Sooner or later we had to go with the general news flow on Bits Of Science, so today we write, just to be done with it, Tahrir square. Today Nature News reports Egyptian Universities would like to see political change, feeling scientific progress has been greatly hindered by the current regime.

Another word we didn’t write before is Wikileaks. There is little new science in the well-established fact that people say different things in private from what they say out loud. Say private things in public, and anyone may suddenly sound highly politically incorrect. (Do the exact opposite and you’d become a complete bore.)

Then again we have to acknowledge there is something in the grab bag for everyone. For us that turned out to be oil reserves. Today Guardian writes, based on a leaked US diplomatic cable, Saudi Arabia would not have that very large oil reserve it claims to have [in order to guarantee continued infrastructural investments].

The crude oil reserves could have been overstated by as much as 300 billion barrels – nearly 40% of the proclaimed Saudi reserve.

It reminds of recent news along similar lines concerning Alaska’s oil reserves. Another recent publication in Nature even expects the physical Peak Coal within 20 years. That’s just 10 years after the political Peak Coal.

© Rolf Schuttenhelm | www.bitsofscience.org