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Why do we like springtime so much? Update: The `hungry time’ was even later in the year than I said. See below. A meditation on the English spring I wrote for yesterday’s Times: I live on the 55th degree north parallel. If I had gone round the world along that line last week, through Denmark, Lithuania, […]

Here is how the first mobile computer, the Osborne 1, compares with an iPad 2 (hat tip Cafe Hayek):  

Here is how the first mobile computer, the Osborne 1, compares with an iPad 2 (hat tip Cafe Hayek):  

Correlation ain’t causation. But for some time I have been noticing that the correlations between certain aspects of solar activity and certain aspects of climate are getting really rather impressive — far more so than anything relating to carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide certainly can affect climate, but so for sure can other things, and in […]

James Delingpole is on fine form: So wind farms don’t just despoil countryside, frighten horses, chop up birds, spontaneously combust, drive down property prices, madden those who live nearby with their subsonic humming, drive up electricity prices, promote rentseeking, make rich landowners richer (and everyone else poorer), ruin views, buy more electric sports cars for […]

Don’t let physicians have a gate-keeping role between you and your genetic information Last week there was an excellent piece by Daniel MacArthur in Wired on how the doctors’ lobby is trying to asert its monopoly on genetic testing (hat tip John Hawks). The American Medical Association has written to the FDA demanding a gate-keeping role […]

The other day at a talk I was asked, as I often am, whether I agree that only putting the state in control can clean up the environment. I wish I had then read this, from the blog at Cafe Hayek: a letter sent to the Los Angeles Times: Three different readers write today in praise […]

I was on BBC Radio 4’s programme A Good Read (the link allows you to listen again) this week, where I recommended the book that was my favourite as a child, and probably still is: My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell. The others chose A Game of Hide and Seek and Great Expectations.  

We keep hearing that there is a consensus about climate change, but it includes a wide range of possibilities Simon Singh and James Delingpole, both of whom I know, like and respect as fine writers, have been disagreeing about climate change. Beneath Simon’s latest blog on the subject there is a debate in which several very sensible […]

Prospect magazine has published my review of Hugh-Aldersey-Williams’s delightful chemistry book,  Periodic Tales. Here is an extract in which I was struck by the parallels between finding specialised jobs for the metals and finding specialised roles for individuals in society: The best science writing emulates fiction, creating plots, surprises and characters out of its esoteric material. […]