As the current wave of the pandemic in the UK wanes, a new one threatens. It is appropriate to reflect on where we are and what lessons we have learnt….
I inherited from my Glaswegian great grandfather a book containing a long account by Joseph Black, then professor of medicine in that city, of his original experiments on medicines used…
We are informed that the wholesale price of natural gas has tripled since April and that this is forcing many fuel supply companies into closure, threatening the production of carbon…
One of the first scientific facts most of us learned at primary school is that water is made of two gases â two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen â…
The implication of the graphs I showed in last week’s article is that action on climate change is urgent and will be painful. Two recent events, apparently unrelated, draw attention…
Earth, air, fire and water – since the earliest years of civilisation when we first congregated into cities, we have thought of these as the elements of our environment. We…
Two big and inter-related issues have attracted the attention of the media this month â race and migration. The media reported accusations of racial discrimination in Yorkshire County Cricket Club…
There has been only one surprise among the latest COVID-19 events. In the UK, we have continued to see high levels of infection, mainly among gregarious younger people and the…
It was colder in those times. We had a fire in the kitchen which my grandmother lit, using newspaper and sticks to ignite the coal. The milk arrived in a…
I’m not sure that my profession has done a very good job of explaining the implications of climate change. We do tend to think in terms of infections spread by…