The number of deaths averted
What are epidemiological models for? You can use models to inform policy and other decision-making. But you can't use them to manufacture a number that you can advertise in order to draw praise. T…
The costs of correction
I was slightly disappointed to read a report in the New York Times this morning. Entitled 'Two Huge COVID-19 Studies Are Retracted After Scientists Sound Alarms', it discussed the implications…
Why we need *some* borders between us
Borders are often a bad thing because they create separation that is unconducive for what are generally considered to be socially desirable outcomes. And they're often instituted to maximise polit…
Ocean-safe consumption
Just spotted this ad on the website of The Better India, a journalism website that focuses on "positive stories": India's nationwide lockdown has many important lessons – including the…
Eight years
On June 1 last year, I wrote: Today, I complete seven years of trying to piece together a picture of what journalism is and where I fit in. Today, I begin my ninth year as a journalist. I'm happ…
The virus and the government
In December 2014, public health researchers and activists gathered at a public forum in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to discuss how our perception of diseases and their causative pathogens influences our…
The life and death of 'Chemical Nova'
You know how people pretend to win an Oscar or a Nobel Prize, right? Many years ago, I used to pretend to be the author of a fictitious but, blissfully unmindful of its fictitiousness, award-winning s…
A caveat for peer-review
Now that more researchers are finding more holes in the study in The Lancet, which claimed hydroxychloroquine – far from being a saviour of people with COVID-19 – actually harms them, I wonder where t…
The WHA coronavirus resolution is not great for science
On May 19, member states of the WHO moved a vote in the World Health Assembly (WHA), asking for an independent investigation into the sources of the novel coronavirus. Their exact demands were spelle…
The Wolfram singularity
I got to this article about Stephen Wolfram's most recent attempt to "revolutionise" fundamental physics quite late, and sorry for it because I had no idea Wolfram was the kind of guy wh…
Good journalism is still around
This morning, a trusted scientist called my attention to a tweet thread by Jordan Fischer listing the many good stories journalists in the US had done that had improved the lives of people. The scient…
Partial review: 'Hitler's Circle of Evil' (2018)
Hitler's Circle of Evil is a documentary series on Netflix that narrates the lives and actions of Adolf Hitler's inner circle, leading up to and during the Second World War. This is a partial…