In September 2017 I had the privilege of fulfilling a long standing ambition. I visited Dr Johnson’s House in Gough Square, London. (http://www.drjohnsonshouse.org/) Having enjoyed his essays and literary criticism for 35 years, it’s plain to me the man had more wit, style and humanity than many civilizations I could name. To immerse yourself in […]
Samuel Johnson by Walter Jackson Bate Read More »
Alan Boss (http://home.dtm.ciw.edu/users/boss/) has been a key scientist with the Kepler space telescope. He believes Earth-like worlds are common in the galaxy, and hence life itself to be ubiquitous. In Crowded Universe he offers a first-hand account of the race to discover the first truly Earth-like exoplanet. The story picks up pace as more and more exoplanet discoveries
The Crowded Universe Read More »
Remember the hilarious 1966 film ‘One Million Years B.C.’ (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060782/) featuring Raquel Welch in a bear skin and her co-star John Richardson? They are portrayed having to fend off dinosaurs. Hilarious because dinosaurs became extinct 66 million years ago, whilst modern humans (‘homo sapiens’) only appeared around 200,000 years ago. So the discrepancy was a
In China, the year 1997 was marked by the death of Deng Xiaoping, the country’s leader for two decades, and the return of Hong Kong from British rule. Peter Hessler (http://www.peterhessler.net/) spent two years teaching English literature in a small town on the Yangtze, and observed Chinese political life first hand. He is able to
River Town by Peter Hessler Read More »
All around us all the time, a silent process is taking place. Plants are fixing the radiant energy of the Sun by the process of photosynthesis. Oliver Morton (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Morton_(science_writer)) explains how it all happens. The story of how we came to understand the process is itself interesting. It involves biochemistry, the nuclear physics of isotopes
Many dedicated readers, who are devoted to the life of the mind, understand that deep thought can be represented in literature. Angus Fletcher (http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?pid=183131649) shows here how thought gets expressed in the language of history writing, poetic writing, philosophical writing, and fiction writing. Fletcher’s references are wide and rich. We are taken into the mind
Colors of the Mind by Angus Fletcher Read More »
Stephen Senn (https://www.lih.lu/page/research-group-senn) explains here how statistics determine many decisions about medical care. This ranges from allocating resources for health, to determining which drugs to license, to cause-and-effect in relation to disease. He tackles big themes: clinical trials and the development of medicines, life tables, vaccines and their risks or lack of them, smoking and
In this collection of 17 brief essays Elena Passarello (https://www.elenapassarello.com/bio/) traces stories of famous animals and how they have reshaped our thinking about humans. She reflects on our need for new language in an age of mass extinction, the way that Albrecht Dürer’s wildly inaccurate rhinoceros prints influenced popular imagination in 16th century Europe, and
Animals strike curious poses by Elena Passarello Read More »
Sean B. Carroll (http://seanbcarroll.com/about/) presents a summary of the emerging field of evolutionary developmental biology and the role of toolkit genes. He argues that evolution proceeds by modifying the way that regulatory genes, which do not code for structural proteins (such as enzymes), control embryonic development. In turn, these regulatory genes are based on a very old set
Endless Forms Most Beautiful Read More »
