JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
??..Holiday Monday ??..🤔
31
Ozempic Reduces Alcohol Cravings
There is growing evidence that Ozempic (semaglutide) may reduce alcohol cravings and consumption. A randomized, placebo-controlled trial published in JAMA Psychiatry found that low-dose semaglutide significantly reduced alcohol craving, the amount of alcohol consumed, and the frequency of heavy drinking days in adults with symptoms of alcohol use disorder.
This aligns with earlier findings from a case series, which reported a significant reduction in alcohol use disorder symptoms in all six participants taking semaglutide for weight loss, with an average decrease of 9.5 points on the AUDIT screening tool.
AI-generated answer. Please verify critical facts.
60
Welcome back Monday. Still raining here in Sydney……………
60
The rain is clearing now. About time too. The NSW Coastal Dams are just about all full.
https://www.waternsw.com.au/nsw-dams/nsw-storage-levels/greater-sydney-dam-levels
https://www.waternsw.com.au/nsw-dams/nsw-storage-levels/regional-nsw-dam-levels
50
Where’s Flannery, he needs to be told.
30
Think I detect a little more warmth in the weather here in Sydney. Any one else notice any change . .
30
All years must be identical. Otherwise it’s Climate Change. Warmer or cooler. Any change really.
Ask Napoleon and Hitler, both defeated by the lethally cold weather at the gates of Moscow. You would have thought all those cannons and detonations would have warmed the place?
171
Not really –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu_B7utj7gU
10
A change of pace:
Washington State radar sites are lighting up at night – not with rain, but with birds heading south. Cliff Mass, a Univ. of WA professor, put up a post today with images.
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/08/birds-know-that-summer-is-ending-soon.html?lr=1754867156634
The technology can show which direction the birds are migrating.
40
There was a problem posting on Sunday afternoon Australian eastern time. Did anyone else have a problem?
.
[There were issues from yesterday until late this morning. Seemingly another instance of interference from an international location. – Raquel]
160
Probably by persons that don’t like Science or Free Speech.
80
Albo is overseas…. Did he do it?
30
Mondayitis must’ve been caused by the boiling – correction: “considerably warmer” – seas around Old Blighty this summer (via radio bs news) upsetting the interweb of thingies.
How much warmer you ask? Five, ten, fifteen degrees hotter? Is the Gulf Stream on fire? C’mon, how much warmer was the English Channel…
0.2 of a Celsius degree. Zero-point-two.
Little Chicken meet Wolf Boy 🙄
Glad you’re back, Jo and Co.
141
The East Australian Current is behaving badly.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-213.21,-32.52,2120/loc=148.438,-35.106
32
“0.2 of a Celsius degree. ”
I think the answer is to ask “If your temperature was 37.2 instead of 37deg, would it worry you? Would you feel sick?…
40
Amazing advertisement to replace your ten year old solar panels pops up on Youtube.
The original panels were 50% subsidized by the RET, which went to the installer. Now you can get cash in your hand as well with a ‘solar rebate’.
All this pushes up the cost of electricity to EVERYONE. No one is ‘investing’ if solar panels only last ten years.
The whole country is paying directly, indirectly in direct taxes and green STCs for this huge scam. Every Ten years.
How long do solar panels and windmills really last? Hazelwood was 50 years old and still 98% of design output and it was demolished!
And the 300,000 EVs now in Australia will now feel the cost as the tax trap closes and the exemptions vanish.
We are being robbed. Again and again. And this ‘free’ electricity is making electricity non affordable and soon not available as coal is blown up and gas is turned off.
250
As coal and gas are stopped and windmills and solar panels stop anyway, how many people are going to freeze to death because of Global Warming?
251
The comments today in The Australian about batteries are saying that honest solar system providers are not also offering batteries, with the providers saying that the value for money doesn’t add up. And they are not wrong.
30
China’s tech giant claims 1,800-mile (2,800km) range for solid-state EV battery, files patent
Huawei has filed a patent detailing a sulfide-based solid-state battery design with energy densities between 180 and 225 Wh/lb, roughly two to three times higher than today’s typical electric vehicle batteries.
Huawei’s patent application reveals that its battery uses a method of doping sulfide electrolytes with nitrogen to reduce side reactions at the lithium interface. However, beyond this detail, the company is keeping most of its technology under wraps as competition intensifies to safely mass-produce solid-state batteries.
https://batteriesnews.com/chinas-tech-giant-claims-1800-mile-range-for-solid-state-ev-battery-files-patent/
No prizes for second place in high tech.
