The new Prime Minister Liz Truss has kicked off her time in Number 10 with a promise to ‘get the United Kingdom working, building, and growing’. Given that the UK has already experienced one lost decade after the financial crisis and is currently on course for another, there can be no more urgent priority than […]
The UK BioBank is one of the most influential biomedical initiatives in the world. It contains genetic, health, and lifestyle data on half a million people and has been used to make extraordinary contributions to our understanding of human health. Over the past ten years, 28,000 researchers from 86 countries have used the BioBank to […]
Has banning junk food adverts on the Tube dramatically reduced obesity and saved the NHS £millions? That’s the claim made in a study published today – ‘The health, cost and equity impacts of restrictions on the advertisement of high fat, salt and sugar products across the transport for London network: a health economic modelling study’ […]
READER QUESTION: I am 59 years old, and in reasonably good health. Is it possible that I will live long enough to put my brain into a computer? Richard Dixon. We often imagine that human consciousness is as simple as input and output of electrical signals within a network of processing units – therefore comparable […]
While Westminster has been fixated on the fallout from Partygate in recent weeks, one of the most consequential pieces of post-Brexit legislation was recently introduced in Parliament. The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill comes at a time when food shortages are hitting the headlines. Warning signs were already evident in 2021: a combination of extreme […]
We’re used to railing against the iniquities of the planning system on these pages, more often than not when it comes to new homes being scrapped for some pathetic reason like the need to save a car park (or, indeed, a marginal Tory MP). Just last week we had the bizarre spectacle of the Lib […]
It will come as a no surprise to students of Novak Djokovic’s career that he ‘has always supported the freedom to choose what you put in your body’. Here, after all, is a man who eschews gluten but is happy to eat the grass at Wimbledon. But it’s not the tennis player’s unusual diet that’s […]
Late last year, I came across long-form chat-show Triggernometry’s interview with science writer Will Storr. In it, Storr applies research from his latest book, The Status Game, to the emergence of what we’ve now come to call ‘cancel culture’, especially as it manifests on social media. I do not want for items to review. Most […]
In his first speech as prime minister in 2019, Boris Johnson rightly declared that the time had come to ‘liberate the UK’s extraordinary bioscience sector from anti–genetic modification rules’. Now, his government is poised to take a significant step towards that goal by reforming some of the stringent agricultural biotechnology regulations imported from the European […]
If there’s one area where Britain can benefit from better post-Brexit regulation, it’s pulling ourselves away from blanket bans on chemicals that are critical to making the modern world cleaner, cheaper and faster. PFAS, or Poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of over 4,700 individual chemicals, each with specific purposes, that are fundamental to […]
Earlier this week former Science and Research Minister Chris Skidmore warned: “if there is not a clear plan from the Chancellor this week, then the Prime Minister’s vision of the UK as a ‘global science superpower’ would have been torn up by the Treasury.” Well, the Chancellor may not have torn up the Prime Minister’s […]
It’s startling how much public discourse is being driven by trans activism and trans issues. Not a week – or even a day – goes by without something trans-related scorching like a tracer bullet across the headlines. Last Saturday, transwoman Alana McLaughlan won her first MMA bout – to a decidedly mixed reception – against […]
Gynaecologically speaking, I’m practically geriatric. By 35, women are told we’re dangerously old to be mothers and at greater risk of miscarriage, stillbirth or having babies with conditions like Down’s syndrome. That’s if we’re able to get pregnant at all, which, if you believe the scare stories about the precipitous decline in fertility women experience […]
July has been a bumper month for rich blokes going into space. It’s therefore also been a bumper month for outrage and ridicule. On July 11, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic ‘spaceplane’ flew, not into space, but to the edge of it. The mission lasted two and a half hours, so about the same as my […]
There’s plenty to welcome in the Government’s newly launched Life Sciences Vision. Proposals on improving the use of public data, making it easier for innovative start-ups to win public contracts and equipping potential life science entrepreneurs with management training would all be positive steps forward. But what really excites me is the Vision’s emphasis on […]
The Covid pandemic has taught us all a lot about science, but it’s also reminded us of some unanswered questions about how science works. Here’s one from this week: how should we think about scientists’ political views? Monday saw a perfect illustration of this debate as Good Morning Britain co-host Richard Madeley collided with UCL […]
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