Puzzles for July 2020

The crossword puzzle this month has been compiled by a  Skeptic casting a somewhat bemused eye over events of the last few months. You’ll find it HERE and also near the top of the PUZZLES PAGE, along with July’s Picture Puzzles, Mixed Bag Questions and Logic & Maths Puzzles.

In May, we started an additional collection of sets of “special puzzles” of various kinds to help those of you who are stuck at home to pass the time. You’ll find that growing collection of .pdfs on the Puzzles Page if you scroll down past the July puzzles. Enjoy, and stay safe.

 

Skeptics Café via Zoom – Update

Vic Skeptics Cafés monthly public meetings will now be on-line, for the foreseeable future.

Join us every third Monday of each month.

Next: Citizen Science with Brendan O’Brien

Monday 15th June 8:15 pm chat, 8:30 pm (1030 UTC) presentation

Details on the EVENTS page

Puzzles for June 2020

New Puzzles for June are on the PUZZLES PAGE.

Last month we gave you a link to puzzles and diversions of various kinds (not specifically Skeptic-related).

Here are some more:

May 2020 Special Number 1 (Where’the Ball)

May 2020 Special Number 2

May 2020 Special Number 3

May 2020 Special Number 4

Science Talent Search – 2020 Style

The Science Talent Search of the Science Teachers Association of Victoria will continue to run in 2020, celebrating its 69th consecutive year of operation in 2020. Planning around The Covid – 19 situation
requires that the usual Judging Day will not proceed; instead ALL student projects will be electronically submitted and judged remotely this year.

The Science Talent Search has been enthusiastically supported by The Australian Skeptics for many years now.
Here are some letters of thanks that we received from students whose cash bursaries we funded last year.

Puzzles for May 2020

May’s usual Picture Puzzles, Mixed Bag Questions,  Crossword Puzzle and Logic & Maths Questions are at the top of the PUZZLES PAGE .

This month’s crossword is about General Skeptical Issues.

In addition, here are twenty sets of puzzles and diversions of various kinds (not specifically Skeptic-related) which you might find helpful if you are stuck at home.

April 2020 Special Number 1

April 2020 Special Number 2

April 2020 Special Number 3

ATTENTION! Skeptics Café via Zoom

We are having our first virtual Skeptics Cafe TONIGHT (Monday 20th April) at 7.30.

From Vic Skeptics President

Hi everyone,

Tonight Clem Stanyon will be giving us a great talk about his work in the biotech industry and the GMO crops that he is involved in producing.

We will be trialling this event on zoom.us. You don’t need to create an account, you should be able to follow the link below.

Cheers,
Chris

Patents and Portents: In Insider View on the Production of GMOs

Born to English migrants from the war generation, English teachers both, I have lived and worked in 5 cities in 3 countries on 3 continents: Perth and Melbourne here in Australia, Detroit and Seattle in the US, and Lyon in France, in which work I have been consistently employed to create DNA constructs for making genetically modified organisms. I currently work in the Victorian government agricultural sector, for the first time making GMOs that are not for research purposes only, but for commercial purposes, working mainly on constructs for canola and wheat.

Clem’s talk starts at 7:30pm sharp.
We encourage questions to be posted on the Q&A chat.

Follow the zoom link:
https://unimelb.zoom.us/j/95223630701

Or join by phone:
Dial (Australia): +61 3 7018 2005 or +61 2 8015 6011

 

From The Vault

Videos produced with, for or by Vic Skeptics

2009

The Bed of Nails – Faith or Physics?  1 min 15 s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXj24tYimOI

2011

Great Ocean Road Skeptics – 10:23 Homeopathy Challenge Bells Beach Australia 2011  3 min 55 s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhDA07jYncU

10:23 Campaign Against Homeopathy – Melbourne, Australia 2011 4 min 53 s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvgRMcfo0Yk

Puzzles for April 2020

New Picture Puzzles, Mixed Bag Questions,  Crossword Puzzle and Logic & Maths Questions have been placed, blog-style, at the top of the PUZZLES PAGE .

This month’s crossword is about Internet Scams, and as Scamming is a crossword theme we frequently visit, links to several earlier Crosswords about scams, frauds and hoaxes are supplied.

Dont forget, we’ve got nearly ten years worth of puzzles in our archive.

https://vicskeptics.wordpress.com/puzzles/puzzles-archives/

Enjoy!

“Skeptics Got Talent”

One of the great spin-offs of hosting a Skeptics Convention is that it provides an opportunity to showcase the talents of “local” presenters and performers to a wider audience.

Late Cancellation

Unfortunately we have had to cancel Skeptics Café for Monday 16th March.

Puzzles for March 2020

Newly situated at the top of the PUZZLES PAGE are another seven picture puzzles, twenty “Mixed Bag” Questions (trivia / general knowledge, a Crossword Puzzle prompted by the practice of osteopathy, and a set of Logic & Maths questions.

If you continue to scroll down, (by-passing our special Darwin Day Crossword) you’ll see a similar set of puzzles for February, then for January.

Puzzles from January 2018 to December 2019 now make up Puzzles Archives 8

Enjoy!

Archived puzzles:

https://vicskeptics.wordpress.com/puzzles/puzzles-archives/

Darwin Day 2020 – new Crossword

116 Feb 2020 xword Darwin special

Don’t forget the annual Darwin Day Barbecue in Melbourne on Wednesday February 12: see details below.

Puzzles for February 2020

More Picture Puzzles, Mixed Bag questions, a Crossword about Roman Mythology and a set of Logic Problems (with solutions) are at the top of the PUZZLES PAGE .

Puzzles from January 2018 to December 2019 have been removed to form Puzzles Archives 8

 

Archived puzzles:

https://vicskeptics.wordpress.com/puzzles/puzzles-archives/

Surfcoast Skepticamp VIII – latest

Skepticamp 2020 February 29

10:30 AM – 4 PM
Aireys Inlet Community Hall
Great Ocean Rd, Aireys Inlet, Victoria

Here are some of the presenters and topics, with more to come:

Richard Saunders: Strange Energies and Even Stranger Devices

Karl Hemphill: Scammers on Line

Aung Ko Oo & Arghavan Shafiei: Ken Harvey’s Whack-a-Mole Project

Dr Scott Power: Climate Change

Tina Hanigan: Shonky TAFE Courses update. Some new kids on the block

Stella Schubert: My Journey from Acupuncturist to Skeptic

It’s free, but register via the Eventbrite link: https://tinyurl.com/SkepticampVIII

Darwin Day 2020

ANNUAL BARBECUE (Melbourne area)

Help us celebrate Charles Darwin’s 211th birthday at the annual Barbecue, from 5 pm at the Studley Park Boathouses picnic area. BYO everything.

THE DARWIN DAY SUITE  

Celebrate February 12 (Charles Darwin’s Birthday) in your classroom!

Charles Darwin Crossword Years 9 to 12

Darwin bio Read and answer

Charles Darwin Wordsearch Years 5 to 8

Charles Darwin Cryptogram Years 7 to 10

Dr.APIS.12.February@Darwin

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