? How many of them sit in front of a television (or computer) for hours every day?
In the end, comparing a generally healthier population with the wider population and finding the generally healthier group is generally healthier isn’t very surprising.
112
All good points. Smoking and drinking (in excess) among Amish is generally frowned upon, though especially during rumspringa young Amish will indulge to excess. Moderate drinking of beer, especially, is relatively common among Amish men.
Amish do suffer from a number of genetic diseases due to inbreeding.
41
Hiding the evidence. ?
100
They can’t allow the voters access to information that might prove detrimental to the “if it saves one life” hysteria.
110
Catherine, Princess of Wales, and her secret vaccine injury.
*Friday 28th May 2021, Catherine, Princess of Wales, received an AstraZeneca jab.
*Thursday 30th September 2021, Catherine, Princess of Wales, was vaccinated for a second time with the Pfizer jab.
*Wednesday 15th December 2021, Catherine, Princess of Wales was vaccinated for a third time with the Pfizer jab.
*Sunday 20th February 2022, Catherine, Princess of Wales caught Covid.
*Wednesday 28th September 2022, Catherine, Princess of Wales was vaccinated for a fourth time with the Pfizer jab.
*Thursday 23rd March 2023, Catherine, Princess of Wales was vaccinated for a fifth time with the Pfizer jab.
*Thursday 28th December 2023, Catherine, Princess of Wales complained to her doctor about abdominal pain and was escorted to King Edward VII’s Hospital for tests. She was informed that the menstrual irregularity with rubbery blood clots was serious and surgery was planned for mid-January.
*Tuesday 16th January 2024, Catherine, Princess of Wales had a Hysterectomy and stayed at the London Clinic Hospital for two weeks. After the operation she was diagnosed with cancer, and from late February, underwent a six month course of chemotherapy at the Royal Marsden Hospital, when at one point, she almost died.
515
Amazing Paul,
The BBC confirms your first claim!
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57291608.amp
Do you have references for all the rest?
132
Good question Peter. I’d rather people didn’t make claims about public personalities without a source.
There are no results in searches for her medical condition apart from gossip, rumour, reddit threads and an official statement about an unnamed cancer. It’s fine to discuss rumours and guesses but people need to know that that is all it is.
Despite the dates, the surgery details may be entirely invented. I’ll probably remove this subthread if we can’t substantiate anything…
80
If the Government censors the ‘facts’ then should we censor the rumours coming from respected commentators?
The facts come from Gptchatly, Google, Wikipedia, Hansard and the royal family. The censored facts are filled by rumours coming from the Royal Household, Hospital staff, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Gyles Brandreth, Lady Colin Campbell and foreign journalists not covered by a DSMA notice. Gptchatly also repeats the “open secret” confirmed by those above, about the old Queens heart issues and Myeloma, and that the King has Pancreatic Cancer.
21
Paul,
The trash media have been living off and inventing royal rumors for decades. Like I said, I don’t mind people discussing trash media rumors as long as they call them what they are, and link to sources. (which you still haven’t).
What “facts” would I be censoring in this subthread? There are no facts here about her surgery?
The difference between this blog and the trash-media is we know the difference between a fact and a rumor.
I’m not seeing any reason to keep this subthread?
10
Gptchatly gave me all the dates of illness and vaccines that the Royal family had up to October 2023. The events of Thursday 28th December 2023 and the Hysterectomy are rumours circulating in Spain and the United States. The rumours are said to have been confirmed by two Spanish journalists talking to someone in the Royal Household. Gptchatly also says ‘YES’ to the rumour that the Royal family’s health is censored by a DSMA-Notice, said to be a fifth active DSMA-Notice put into operation on Friday 8th November 2024. But this was said to be because Professor Angus Dalgleish, established that mRNA jabs are causing an explosion of B-Cell cancers, and that after her death at Balmoral Castle, the Queens body was transported to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, where a post-mortem examination was conducted by Sir Hugh Thomas, which found that the Queen died of Myeloma, a B-Cell Bone Marrow cancer.
21
Sir Huw Thomas was physician to QE11, but he is a gastroenterologist.
Was he capable of performing an autopsy?
10
Gptchatly said the post-mortem examination was conducted by Sir Hugh Thomas, while Dr Douglas Glass certified the late monarch’s cause of death as “old age”.
00
The Princess needs to quit the vaccines before she becomes a late Princess.
I note her first vax was Astra Zeneca. My first one nearly killed me. Ended up in hospital 1 week after the vax with blood pressure approaching 240. Here I am 4 years later still having problems!!
251
Graham, this product may be of interest to you…
https://augmentednac.com/en/science
20
Sorry to read that Graham i hope you get better.
80
I’ve only had the one but a month after I rang the ambulance with BP 220/180. I haven’t read of that being a common complaint.
But what’s the point of wealth and privilege if you still run with the sheep? Everyone likes Kate and I wish her well, but FIVE shots??
121
The worst part of vaccine poisoning is that the hospital wouldn’t discuss any causes of my condition nor would my GP. And yet our own government gave total immunity to the pharmaceutical industry from any prosecution.
One might say the government “vaccine of immunity” was 100% effective compared to the poison being dished out which wasn’t effective at all.
80
Yesterday at 7am I posted that total Australian Government debt had just rolled over to $2.114 trillion.
Now, at just after 5am, not even 24 hours later, it has increased by a further $495 million dollars.
