12 July 2012 by Marion Kilgour
When I worked in the small town of Chetwynd in northern BC, there was an ongoing conversation in the letters section of the local news about the health effects of wind turbines on a nearby ridge, and in town. I’ll admit that I haven’t been following the science much since then. The North American Platform [...]
Posted in Canada, Health Policy3 Comments
03 January 2012 by Marion Kilgour
I think that because water is so ubiquitous, and, let’s face it, pretty awesome all by itself (it expands as it freezes!) people like to use it as the basis for their made up chemistry. An ad for a co-worker selling his unused ScaleHammer recently appeared on the company classifieds. So, I looked up the [...]
Posted in Canada, Pseudoscience, Skepticism8 Comments
09 December 2011 by Marion Kilgour
Most of the cell phone / Wi-Fi hysteria seems to me like it’s been coming from the eastern provinces, although Edmonton has had some short-lived and ineffective campaigns to get Wi-Fi out of schools. But, this summer I got my first taste of local activism about cell towers. Initially, I was on board with the [...]
Posted in Alberta, Health Policy, Pseudoscience, Skepticism15 Comments
29 September 2011 by Marion Kilgour
Canadian Blood Services (CBS) and their MSM deferral policy have been on my radar for a while now. A friend passed this editorial along to me the other day from the Globe and Mail. On a positive note, CBS is reviewing their lifetime ban on men-who-have-had-sex-with-men (MSM) again! Maybe this time they’ll follow the recommendations of their own [...]
Posted in Canada, Health Policy, Skepticism1 Comment
30 August 2011 by Marion Kilgour
Recently, I stopped adding salt to my water for cooking pasta. I had always been told by my mother that adding salt makes the water boil faster…but everything seemed to be taking the same amount of time. This seemed like something I hadn’t thought about before but could now easily apply some critical thinking to. [...]
Posted in Critical Thinking, Diet and Nutrition, Science14 Comments
29 December 2010 by Marion Kilgour
I recently moved into a new place and, for the first time since I moved out of my parent’s house for university, I have enough room to unpack all of my books. One that I pulled out of the box of beloved children’s books was Scary Science: The Truth Behind Vampires, Witches, UFO’s Ghosts and [...]
Posted in Canada, Reviews, Skepticism1 Comment
06 December 2010 by Marion Kilgour
On December 6, 1989, Marc Lépin walked into the École Polytechnique in Montréal with a rifle. He shot one woman in the hallway, walked into a classroom full of engineering students, ordered the men to leave, and killed 6 of the 10 women remaining. He then continued through the school, shooting women, and men if [...]
Posted in Canada, Culture, History, Quebec, Social Sciences2 Comments
15 September 2010 by Marion Kilgour
Back in November, I wrote a post about Canadian Blood Services (CBS), and their indefinite ban on donations from men who have had sex with men (MSM). The point of the post was that an indefinite ban is not supported by science. Well, the ruling for Canadian Blood Services v. Kyle Freeman is in, and [...]
Posted in Canada, Health, Health Policy, Probability and Statistics1 Comment
24 August 2010 by Marion Kilgour
In the past three months, the Harper government has said some things about statistics that are blatantly wrong and received some media attention, which is a bit unusual. What things did the government say, and were they actually correct? First, in June the government announced that it would be replacing the mandatory long form census [...]
Posted in Canada, Critical Thinking, Economics, Probability and Statistics8 Comments
16 March 2010 by Marion Kilgour
I was chatting with the nice man who runs the photography studio near my house the other day, and somehow our conversation wandered into the environment. He proudly informed me that he had converted his car, by himself, to use hydrogen as fuel. The mechanical engineer in me made me lean forward a bit with [...]
Posted in Pseudoscience3 Comments
Marion is a mechanical engineer, and also works to promote critical thinking and scientific literacy through local skeptical and atheist activism in Edmonton, Alberta. Marion especially wishes to encourage girls to consider science or technology-based careers, and is involved in the University of Alberta's Women in Scholarship, Engineering, Science and Technology (WISEST) project.
