homunculus

Postings from the interface of science and culture

Friday, July 29, 2011

The reason why not

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I just discovered that this book review I wrote recently for The National , a UAE newspaper, was published back in early June. It doesn’t s...
Wednesday, July 20, 2011

No fit state

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I’ve got a piece in the latest issue of Prospect (not yet online) about the recent report on the state of the oceans from the IPSO project....
3 comments:
Monday, July 18, 2011

Body shock

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Earlier this month I went to a discussion about SciArt – more specifically, BioArt – at the GV Art gallery in London. Debates about science ...
Thursday, July 14, 2011

Arsenic and old wallpaper

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Here’s my Crucible column for the July issue of Chemistry World . We haven’t heard the end of this story, I’m sure. ______________________...
Tuesday, July 05, 2011

The (digital) art of chemistry

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Here’s a bit of naked advertising, because it’s for a good cause. The competition below, organized by ASCI in New York, should be fun if it ...
Friday, June 24, 2011

Movie characters mimic each other's speech patterns

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Here’s my latest news story for Nature News. **************************************************** Script writers have internalized the ...
1 comment:
Thursday, June 23, 2011

Einstein and his precursors

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From time to time, Nature used to receive (and doubtless still does) crank letters claiming that Einstein was not the first to derive E=mc2...
5 comments:
Friday, June 17, 2011

Quantum life

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I have a feature in this week’s Nature on quantum biology, and more specifically, on the phenomenon of quantum coherence in photosynthesis...
Wednesday, June 15, 2011

The Anglican atheist

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To be honest, I already suspected that Philip Pullman, literary darling of militant atheists (no doubt to his chagrin), is more religious th...
2 comments:
Sunday, June 12, 2011

Go with the Flow

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Nicholas Lezard has always struck me as a man with the catholic but highly selective tastes (in literature if not in standards of accommodat...
Monday, June 06, 2011

Musical intelligence

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In the latest issue of Nature I have interviewed the composer Eduardo Reck Miranda about his experimental soundscapes, pinned to a forthc...
1 comment:
Sunday, June 05, 2011

Are we all doomed?

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That’s the question that New Statesman put to a range of folks, including me. My answer was truncated in the magazine, which is fair enoug...
3 comments:
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:
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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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