It’s doubtful any politician (except less than a handful) could write this enormous number in numerals, let alone have any comprehension how large it is.
$495 million in 22 hours equates to $6,250 per second, most of which is being totally wasted on useless expenditure like paying aluminium smelters not to produce to prevent blackouts or otherwise subsiding them, or steel producers, or “investing” in solar panel manufacturers or Californian quantum computer start-ups or mRNA “vaccine” factories or any other of numerous brain f@rts of moronic and wicked politicians, especially, but not exclusively, Labor ones.
This is not going to end well for Australia, especially as we have no real opposition conservative political party (except minor ones) and the fake conservative Liberals are silent on the matter. Consider that Argentina was also once a rich country until the socialists took over, now look at that “socialist paradise”.
Unfortunately Australians, most present company excepted, have chosen a path in their lives of wilful ignorance and have absolutely no clue what’s going on and they don’t even want to know if you try to inform them. They’d rather be downing another glass of the world’s most highly taxed beer.
http://australiandebtclock.com.au/
410
An Australian $100 note is 0.1408mm thick.
If $2.114 trillion dollars worth were laid on top of each other they would stretch for 2,976km.
Note, they are stacked on top of each other, not end to end.
It absolutely is not going to end well for Australia.
No wonder the Government’s coming for your superannuation (retirement) savings.
390
The stack would be 100 times bigger at 297,651.2km tall, 77.5% of the average distance to the moon.
20
I believe my calculation is correct.
30
I got 2,976.51km.
The difference is the $100 value of the note.
40
>The difference is the $100 value of the note.
True. No wonder I failed counting at school.
50
This “ government “ is more like a drug addicted criminal!
They’re addicted to socialism, “ climate change “, spending, China, 3rd world migration.
As a result they’re spending our tax $$$ on a thing as long as it’s got no benefit for Australia.
They’re running out of money & resorting to borrowing money to throw away. That source seems to be drying up as well. So now, like all drug addicts they’re going to steal from the Australian family. There’s upward of $4 trillion worth of Super Annuation funds that they’re after now. Knowing the cunning of drug addicts we’re on our way to a “ drug “ induced future of poverty!
190
That’s why many people I know are seriously thinking about leaving Australia. I know one who’s already left.
A friend of mine will soon be inspecting a candidate country with a view to assessing it for resettlement.
These people are leaving or considering doing so because they no longer see a viable future for Australia, or a safe one either the way that crime is out of control with an injustice system that fails to punish criminals, especially criminals of certain demographics.
They would endure it if they saw a hope of a conservative party getting into power but we have no major conservative party, only minors.
210
It may just be even more important to leave now, having seen a headline reporting that China is warning the Albanese government to not increase defence spending. Judging Albozo by his general “brown noser“ behaviour when dealing with Xi he’ll concede to the warning. “Handsome Boy “ behaving himself???
Is Beijing now dictating policy to Albozo???
Wake up Australia before it’s too late!!
111
Depending on where you measure it, the ambient temperature, pressure and humidity.
Not unlike the climate.
30
What thickness measuring device measures to four decimal places?
20
It’s the nominal thickness.
In any case there are one micron resolution micrometers. I have a Mitutoyo model at home. There is even a Mitiutoyo micrometer with 0.1 micron resolution. And there are all sorts of other thickness measuring devices. Obviously a note will vary in thickness due to design features but the amount quoted is an average nominal thickness.
81
Wonder what the nominal thickness of a lefty is. 😆
50
Is the standard thickness two bricks?
30
I just counted out a 1000 of the notes and measured that.
It works for me.
/s
90
Yea, but as the stack gets higher compression reduces the thickness. Equally /s I have neither idea nor interst. So why did I reply? I’m confused.
40
A thousand $100 notes. ?
10
I said Argentina but I meant Venezuela.
At least Argentina is now under repair by Javier Milei.
171
!!!!
To study new language again….
20
A look at a 100 year old 8 cycle engine.
Yes, 8 cycles. It’s a “hit and miss” engine.
https://youtu.be/QLvompZ4CY8
70
An 8 cycle engine…. a modern car would call that a misfire.
It amazes me why anyone would want a cylinder going up and down more than once per power stroke. An ideal engine would be double acting. Power at EACH end of the travel. For example, a piston with a combustion chamber top and bottom.
All that travel without power involves friction, a result which consumes power from the combustion stroke. Why would you want that?
70
Nevertheless hit and miss engines were very popular in stationary engine applications up until about the 1930’s.
You can see many on display at the Lake Goldsmith Steam Rally.
https://www.lakegoldsmithsteamrally.org.au/
41
Ian, it’s for cooling only, the engine is aircooled but there is no fan, they kept it simple, so it breathes in and out though the exhaust valve while it is held open.
70
They do exist (with two pistons, you’ve gotta capture the energy somehow! 🙂 Commer TS3
(Napier made one as well I think?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commer_TS3
30
There was also the Napier Deltic used in marine applications and locomotives and had a triangular configuration of three banks of two opposed cylinders.
There are other examples as well.
30
DM – a slight correction
A triangular configuration of three banks of cylinders, each cylinder with two opposed pistons.
Deltics had either 6 or 3 cylinders per bank.
Others had tried that triangle configuration but couldn’t get inlet and exhaust leads and lags sorted out.
Napier realised that could be sorted out by having one crankshaft turn the opposite direction to the other two.
