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Why does it affect the generations differently? My article for Spectator: The generational effect of the corona-virus is cunning and baffling. By often being so mild in the young and healthy it turns people into heedless carriers. By often being so lethal in the old and sick, it makes carriers into potential executioners of friends […]

Now Coming 25th June Because of the global coronavirus crisis, I have agreed with my publisher’s request to delay publication of the UK edition of my new book How Innovation Works from 14 May till 25 June. The US edition will be published on 19 May as planned, because printing has already begun. The book […]

My article for the Telegraph: In 1934, in their spare time, two American biologists, Pearl Kendrick and Grace Eldering, developed a vaccine for whooping cough, then the biggest killer of children in the United States. Within four years their vaccine was being used throughout Michigan and within six it was being used nationwide. Whooping cough […]

The hardships ahead will be like nothing we have ever known My article for Spectator: On Sunday, lonely as a cloud, I wandered across a windswept moor in County Durham and passed a solitary sandstone rock with a small, round hollow in the top, an old penny glued to the base of the hollow. It […]

“I thought you were the rational optimist. Why are you fear-mongering over Covid-19?” This is a real threat. But we will beat this. And we’ll go on to make an even better life for people in the years ahead. I took a deep dive into the Covid-19 epidemic, how to manage risk, solutions to past […]

This time the warnings are not overdone My article for Reaction: In Aesop’s fable about the boy who cried “Wolf!”, the point of the tale is that eventually there was a wolf, but the boy was not believed because he had given too many false alarms. In my view, the Covid-19 coronavirus is indeed a […]

Britain has uniquely legislated to reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions in 2050 My article for GlobalVision: As Britain relaunches itself as an independent trading nation, its fate will depend on how competitive it is. We have lots going for us, but we also have a heavily regulated economy, high labour costs and low productivity, so we may […]

Culture and practice can change without putting Big Brother in charge My article for The Telegraph: In the 19th century Ignaz Semmelweis was vilified and ostracised when he tried to make doctors wash their hands after doing autopsies on women who had died from childbirth fever before going straight upstairs to deliver more babies. We […]

World-class laboratories have been freed from the dead hand of Brussels regulation Update: My House of Lords Speech on Genome Editing from 4th March   My article for The Critic: Britain is really good at biology. In physics and chemistry, or painting and music, we have often failed to match the Germans, the French or […]

Coming 14th May and 19th May and Available to Pre-Order My next book How Innovation Works will be published on 14th May in the United Kingdom and 19th May in the United States and Canada. It’s available for pre-order now. While it has been searchable on booksellers’ websites for a few months, and teased here […]