homunculus

Perhaps I am simply trying to discharge all my rants before Christmas. But I did get a bit peeved at the rather mindless way in which the Qu...

Here’s my latest news story for Nature . This image shows a wood sculpture made by the paper’s authors to illustrate their principles. ...

I have been enjoying David Moser’s classic rant about the difficulties of learning Chinese, to which Alan Mackay directed me, presumably af...

I have an article in Nature on thermal management of computers, which is also available online via Scientific American . Before I spoke to...

Here is a book review just published in Nature , with some bits reinserted that got lost in the edit. ____________________________________...

I know, this is what Facebook was invented for. But I haven't got my head round that yet, so here it is anyway. It will be a Big Nois...

I have a little muse on the Royal Society Winton Science Book Prize on the Prospect blog. Here it is. It was a fun event, and great to see...

This is the pre-edited version of my latest, necessarily much-curtailed news story for Nature . ____________________________________...

Here’s my latest piece for the BBC’s Future site. God, it is nice to have the luxury of indulging in some nice context without having to get...

I have just seen that my article for Aeon , the new online “magazine of ideas and culture”, has been live for some time. This magazine seem...

Here’s the pre-edited version of my latest news story for Nature . There is a lot more one might say about this, in terms of what it does o...

Here’s the pre-edited form of an article on element 113 that appeared in the October issue of Prospect . ________________________________...

Here’s my latest piece for BBC Future . This version contains rather more rude words than the one eventually published – the BBC is perhaps ...

I have a letter in New Humanist responding to Francis Spufford’s recent defence of his Christian belief, a brief resume of the case he lays...

I just heard that the solid-state physicist Balazs Gyorffy, an emeritus professor at Bristol, has died from cancer after a short illness...

I have no reason for posting this old photo of Milan Cathedral except that I found it among a batch of old postcards (though the photo...

This is my most recent piece on BBC Future , though another goes up tomorrow. ____________________________________________________________...

Here’s a piece I just wrote for the Guardian ’s Comment is Free. Except in this case it isn’t, because comments have been prematurely termi...

I have a Nature news story on the economics Nobel prize . Here’s the pre-edited version. _______________________________________________...