20
Yes. My bad. I mistakenly said cylinders instead of pistons.
10
Probably the best known and earliest successful two pistons in one cylinder engines were the pre WW 2 Junkers Jumo aircraft diesels.
Napier had a license for these
“Napier also worked on diesel aircraft engines. In the 1930s it licensed the Junkers Jumo 204 for production in England, which it called the Culverin. It also planned to produce a smaller version of the same basic design as the Cutlass, but work on both was cancelled at the outbreak of war in 1939.”
Three of those was the basis of the Deltic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._Napier_%26_Son
20
The Commer knocker had six pistons in three cylinders.
10
I thought a little more on this, piston engines waste too much power. Let’s go turbine instead. No exhaust stroke. With a decent design, these should be the lightest engines around and very efficient too. At least against a 4 stroke.
00
In theory only Ian, turbines are very thirsty , their most efficient speed is near 100% speed, maybe ok for steady power generation or aircraft.
Their main advantage is power to weight ratio, good for helicopters etc.
10
They were going to revolutionise the trucking industry 50-60 yrs ago. Too thirsty.
10
Where would you put the crankshaft, which after all, is the whole point of the exercise?
00
Here are shocking revelations by Sky News Australia about how, as revealed in a US Congressional Judicial Committee enquiry, complete with copies of emails, how Australia’s e Safety Kommisar was connected with a US group in attempting global censorship of X after Musk took over by trying to dissuade advertisers from using it. The ultimate purpose was to stop TRUMP getting elected apart from other censorship.
Yes, this really was foreign interference in the US election.
And not a “conspiracy theory”. The confidential emails are published.
This should be all over the Lamestream Media but they don’t care.
https://youtu.be/Xye5KtrAyVo
472
Yet another reason why TRUMP doesn’t want to meet with Albanese.
351
Here is the report.
There are plenty of emails and other materials about Australian involvement in this attempted or actual censorship.
It’s all very sinister.
https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/2025-06/Exporting%20Censorship%20Final.pdf
230
It may not be illegal to do that from Oz but it should be a sackable offence, it looks bad, it smells bad, it destroys international relations.
Unless of course the Kommisar was under directions to do this deed.
A thorough investigation will find nothing. Not even a scapegoat. Because the government would have to look at themselves and no one can get in the way of the trough.
250
When you look at her past work history as Director of Public Policy for Australia & Southeast Asia at Twitter (left 2014) plus her appearances at WEF shindigs you can only come to one conclusion. Fit’s the rule if it looks like a duck and quacks its probably a duck. She’s a WEF plant with a “leftie” background who wants censorship as an aid to One World Order. None of her public statements or uttering at the WEF show anything otherwise. Her and Kevin Rudd are really doing Australia a desservice in terms of our relationship with the USA at present. She needs to spend more time with her family.
150
She is American connecting with a US group. So it’s not really foreign interference.
00
From Sunday:
el+gordo
June 29, 2025 at 6:22 pm
How do we explain this?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NASA_CO2_Chart.jpg
I don’t think that explaining this is the point. NASA, without saying as much, imply that these historical CO2 levels are good and today’s CO2 levels are bad. This really is cherry picking of the worst kind. Geologically, CO2 levels have been much higher and life on earth flourished. During the Cambrian explosion of life, CO2 levels were somewhere between 4,000 and 9,000 ppm. The real tagline to this graph should be – For 400,000 years all complex life on Earth was on the verge of a mass die off (Please note: mass die off, not extinction) due to low atmospheric CO2. For those 400,000 years, all plants on Earth were starving. What is even more concerning are the times when CO2 dropped to 180 ppm, or in one case, just below. Whilst plants with a C4 photosynthetic pathway would have struggled, but survived, plants using the C3 pathway pretty much shut down at 150 ppm. With a lack of primary producers, herbivores would have also struggled to find enough food. Carnivores would then have real problems. This is the usual complete cherry picking crap from the cult of climate change.
300
It’s a good thing CO2 is now naturally increasing because had it kept dropping there would have been a mass extinction event as plants were starved of CO2.
I would like to see it settle at perhaps 800ppm to 1000ppm to provide a suitable safety zone above 150ppm plus have the added advantage of improved crop productivity and other plant growth.
250
Plants would really like CO2 levels to be around 1000 ppm. They really begin to thrive at that point. They are also more drought resistant. So it’s wins all round for life on Earth.
250
The improved drought resistance at higher CO2 levels is easy to explain – The plant has more resources to expend on the root system.
10
The pores in its leaf is closed more due to higher CO2 levels and therefore they lose less moisture through expiration
10
Hi Hanrahan, that is a factor, but the other reason cited for better drought resistance is that the plant has reduced stomatal opening and this leads to much lower levels of water loss through transpiration.
20
My favourite rejoinder to Warmists Doomsayers is that in the late Jurassic/early Cretaceous is that CO2 reached about 2700 p.p.m. and the temperature dropped to abound 2℃ higher than today. You can find other occasions where elevated CO2 coincided with colder weather e.g. the late Ordovician ICE AGE at ~3,000 p.p.m. but these are always dismissed.
Oh! and in both cases (& others) temperatures rose as CO2 dropped.
130
Thanks Esra, the Keeling Curve shouldn’t have been spliced to the ice core data, it gave the impression that CO2 hasn’t been this high since the beginning of time.
What happens to the CO2 signal under ice?