50
BYD employees 900,000 people and 110,000 are in R&D roles. They employ 120,000 engineers.
Their latest hybrids have a claimed range of 2,000km.
I will not be buying a Chinese made car in the near future but there is a growing probability that only Chinese built cars will be sold in Australia. Some may have a European or even Tesla badge but odds are they will be made in China.
100
At the most basic level a hybrid is an ICE with regenerative braking. Their economy degrades in city traffic, just not as much as a pure ICE and the engine can have fewer cubes because the hybrid motor adds quite a bit of torque for acceleration.
I’ve lived with my hybrid for 14 yrs and it by far the best car I’ve ever owned and that is not because of economy, it is reliability.
Australia isn’t going to fall out of love with Toyota.
30
Willis E had a look at that a while back
“Why Your EV Won’t Fill Up In Five”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/07/04/why-your-ev-wont-fill-up-in-five/
30
Caveat emptor. A BYD EV came up nearly one quarter of its claimed distance range per charge. Many EVs fall short of their distance range and one can only assume the batteries will deteriorate with more usage.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/motoring/motoring-news/ev-realworld-range-testing-finds-popular-models-falling-short-by-up-to-23pc-less-than-advertised/news-story/11ea169c7c2fa978c9a81af94fc6e2e8
30
*short*
00
But its the same for fuel usage in ICE, the manufacturers claim 7.2L/100km, everyone writing reviews of the car get 13L/100…
10
Can you link us to just one?
00
AI industry horrified to face largest copyright class action ever certified
AI industry groups are urging an appeals court to block what they say is the largest copyright class action ever certified. They’ve warned that a single lawsuit raised by three authors over Anthropic’s AI training now threatens to “financially ruin” the entire AI industry if up to 7 million claimants end up joining the litigation and forcing a settlement.
As Anthropic argued, it now “faces hundreds of billions of dollars in potential damages liability at trial in four months” based on a class certification rushed at “warp speed” that involves “up to seven million potential claimants, whose works span a century of publishing history,” each possibly triggering a $150,000 fine.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/ai-industry-horrified-to-face-largest-copyright-class-action-ever-certified/
I wonder if that applies to (CIA controlled) archive.org?
/what, you didn’t know? 😆
80
There’s an article in the SMH this morning about the fights inside Labor over legislation to clean up AI, which some see as the wild west.
Some want new laws limiting what AI can use for free.
Some (the unions) want AI limited completely so it doesn’t cost Australian jobs.
The mainstream media want it to pay for every article used to train AI.
Some say its the greatest thing since sliced bread and we should pour Govt money into propping up the winners Albo picks..
This morning’s little glitch meant the comment I wrote couldn’t be posted up.
10
More ‘proof’ The Warming done it!
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/569623/cold-weather-snap-set-for-country-this-week-as-spring-looms
Spring ‘looms’? The article even states it’s still 5 weeks away… looms? And when a cold snap lingers for a week (longer than 3 or 5 days) surely then it’s a COLD WAVE or even worserer [panic!] a COLD TSUNAMI…
Meanwhile on the intertubes, rumour has it Morocco’s 3,200m high Oukaimeden Ski ‘Resort’ may be in for a US$8 million rebuild – the old French resort has been left a ruin as of late – only 80 km south of Marrakech [get yer old Crosby, Stills & Nash LPs out for a rerun on the Express). Toot-toot!
https://www.snow-forecast.com/whiteroom/8-new-lifts-for-africas-highest-ski-area/
Also MORE snow to shower/dust WA’s Bluff Knoll this Thursday (?) as yer another cold SW blast swipes the south coast: sounds like Winter to me 🥶
70
Blocking is causing a squeeze.
http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDY65100.pdf
11
Weather Watch TV is quite good IMHO –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu_B7utj7gU
50
Thanks LR, just added it to my bookmarks.
20
Microsoft paid out $17 million in bug bounties in past year
Microsoft on Tuesday announced that 344 security researchers in 59 countries received $17 million in rewards through its bug bounty programs over the past year.
This is the highest total bounty the Redmond-based tech giant has distributed in a single year since launching its bug bounty programs in 2018, and brings the total paid out to $92.5 million.
Last year, the company said it handed out $16.6 million in rewards between July 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024, and the amount was roughly $13 million every year between 2020 and 2023.
