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Epigenetics matters, but not between generations This week’s award of the Nobel Prize for medicine to John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka effectively recognizes the science of epigenetics. Dr. Gurdon showed that almost any cell (in a frog) contains all the genetic information to become an adult. What makes the cell develop a certain way is […]

After 15 years, the ecological and economic dividends are big My latest Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal is on genetically modified crops: Generally, technologies are judged on their net benefits, not on the claim that they are harmless: The good effects of, say, the automobile and aspirin outweigh their dangers. Today, […]

The psychology of libertarian views My latest Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal finds that just as liberals and conservatives have predictable personalities, so do libertarians:   An individual’s personality shapes his or her political ideology at least as much as circumstances, background and influences. That is the gist of a recent […]

It’s happened before My latest Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal is about the retreat of Arctic Sea Ice and what it means: This week probably saw the Arctic Ocean’s sea ice reach its minimum extent for the year and begin to expand again, as it usually does in mid-September. Given that […]

Rachel Carson and Al Gore relied on a tobacco denier I have an article in the Spectator drawing attention to the curious fact that Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring owed much to a passionate tobacco denier. It’s behind a paywall, but there it is with the sources as links. Hat tip Ron Bailey.   Rachel Carson’s […]

Innovation as an evolutionary process My latest Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal: Bill Moggridge, who invented the laptop computer in 1982, died last week. His idea of using a hinge to attach a screen to a keyboard certainly caught on big, even if the first model was heavy, pricey and equipped […]

Modern disease is often caused by a lack of parasites My latest Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal is a review of a remarkable new science book:   Your great-grandparents faced infectious diseases that hardly threaten you today: tuberculosis, polio, cholera, malaria, yellow fever, measles, mumps, rubella, smallpox, typhoid, typhus, tapeworm, hookworm…. […]

Science keeps reminding us that we are not special My latest Mind and Matter column at the Wall Street Journal: The astronomer Martin Rees recently coined the neat phrase “Copernican demotion” for science’s habit of delivering humiliating disappointment to those who think that our planet is special. Copernicus told us the Earth was not at […]

A new work of art that is also public open space   The Times has published my article on Northumberlandia today.   On Monday the Princess Royal will officially declare open a new feature of the British countryside: a sculpture made of rock, and clad in clay, soil and grass, in the shape of an […]

The antics of selfish DNA in worms and plants My latest Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal is on selfish DNA:   The theory of selfish DNA was born as a throwaway remark in the book “The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins, when he pondered why there is so much surplus DNA […]