12
You’d think for a project which is both staggeringly expensive and staggeringly useless like the politician-designed Snowy Hydro 2, that we’d be entitled to more frequent news updates than the dribs and drabs that are occasionally released.
260
When you are tasked with delivering a project behind schedule and over budget, the one thing you don’t shout from the roof tops is just how bad it is going.
It’s not only career ending it’s project ending.
And surprisingly, this is exactly what the taxpayer wants. End the waste now. Doge style.
220
For me the Snowy Hydro scheme of the 1950’s was well and truly over- hyped in terms of electricity production. Its major contribution is actually towards the irrigation systems of southern NSW. The electricity production is really marginal and always somewhat affected by the wet/dry cycles of Eastern Australia anyway. Where it shone out was as a symbol of the re-building of Australia post WW2. Come to Australia if you’re fleeing war ravaged Europe and get a high paying job on the “Snowy” and contribute to nation building. Snowy II is a symbol of the carbon transition (whatever that means) and commitments to Paris and Net Zero. It’s why those dopey Libs initiated the project led by Turnbull. The only reason Turnbull was on board with it was because he has investments in the renewable energy industry. He and the backers of the NSW Liberal Party plus all the anti-coal bureaucrats in Canberra. Just like the QoVax study you reported on, the government are going to choke any news reports or updates re. Snowy II. If they dont, the pussy will be exiting the sack. Everyone knows it’s not going to work and pumped hydro only ever functions efficiently when the energy supplied for pumping water uphill is supplied by eg. coal. Damn thing should have been built somewhere in Gippsland, Victoria and used the overnight excess power from Latrobe Valley brown coal. All right next door. But what the hell would I know anyway.?
100
Take this or leave it
According to data 99% of covid deaths were vacinated.
https://slaynews.com/news/99-covid-deaths-vaccinated-official-data-reveals/
243
So deaths went up AFTER 80% of Kiwis were vaccinated? Let’s not forget that, as time went on, the C19 virus evolved into less deadly strains, so the death toll should actually have fallen drastically.
120
“Victoria to get own version of Voice to parliament”
How democracy works. In the first term of the federal Albanese labour government a referendum was held to enshrine an “indigenous voice to parliament”. This was rejected overwhelmingly by the citizens of Australia, approximately 60% against nation wide.
In todays Herald sun “Victoria to get its own version of Voice to parliament” and to hell with what the people voted for.
No apparent opposition from the “opposition”. As DM often states the Uniparty of Australia.
I will bet London to a brick the following will be inflicted upon the 98% who don’t claim to be indigenous,
1/ A new tax will be added to pay for this new “advisory” body.
2/ Special “rights” will be endowed upon the 2% claiming indigenous status.
3/ Free and open access to public lands will be restricted to the general population.
4/ New sacred sites and “myth” areas will be found all over country Victoria.
Don’t you loving living in a place where ALL people are considered equal, some of course slightly more equal than others.
As someone once said. Poor bugger, my country.
311
One of those who takes this issue seriously, I constantly “wear somebody else shoes”.
So imagine last weekend the Alpa Centurians landed at the corner of Elizabeth and Lonsdale, read all the posters about genocide, etc,..
Naturally, being well prepared they knew by heart all leading thoughts on the subject, including selected speeches of certain B.J.Vorster.
No question their rule will be very benevolent. But my concern is how will they treat me and my descendants ? As occupants or occupantees?
30
It’s what happens in a One Party State like Australia with the Left running feral and with no major opposition party.
No Australian Uniparty Government cares about the “will of the people”. They just ignore us as dictators do.
The Federal Government blew nearly half a billion dollars on The Voice.
We, the people, said NO.
But individual state governments are circumventing that doing their own versions anyway.
Frankly, I don’t think Australia is fixable.
150
FWIW – another one bites the dust
“Qld’s $12.5 billion green hydrogen project dead after investors pull out”
On-line Courier Mail headline behind the Murdoch wall.
Becoming fashionable one might say
170
It should be obvious to anyone reading an HONEST project funding proposal, (required by law for all investment schemes).
Energy out is the hydrogen. That’s where the cash income will come from. Energy in, to make the hydrogen, exceeds the costs by multiple times.
This was always a loss maker. If this was my superannuation money doing the investing then I want heads to roll.
210
And
“Brazil’s Green-Energy Industry Is Falling Victim to Its Own Success”
https://hotair.com/headlines/2025/06/29/brazils-green-energy-industry-is-falling-victim-to-its-own-success-n3804288
50
The ABC has an accessible version of the story:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-30/central-queensland-green-hydrogen-project-cqh2-dumped-gladstone/105476564
20
One might await the gnashing and wailing from those busily flattening all those Central Qld pristine wildlife areas in anticipation
00
UK Pulls Plug on £24 Billion Desert Power Fantasy
It comes as little surprise that yet another grandiose techno-utopian vision has ended not with a triumphant march toward Net Zero, but with a flick of the off-switch.
Last week, Britain’s energy secretary quietly announced that the government “has pulled the plug on a £24 billion plan to bring Moroccan wind and solar power to Britain via the world’s longest subsea electricity cable, citing concerns over security and costs” .
In other words, after years of hype, headline-grabbing simulations and talk of “reliable clean power for 19 hours a day,” the reality of risk and expense finally intruded—and the dream of Sahara sun for all has been consigned to the scrapheap.