The $1.6 million it paid out during the Zero Day Quest qualifying research challenge was also included in the 2025 total. Microsoft received over 600 vulnerability submissions as part of the event.
https://www.securityweek.com/microsoft-paid-out-17-million-in-bug-bounties-in-past-year/
All while M$ claims Win 11 is the best most reliable OS ever (since Win 10), while forgetting how awesome W7 was.
Maybe if M$ didn’t can so many jobs they could work on the chronIc blue screens of death (BSODs), now changed into black screens of death to be more user friendly.
Maybe light red next?
60
Some years ago, company I was working for was running Windows boxes in their equipment. After lots of problems, a massive software re-write was undertaken to change over to a Linux platform.
Currently I’m trying to keep a Windows 10 system alive at the Museum, running a flight sim. Despite being outfitted with a UPS to save it when the power is shut off every evening, I regularly have to re-master the SSD, to the extent I have shown front desk staff how to swap SSDs when it goes belly-up.
20
Support for the wind and solar transition should collapse like a punctured balloon when people regularly check the dashboard for their local grid at sunrise and sunset, or breakfast and dinnertime.
This is Texas, ERCOT https://www.gridstatus.io/live/ercot
Britain https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live
Aust https://www.nem-watch.info/widgets/RenewEconomy/
This will signal the number of occasions when the meals will have to be served cold if the heat has to come from wind and solar power.
What if a Presidential Executive Order mandates all weather reports to include the percentage of wind and solar power in the local grid at the time?
Trillions of dollars have been spent around the world rolling out wind and solar infrastructure and in return we have more expensive and less reliable power with catastrophic environmental impacts.
The elephant in the net zero room is the wind droughts or dunkelflautes that Australian investigators documented over a decade ago.
https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/the-late-discovery-of-wind-droughts
Dirt farmers are alert to the threat of rain droughts, but the wind farmers never checked the reliability of the wind supply to become aware of wind droughts, wind lulls, known as Dunkelflautes in Europe.
https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/we-have-to-talk-about-wind-droughts
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And this is King Island which is supposed to generate 65% of electricity with ‘Ruin ables’………….
Check it out at Midnight on any night of your choosing.
“The King Island Renewable Integration Project (KIREIP) was an initiative of Hydro Tasmania, with the assistance of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to develop a world-leading, hybrid off-grid power system to supply 65% of King Island’s energy needs using renewable energy. The system is capable of 100% renewable operation, the first megawatt class off-grid system with this capability in the world.”
https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/hybrid-energy-solutions/success-stories/king-island
Just check out the ‘Real Time Energy Dashboard’ at Midnight and see how it doesn’t work as promised. It’s not even doing 65% right now.
And the Battery looks quite useless.
60
And now, diesel is 92%. Thank goodness for Hydrocarbons……………………………
70
Wish all of this was brought to the public’s attention. So many folks are still running on pure beliefs.
30
The wind has picked up, only 60% diesel power at the time of this post. This quote from their website cracks me up:
“The system is capable of 100% renewable operation, the first megawatt class off-grid system with this capability in the world.”
Potential always seems to outweigh actual output with the renewables crowd.
60
When intermittent wind energy enthusiasts
are forced to face low-energy dunkelflautes,
may we not feel a certain schadenfreude,
direct at them some scathing lambasting?
70
“This will signal the number of occasions when the meals will have to be served…” raw!
Half-cooked sausages anyone, still bleeding in the middle? Chicken drumsticks red and stringy inside? Parasites in your under-done pork?
Is this a Govt-imposed health hazard that we can demand they fix?
10
I’ll put this link here for TdeF, who seems to be coming to an understanding of events , having previously frequently declared that he “can’t understand it”.
This is a plausible explanation of what we are witnessing, especially in Victoria during “covid”.
https://escapekey.substack.com/p/from-hierarchy-to-technocracy
91
Thanks. However I think what is happening is the expansion of communications to light speed and storage to beyond belief and processing power also unbelievable. AI is just one product of this and that threatens ownership of any information. I still remember a time when I knew more than my telephone.
80
It’s uncanny how some of Bailey’s predictions have come to pass, albeit without specifics. She may not use terms such as The Great Reset, 15 minute cities or Pandemic Treaty, but the gist of the concepts are there.
30
I was just about to rant pontifically and repetitively around this very subject.
Many of us here came of age in the Space Final Frontier Medicine Cures Disease Age.
