homunculus

Whatever you do, don’t call them militant Blimey, it’s a lot worse than I thought. I had worried somewhat that I had unfairly prejudged the ...

Do we need another reason? [This is the pre-edited version of my latest piece for Nature 's online news. Do we really need more about ...

What I’m reading I have come across a diverting blog called Writers Read , which posts short pieces about, well, what writers are reading. S...

Not so fantastic I have reviewed Eugenie Samuel Reich’s new book Plastic Fantastic in the Sunday Times ( here ). The book tells the story ...

A circular argument? [Here’s the pre-edited version of my latest Muse for Nature News. I have a book review of the stimulating reference 8 ...

You daren’t make it up One of the things I’ve learnt from writing a novel is that it’s not a sufficient excuse to justify unconvincing aspec...

Physics by numbers [This is the full version of my latest Muse for Nature News .] A suggestion that the identification of physical laws can...

Physics, ultimate reality, and an awful lot of money [A dramatically truncated version of this comment appears in the Diary section of the l...

Nature’s Patterns The first volume ( Shapes ) of my trilogy on pattern formation, Nature’s Patterns (OUP), is now out . Sort of. At any eve...

The right honourable Nigel Lawson At a university talk I gave recently, a member of the department suggested that I might look at Nigel Laws...

There’s more to life than sequences [This is the pre-edited version of my latest Muse for Nature News.] Shape might be one of the key facto...

Who should bear the carbon cost of exports? [This is the pre-edited version of my latest Muse column for Nature News. (So far it seems only...

What does it all mean? [This is the pre-edited version of my latest Muse for Nature News.] Science depends on clear terms and definitions –...

Catching up The lack of activity here in the past month or so doesn’t reflect any on my part; rather, frantic preparations in respect of the...

The Devil’s Doctor on tour The title of this blog reiterates that which I used for my ‘virtual’ theatre company, in which guise I put on sev...

Nature versus naturoid [This is my Materials Witness column for the January 2009 issue of Nature Materials .] Are there metameric devices in...

Dark matter and DIY genomics [This is my column for the January 2009 issue of Prospect .] Physicists’ understandable embarrassment that we...

Who knows what ET is thinking? [My early New Year resolution is to stop giving my Nature colleagues a hard time by forcing them to edit sto...