Perhaps the most telling line came when officials admitted this “first-of-a-kind mega project” carried “a high level of inherent, cumulative risk, delivery, operational, and security.” In plainer terms, nobody quite trusted a 3,800-mile subsea cable stretching from the Sahara to Devon to keep the lights on—or to fend off hostile actors, accidental damage or simple technical failure . For all the talk of homegrown power, the reality was a foreign-built supergrid running through disputed waters, vulnerable to every storm, saboteur or bureaucratic blunder.
And yet just a few years ago, this venture was presented as the ultimate win-win: millions of desert acres covered in solar panels and wind turbines, exporting 3.6 GW of “reliable” energy to 7 million homes and displacing imported gas.
190
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/uk-pulls-plug-ps24-billion-desert-power-fantasy
60
It’s Bulletproof, Fire-Resistant and Stronger Than Steel. It’s Superwood.
Waste wood scraps, changed at the molecular level, could become heavy-duty building materials—and even replace plastic, aluminum and carbon fiber in our vehicles and gadgets
Superwood.
Its maker, startup InventWood, says it could someday replace steel I-beams in the skeleton of a building, while being impact-resistant enough for bulletproof doors. It’s also fire resistant—the outside carbonizes in a way that protects the inside, and it won’t sag in a fire like steel. It would be a coup if the company can replace a good chunk of construction-grade steel and concrete with scrap wood that is otherwise unusable waste.
Superwood is also, I can attest, beautiful. Alex Lau, InventWood’s chief executive, handed me several of the oddly lustrous, improbably stiff boards as we toured the company’s test lab and under-construction factory in central Maryland.
In my hands, Superwood feels like an otherworldly object—amazingly strong and light. I could easily snap an eighth-of-an-inch-thick pine board in half (not to brag), but a sheet of Superwood with the same dimensions merely flexes slightly, no matter my effort. A foot-long stick, just a half-inch thick, was so rigid I couldn’t bend it at all.
Sometime this summer, the world’s first Superwood factory will go online.
140
Is it termite resistant?
Can I cast it into concrete like I can a steel post?
Can it withstand changes due to a varying water content, eg drying/shrinkage/swellling?
Will it split when drilled/screwed?
What is the thermal expansion co-efficient, is it low or high?
And can I get it from more than one supplier?
Me thinks it is going to be expensive until the patent runs out.
110
Inventwood superwood
InventWood is a materials science company that has developed an engineered wood product called Superwood, which is stronger than steel. The company was founded by materials engineer Liangbing Hu and grew out of research conducted at the University of Maryland, College Park. The commercial production of Superwood is scheduled to begin in mid-2025.
Superwood is produced through a two-step process where boards are soaked in a mild aqueous solution that extracts part of the lignin and hemicellulose while leaving the cellulose fibers largely intact. The material is then compressed to increase the hydrogen bonds between cellulose molecules, resulting in a material that has 50% more tensile strength than steel with a strength-to-weight ratio that’s ten times better.
The company treats the wood with “food industry” chemicals to modify the molecular structure of the wood, and then compresses the result to increase the hydrogen bonds between cellulose molecules. This process makes the material 10 times stronger than the original wood due to the extra bonds created.
InventWood’s first products will be facade materials for commercial and high-end residential buildings. The company plans to eventually tackle structural applications that could replace some of the concrete and steel required to construct durable buildings. The initial focus is on facades, where the extra resistance to rot and pests is useful, but the extra strength may seem unnecessary.
The material is also resistant to fire, weathering, and pests, and it has a strength-to-weight ratio that is ten times better than steel.
30
Youtube video 12 Mins 53 Secs- Superwood is Here! This Amazing New Material Could Change The World!
20
Well, I watched the Youtube (boot adverts as well) but I am still not that convinced. “Densifying” wood would strengthen it but also increase its density i.e. it becomes stronger but also heavier.
30
FWIW
“Hydulignum props”
https://www.key.aero/forum/historic-aviation/129588-hydulignum-props
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hordern-Richmond
00
Interesting reference to making cars and camper vans out of this wood. My Dad made a wooden car in the 60’s, wooden wheels, wooden motor, wooden suspension, wooden go….
70
Like the “Wooden Indian”
20
Earl
So did Marcos for a while – it went
https://silodrome.com/marcos-gt-plywood-chassis/
00
Strength….. Now what does that mean?
Is it tensile strength? Compressive strength? Shear strength? Flexural strength? Torsional strength?
When someone claims a product is stronger, I also ask HOW. For example. Concrete, (unreinforced), is very strong in compression but tension is another story. It actually cracks as it cures effectively giving it NO design strength in tension.
When someone says that they have taken scrap wood and improved it, I think of MDF. Which is basically weetbix after it gets wet.
Steel is also dimensionally stable, changing in length due to temperature. Moisture doesn’t really budge the numbers. Try that with wood, it not only swells when wet, it swells a different amount in different planes, eg along or across the grain and don’t even mention the cross cut timber and cupping.
Wood has it’s uses but it is not a replacement for steel. Try hammering a nail with a lump of 4×2.
50
I wonder if it is something like the wood/resin composite that was going to “revolutionise” building in the 1980’s?
Obviously contains some (glass?) fibres to enhance the longitudinal strength.