We thought of ‘Science’ as inquiry and truth seeking.
We have witnessed, with a Climate Change front row seat, ‘Science’ transmute from a path of liberation to a juggernaut of authoritarian doctrine.
With the formerly revered institutions of academia and medicine leading the way.
It’s difficult for us because we keep looking for Science to ride in on its’ magnificent steed and save us.
We are like Nipponese loyal soldiers, faithfully holding on, isolated on a Pacific island, unable to comprehend the fall of the Empire.
But, it turns out the Emperor and the wind are not divine.
And there is no Prester John.
(Apologies for the mixing of historical allusions, or illusions.)
Basic physicality of our world science barely exist any more, collapsing with a Big Bang, as cyber tech science becomes the sturmgruppen of the new fascists camouflaged in rainbow colors.
No human has left Earth atmosphere since the early 1970s, and medical ‘science’ now seems to invent and cause far more maladies than it cures or prevents. (Actually, I thinks it’s the third leading cause of death in the Western world.)
It is fortunate that Richard Feynman didn’t have to see this.
90
Well put Honk. Your rants, despite being rambling and facetious, are poignant.
30
Thanks, I think.
facetious
Looking that word up as soon I get a chance.
Faint praise is what I’m most acclimated to.
30
Or is it feint praise.
20
I see the blob thinks it is time to demonize renewable energy of the the ‘wrong sort’ (ie. solidified solar energy a.k.a wood heaters)…. And just to demonstrate how local newspapers have ‘zombified’, I have included links to the same ‘cut-n-paste’ article that appeared the same day in local papers across regional NSW…
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/
https://www.centralwesterndaily.com.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/
https://www.therural.com.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/
https://www.cessnockadvertiser.com.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/
https://www.dailyliberal.com.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/
https://www.jimboombatimes.com.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/
https://www.nynganobserver.com.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/
https://www.standard.net.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/
https://www.northweststar.com.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/
https://www.dungogchronicle.com.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/
https://www.inverelltimes.com.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/
https://www.merimbulanewsweekly.com.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/
https://www.hepburnadvocate.com.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/
https://www.gleninnesexaminer.com.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/
https://www.northerndailyleader.com.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/?src=rss
https://www.irrigator.com.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/
https://www.queanbeyanage.com.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/
https://www.hardenexpress.com.au/story/9033536/living-nightmare-the-regional-wood-fire-pollution-crisis/
120
We suspected this – but that is horrifying, and worrying …
Auto
30
Would have been good to have at least one link that’s readable, or be told that they are all paywalled…
00
All you need to know is in here –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canberra_Times
00
A choir and all out of tune
30
FWIW – for the covid record
Another “jab shower”?
“Michelle Spencer: Lawsuit Exposes Covid Stillbirths and Defends Vaccine Informed Consent”
https://thenewamerican.com/video/spotlight/michelle-spencer-lawsuit-exposes-covid-stillbirths-and-defends-vaccine-informed-consent/
40
August 31 in your Capital City. Look up “March for Australia.”
50
Dr Karl doesn’t understand climate science and resorts to AI folly.
‘Stark types in “climate change is a hoax” and the Digital Dr Karl replies a few seconds later in a stilted and tonally inconsistent recreation of Kruszelnicki’s voice. It wants to know if we are suggesting the climate crisis “is a fabricated idea”. We are only able to answer yes or no. We respond yes, at which point the AI quotes Barack Obama on the effects of the climate crisis.’ (Guardian)
31
Bird choppers – on steroids …
https://www.offshorewind.biz/2025/08/05/153-metre-wind-turbine-blades-head-to-testing-after-leaving-chinas-yantai-port/
“153-Metre Wind Turbine Blades Head to Testing After Leaving China’s Yantai Port”
“The ultra-long blades for what will be the world’s most powerful offshore wind turbine have been shipped from Yantai Port in China’s northeastern Shandong province and are en route to a test base.”
“Three blades, each measuring 153 metres long and weighing 83.5 tonnes, were loaded at the Port of Yantai on 1 August. The ultra-long blades are planned to be installed on a 26 MW offshore wind turbine, which is being developed by Dongfang Electric Corporation.”
So 26 MW from one bird chopper. If the wind blows nicely.
“The wind turbine’s hub centre is 185 metres high” – add 153 metres, and tips of the blades will be not less then 338 metres high [depending on the dimensions of the hub and generator nacelle at the top of the – er – pole]!
