homunculus

Postings from the interface of science and culture

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Steve Jones gets unnatural

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I’ve just discovered a review of Unnatural in the Lancet by Steve Jones. As one might expect, he has an interesting and quite particular ...
Monday, May 23, 2011

Belated Prospect

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I realise that I meant to put up earlier my May column from Prospect . Almost time for the June column now, but here goes. _______________...
3 comments:
Friday, May 20, 2011

The chief designer

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I have a review of the RSC’s play Little Eagles in Nature this week. Here it is. Too late now to catch the play, I fear, but I thought i...
1 comment:
Wednesday, May 18, 2011

The Achilles' heel of biological complexity

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Here’s the pre-edited version of my latest news story for Nature . This is such an interesting issue that I plan to write a more detailed p...
Monday, May 09, 2011

Unnatural happenings

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There is a smart review of Unnatural in The Age by Damon Young. I don’t just say it is smart because it is positive – he engages intellig...
Sunday, May 08, 2011

Are scientific reputations boosted artificially?

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Here’s my latest Muse for Nature News. _________________________________________________________ Scientific reputations emerge in a col...
1 comment:
Friday, May 06, 2011

A discourse on method

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Actually (to pick up from the previous post), I’d meant to put my last Crucible column up here too. So here it is now. ___________________...
Thursday, May 05, 2011

Science and religion - even chemists aren't immune

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Oh, it’s risky, I know. But I offer the following mild observations about the recent Templeton Prize in my Crucible column in Chemistry Wor...
1 comment:
Sunday, April 24, 2011

The Information - a review

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I have a review of James Gleick's new book in the Observer today. Here it is. He does an enviable job, on the whole - this is better t...
Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Universal blues

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I have written a news story and a leader for Nature on a new paper examining the notion that there are universal grammatical principles ...
12 comments:

Newton's Rainbow

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Here’s the pre-edited text of my review for Nature of a new play about Isaac Newton, which I saw recently at the Royal Society and enjoy...
Tuesday, April 12, 2011

The Naked Oceans

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The Naked Scientists is (are?) running a series of podcasts called The Naked Oceans. The latest one has an interview with me about Ernst ...
Monday, April 11, 2011

Chaos promotes prejudice

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Here’s my latest news story for Nature, pre-editing. _______________________________________________________________ A disorderly envir...
Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Fattening up Schrödinger's cats

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Here’s my latest story for Nature News. __________________________________________________________ Huge molecules can show the wave-par...
Monday, March 28, 2011

Who's (still) afraid of MMR?

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With the fallout from the MMR scare still with us, t his programme on BBC Radio 4 is a timely reminder of the issues. “Science betrayed”...
7 comments:
Friday, March 25, 2011

More monster myths

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I have reviewed the National Theatre’s production of Frankenstein in the latest issue of Nature . Worth seeing (though if you haven’t got ...
2 comments:
Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Maths polymath scoops Abel Prize

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Here’s a little news story I wrote for Nature on the Abel Prize. This award presents a notoriously challenging subject for science repo...
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About Me

Philip Ball
I am a London-based writer, and the author of several books on aspects of science and its interactions with other aspects of culture. My latest book is The Modern Myths (University of Chicago Press, 2021).
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