20
224 | NATURE | VOL 554 | 8 FEBRUARY 2018
Processing bulk natural wood into a high-performance structural material – 16 Pages
Jianwei Song1*, Chaoji Chen1*, Shuze Zhu2*, Mingwei Zhu1*, Jiaqi Dai1, Upamanyu Ray2, Yiju Li1, Yudi Kuang1, Yongfeng Li1, Nelson Quispe2, Yonggang Yao1, Amy Gong1, Ulrich H. Leiste3, Hugh A. Bruck2, J. Y. Zhu4, Azhar Vellore5, Heng Li6, Marilyn L. Minus6, Zheng Jia2, Ashlie Martini5, Teng Li2 & Liangbing Hu1
Synthetic structural materials with exceptional mechanical performance suffer from either large weight and adverse environmental impact (for example, steels and alloys) or complex manufacturing processes and thus high cost (for example, polymer-based and biomimetic composites)1–8. Natural wood is a low-cost and abundant material and has been used for millennia as a structural material for building and furniture construction9.
However, the mechanical performance of natural wood (its strength and toughness) is unsatisfactory for many advanced engineering structures and applications. Pre-treatment with steam, heat, ammonia or cold rolling10–21 followed by densification has led to the enhanced mechanical performance of natural wood.
However, the existing methods result in incomplete densification and lack dimensional stability, particularly in response to humid environments14, and wood treated in these ways can expand and weaken.
Here we report a simple and effective strategy to transform bulk natural wood directly into a high-performance structural material with a more than tenfold increase in strength, toughness and ballistic resistance and with greater dimensional stability.
Our two-step process involves the partial removal of lignin and hemicellulose from the natural wood via a boiling process in an aqueous mixture of NaOH and Na2SO3 followed by hot-pressing, leading to the total collapse of cell walls and the complete densification of the natural wood with highly aligned cellulose nanofibres.
This strategy is shown to be universally effective for various species of wood. Our processed wood has a specific strength higher than that of most structural metals and alloys, making it a low-cost, high-performance, lightweight alternative.
20
Big flash web page with lots of moving glossy images, but no science or engineering on any of it except ‘we compress the wood and form new hydrogen bonds between molecules’.
So, dry your timber under vacuum, then pressurise it with epoxy plastic, you could even mechanically compress it while the epoxy sets. You end up with a fibreglass or carbon fibre where the matrix fibre is wood. Not cheap, but if it chops Australia’s iron ore exports in half we’re in trouble!
10
Liangbing Hu is the Willy Wonka of engineered wood. Now a professor at Yale, he previously served as director for the Center for Materials Innovation at the University of Maryland.
There, he invented transparent wood, wood that could be molded like plastic, and wood that bounces like a rubber ball. All of his inventions involved messing with wood at the molecular level.
In 2018, Hu and his colleagues made waves among material scientists when they presented Superwood’s enabling technology in a paper in Nature.
In a recent tour of the nearly ready factory, I saw the entire process from start to finish. The company asked me not to reveal details about how it makes Superwood, because of their fear that companies overseas—Lau wouldn’t say where, but it was obviously China—would copy their process.
Focusing on profitability, InventWood will initially market Superwood as siding, which requires minimal certification, says Lau.
It could also be used as decking—it has longevity and weather resistance similar to tropical hardwoods—as well as fencing and window mullions.
Establishing that Superwood can be used as structural elements in buildings requires certification by the company’s partners, which include builders and architects. It also requires new building processes, since the stuff is strong enough to eliminate the steel joinery that is typical in engineered wood structures.
Future buildings could be built with ancient techniques—think pegs made out of Superwood hammered into beams made from it, says Lau.
10
Earthquake Proof Wooden Buildings
Wooden buildings in Japan and China have been designed with specific techniques to enhance their earthquake resistance. In Japan, traditional wooden structures are often built using a post-and-beam system, which allows for flexibility during earthquakes. This flexibility helps absorb and dissipate seismic energy effectively.
Additionally, the use of wooden pegs, known as “kigumi,” plays a crucial role in the construction of these buildings. These pegs are used to join wooden components without the need for nails or screws, allowing the structure to move and flex during an earthquake, thereby reducing the risk of collapse.
In China, ancient wooden buildings also incorporate unique techniques to improve their earthquake resistance. One notable example is the use of “dougong,” a system of interlocking wooden brackets that provide both structural support and flexibility.
These brackets transfer the weight of the roof to the supporting columns and contain redundancies that prevent the structure from collapsing. The flexibility of the “dougong” system allows the building to withstand seismic forces without shattering.
60
I am pretty sure there is a 9 story building in Sydney that is structurally all wood laminate beams etc
11
https://www.archdaily.com/942496/the-worlds-tallest-hybrid-timber-tower-is-under-construction-in-sydney-australia
10
But will the greenies let you chop down the trees?
00
This sounds like a triumph of advertising blurb over reality.
20
An Interesting Read on how we got to the current tax system, though written in 2006
https://treasury.gov.au/publication/economic-roundup-winter-2006/a-brief-history-of-australias-tax-system
A brief history of Australia’s tax system Date 04 September 2006
Sam Reinhardt and Lee Steel
This paper was presented to the 22nd APEC Finance Ministers’ Technical Working Group Meeting in Khanh Hoa, Vietnam, on 15June2006.
It provides an overview of Australian taxation history, identifying trends and discussing key reforms to Australia’s tax system at both federal and state levels of government.