That’s about 50 feet higher than Q1, @ the Gold Coast.
3 blades – just over 250 tonnes, plus the nacelle.
Could the UK – or Australia – manufacture anything like this, in these days of ‘gween energy’?
Let alone do so at a modest profit?
Auto
80
The article claims that they will achieve 45% CF from their new 17 MW offshore wind turbine. Tell ‘em they’re dreaming…
80
Also stated that the nacele has a power to weight ratio of “ just 37 tonnes per MW”..
..so, that implies a 960 tonne nacele will be craned 200m up from a floating ship . !😳😳
..That will be woth seeing !
70
There are some very big bits of kit operating offshore.
Sleipnir – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSCV_Sleipnir can lift 10,000 tonnes on one crane [it has two], but only to about 130-140 metres.
Pioneering Spirit picks up old oil rigs, complete – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneering_Spirit – and has up to
48,000 tonnes (topsides lift capacity) …
But, yes, nearly a thousand tonnes to 200 metres is quite a lift.
Worth watching [from a distance, on the precautionary principle!].
But, I expect the Chinese already have half a dozen cranes that can do that …
Auto
40
Deepwater drilling rigs (i.e. floating rigs) regularly lift loads over 1000 metric tonnes, with the latest high specification hardware being rated for more than 1400 metric tonnes.
The weakest link is the braking system. Surprisingly (perhaps?), the wire rope needed to do this is only 54mm in diameter.
they don’t lift loads to 200m, but around 40m is normal. The whole system is deigned only to go up and down, not slew or luff.
Here are the specifications for the latest generation – the Deepwater Atlas drillship.
https://www.deepwater.com/documents/RigSpecs/Deepwater%20Atlas.pdf.
30
Hi James,
Just curious, how many of those ropes are involved in each lift of the 1400 tonnes?
10
1 wire rope, run through effectively, 16 pulleys to pull that much weight..
these systems work with 1 end of the wire rope fixed in place (called a dead-line anchor), and the moving end is attached to the a winch drum that lengthens and shortens the cable, making a hook go up and down.
it’s an ongoing process, up-down….
here’s a video showing one process. each piece of pipe they are picking up is about 12m (40-ish feet) long. larger rigs use similar pipes, just.a lot more pieces in total, as they may be drilling in 2+km of water, plus a few km of rock after that
https://youtu.be/F-HrLO5m_-s?si=iZhPsbGAevISL807
10
The load capacity of the wire in the rope is about 100 tpsi max. How can a rope of the size mentioned lift 1400 tonnes?
00
Yes, sorry, it’s been thirty years since I looked at this stuff.
00
Biggest rope I ever worked with was an ‘Insurance Wire’ – a spare, emergency mooring wire, on the old [built 1963] ‘British Venture’, a 38,000 tons deadweight crude oil tanker.
We used it to [extra-securely!] moor at a repair berth on the Tyne, in 1973.
It was about 16″ in old money [circumference] so about 128 mm in new money [diameter].
A bit of a joke – as the ship was in for repairs, the boiler was off [survey?] and so had no steam on the forward winches or windlass. The compressed air was of no assistance whatsoever, IIRC!
So. we had to move it – and run it out, and try to heave it taut – by hand.
No fing chance! Even with about twenty crew and six cadets.
It wound up just clear of the water, with the ship light …
Getting it back in – even with steam, before we sailed – was no picnic!
Now, as anchors and mooring ropes [amongst other kit on board] are generally scaled very roughly as the square root of the tonnage of the ship, tell me why later. bigger, ships [super tankers say, of 300,000 tdwt] generally didn’t have insurance wires, for emergency deployment on a dead ship?
Auto
30
Even offshore, turbines will never achieve anything like 45% CF outside the high lats [nth] and low lats [sth]. But in the S. Hemisphere most people live above lat 30 [guessing]*. I mentioned y’day how Venezuela and Brazil seem to be in a permanent wind desert, it’s the same now.
The N. Hemisphere can go to ‘ell if they choose but we MUST make our way independently. Wind will not deliver north of the Murray nor sun south of it.
*https://blog.wgpayscale.com/
30
Global warming has produced a decrease in Pacific typhoons.
https://notrickszone.com/2025/08/10/japan-meteorological-agency-data-show-number-of-pacific-typhoons-have-dropped/
31
60
Fair Q. Current PM definitely the latter.
40