10
Any other human life forms out there fed up with Google’s bot eliminator, CAPTCHA, requiring proof of humanity? It seems to be more prevalent, more unreliable and unfortunately there seems no workaround for this nuisance.
50
All of them!! ..and the endless demands to ‘add a phone number’ ‘add a photo!’ and “add a street address” etc. Advertisements everywhere, ruining the entertainment value of the program, worse than the TV we gave up to be on the net.
The net has definitely gone backwards in the last decade.
20
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/uk-pulls-plug-ps24-billion-desert-power-fantasy
I’m reminded of the plan to build some enormous solar farm and pipe the power to Singapore which was only half the distance of this ridiculous escapade
“The Australia-Asia Power Link (AAPowerLink) is a proposed electricity infrastructure project that involves a 4,300 km (2,700 mi) submarine power cable to export solar power from Australia to Singapore.
90
I believe that this has been abandoned. Partly the 2 billionaires falling out, partly because the Singaporeans weren’t gullible enough to (or laughing so hysterically) that they wouldn’t pay up (especially as they can get lots of cheap power from Malaysia & Vietnam).
Partly also that much closer Darwin won’t take any more solar electricity as it “stuffs” their isolated grid – indeed there are 2 solar panel lots installed that aren’t allowed to be joined.
Then there is the rather fatuous idea of running a cable over 2 very active tectonic fault lines.
80
FWIW – latest Kunstler
“Chaos Creeps in on Little Cat’s Feet
“Great cities fall to the sound of cheering crowds.” Ami Kozak on “X” ”
https://www.kunstler.com/p/chaos-creeps-in-on-little-cats-feet
00
That’s a very cheap-ass supermarket in the photo, do you think that’s typical of the USA?
00
FWIW – Hmmmm!
“X ADDS FEATURE TO REPORT POSTS DEEMED ‘ILLEGAL IN AUSTRALIA’”
https://richardsonpost.com/staff-writer-cauldron-pool/40017/x-adds-feature-to-report-posts-deemed-illegal-in-australia/
40
That’s appalling.
I like the final paragraph:
This is exactly what happens now that Australia is a One Party State with no meaningful opposition party.
130
Thank god women know how to manage a society better than men!
There’s a reason “Nanny” has bad connotations.
41
Capital G for God
20
The more it all falls apart the tighter the thumbscrews, in their futile attempt at controlling all narratives.
The remaining 3 years will be a barrel of laughs.
60
You go girl! Tell it like it is.
I’m Not Putting On A F****** Hijab” – UK Singer Refuses To Virtue Signal For Palestine, Pulls Out Of Festivals.
That war has been going on in the background for f****** decades . Way before anyone alive today was born And all of a sudden yall are throwing around words like genocide and Zionist not even knowing the meaning of those words,” Banks continued.
“I don’t need to be on stage stressing out to appease some dumb a$$ protesters who literally rely on those people in Palestine being crushed so they can solicit donations they DO NOT give to the cause.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/im-not-putting-fing-hijab-uk-singer-refuses-virtue-signal-palestine-pulls-out-festivals
/naughty lefty-offending words censored
LOL. Cracked me up.
Tell it like it is.
Clueless seeking-a-cause-to-follow nobodies who follow the equally blind clueless crowd, for a cause they don’t understand and can’t affect anyway.
130
“Clueless seeking-a-cause-to-follow nobodies who follow the equally blind clueless crowd, for a cause they don’t understand and can’t affect anyway.”
Now don’t be like that, they are all voters in a democracy too..
50
Is your life better or worse now than before the last election years ago?
Democracy is useless if the voters are ignorant and those voted in worse.
10
A question for Jo – have the DOS attacks slowed or stopped now that we haven’t been posting opinions about world conflicts?
21
Probably moved on to noxious fumes attacks.😎
Can we talk about Israel’s nukes?
Can we say why Trump really bombed Iran?
Can we expose IDF crimes against citizens?
Can we discuss ze big boom if the BBB passes the house?
Never fear, the CCP and loonies will have bigger things to worry about soon enough.
53
I’m half way through “Sword and Scimitar” by Raymond Ibrahim, an Egyptian Copt, who details ‘fourteen centuries of war between Islam and the West’. I’m finding it fascinating, in the face of academic claims that before the Crusades, all was peace, and cuddly kittens. One titbit that intrigues me is that Charlemagne did a pilgrimage to Jerusalem around 800 AD. There is a story there that has not been told! It was a time when Islam was ‘cooling it’s jets’, having been reduced to raiding parties, and piracy, while controlling the shores of the Mediterranean. It would have been an interesting voyage. Charlemagne’s grandfather Charles Martel had stopped the Muslims at Tours, near Paris, and Byzantium had defeated them at their second siege of Constantinople; when 5000 went home, after 200 000 had attacked. Byzantium reached another peak in the 9th century, with 3 consecutive kings gaining control of the NE Mediterranean, Anatolia and Syria, down to half the Holy land. Ibrahim uses sources from both sides, and speaking Arabic comes up with plenty of interesting info.
80
FG, what you did feel going through that book – like my feelings, the moment coming out of a Jordanian gorge in front of Petra !
This is Europe. I am from here.
20
You go girl! J.K. Rowling fires back
Attention all men telling me I look like a trans woman: I’m sensing that this isn’t meant as a compliment. In fact, the implication seems to be that trans women look male, or odd, or ugly. This is appallingly transphobic and I’ll thank you to take your bigotry off my timeline.
https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1937466077350592860
Always entertaining when their “logic” is used against them.
141
No phones at the dinner table!
https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_sym0627hrg1z23obp.mp4
😆😆
110
Good one!
50
Here is an excellent video from Rowan Dean talking about two of Australia’s quasi-socialist anti-free speech advocates, the e Safety Kommissar and Sussssssan Ley.
https://youtu.be/cryrSe5U_xw
80
Sssussan Ley already lookss like a dead duck. Her ressignation sspeech iss already written. It apparently ssayss: “Desspite being the besst leader my party ever had, I have been forced out by ssexissm. even though Ausstralia sstrongly ssupported my policiess, I am the victim of ssexist old white men.”
31
The short life of wind turbines.
https://notrickszone.com/2025/06/28/safety-of-german-wind-turbines-heightens-after-70-meter-rotor-blade-snaps-off/
112
Blackout Bowen to review gas and Albo has the inside running on China.
‘PM plays down China threat despite warning shot over defence spending.
‘The PM declined to acknowledge the threat posed by Beijing’s military build-up, insisting it was in Australia’s national interest to ‘invest in our capability and invest in our relationships’. (Oz)
62
FWIW – not covid but – – –
“FOLLOW THE SCIENCE: Scientists Uncover New Concerns About Billion-Dollar Heart Drug: An investigation has uncovered evidence of significant misreporting, raising new concerns about the approval and long-term use of ticagrelor over the past decade.”
https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-uncover-new-concerns-about-billion-dollar-heart-drug/
Via https://instapundit.com/729201/#disqus_thread
Another “confidence booster”
60
Green hydrogen bites the dust.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-30/central-queensland-green-hydrogen-project-cqh2-dumped-gladstone/105476564
81
Bowen must be trembling in his boots.
“Windmills, and the rest of this ‘JUNK,’ are the most expensive and inefficient energy in the world, is destroying the beauty of the environment, and is 10 times more costly than any other energy,” Trump wrote in a post to Truth Social on June 21. “It is time to break away, finally, from this craziness!!!” (wuwt)
71
Enough geo political, climate, “renewables ” mumbo jumbo, I have impotant news! A bakery near me (in the Australian half hour drive kind of near me) has installed a what they are calling a meat pie atm. Vending machine must have sounded a bit ordinary.
Swipe your card (no cash sorry) select your pie and watch the robotic arm retrieve your nicely packaged pie from the heated compartment that opens up. 24×7 pies, now that is progress.
I give it a week before its vandalised
90
Febo been doing this for a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FEBO
00
Are robots making the pies (24-7)?
10
If Australia didn’t prohibit oil and gas exploration and fracking over such large areas we may not have such a serious problem.
But most people don’t understand or care, most present company excepted.
60
An example of insane government overreach. Henry VIII took over religion. Governments in the 20th century took over health and education. Global Warming is completely baseless autocracy and legalized theft. But now obesity is an excuse to fine the vendors of food, not the consumers. From “The Telegraph”..
Supermarkets will be ordered to cut up to 100 calories from the average shopping basket under a new “nanny state” drive to tackle obesity.
Ministers are set to impose a “healthy food standard” that will force stores to curtail sales of sugary and salty snacks in favour of more fruit and vegetables.
Shops failing to meet the mandatory targets could face fines, which retail sources warned could see prices rise.
And of course failure to stop overeating will mean more government cash. You can assume the money will be used to buy food for someone else.
41
Why not put the overeaters in the stocks in the public square and pelt them with food? Sugary and salty snacks. What’s next? Execution for the elderly with seizure of their estate. For the common good.
41
Who wants to tell him? 😁
10
Cold winters have returned to south east Australia.
https://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/coldest-june-nights-in-decades-for-canberra-inland-nsw/1890694
11
MSM Claims MAHA “Threatens To Set Women Back Decades”
An increasing number of Americans are abandoning processed foods and taking control of their own food supply chain—planting backyard gardens and sourcing meat, eggs, dairy, and pantry staples directly from local markets and farms. The trend, which is gaining momentum under the “Make America Healthy Again” movement—and even noted by Goldman—reflects a broader push for food independence and a return to community-based sourcing.
“In order for a family to eat a diet of mostly homegrown or even just homemade meals… that’s going to be a lot more work for women and mothers especially,” Dr. MacKendrick says. It’s an ideal that the MAHA moms have already embodied—and that would be not only unrealistic but unfair to expect from all American families.
https://www.zerohedge.com/food/msm-claims-maha-threatens-set-women-back-decades
Funny how it’s never been a problem since the stone age. Hubby can help. Kids can help.
REAL healthy food grown for free at home! Shock, horror!
Stupid feminists.
As the old joke goes- if all the feminists were laid end to end that’d be the best thing that could ever happen to them.
30
FWIW
What can happen if you say “No Way!” with reinforcements
“Canadian Government Rescinds Digital Services Tax, Requests to Resume Trade Talks Again
June 29, 2025 | Sundance | 128 Comments”
““Elbows up” and knees bent. As expected given the nature of their dependency, the Canadian government has rescinded the digital services tax against U.S. tech companies.
The June 30th collection is halted and the Canadian government led by Mark Carney will be bringing legislation to rescind the tax entirely.”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/06/29/canadian-government-rescinds-digital-services-tax-requests-to-resume-trade-talks-again/
10