Just had that Hind on the phone. I did my listening thing while she relived a Very Important Exam In Doctoring with me because she’s worried she might have blown it. Hind, you haven’t. I know this because, as a medical school drop-out, I am an expert. Then she asked me about my life and, […]
Read MoreMedicine
30Aug05 — 3
Cruelty To Animals
I have mentioned the wacky “campaigning windows” of Cambridge residents before. Today I walked past one that had a picture of a Labrador on display, with the caption “Liberate Laboratory Animals!” Also today I read this story: “Animal rights activists have stolen six huntaway dogs from a Massey University farm, some of which are carrying […]
Read More06Jul05 — 1
Three Celebrity Scientists Go Hunting
MMR vaccine chancer Andrew Wakefield, Arpad “poisonous GM potatoes are poisonous” Pusztai*, and Gilbert “100 000 dead in Iraq war” Burnham go hunting together for rabbits. After only a few minutes walking, all three of them simultaneously catch sight of the same bunny in the distance. Wakefield shoots a tranquilizer dart from his rifle, but it […]
Read More17May05 — 0
Triangulation
I can only conclude that Anthony Cox is writing up his thesis currently, because his ‘Blog is on a roll. Check out his views about the infamous Lancet study, this piece about the effectiveness of the MMR vaccine, and his principled dismissal of Google Ads.
Read More14May05 — 2
Aagh, My Eyes!
The Jews blew up the Twin Towers using Bush’s depleted uranium technology stolen from the spaceship that crashlanded in Area 51! And Blair lied about it! As a mumps epidemic rages across Britain, the BBC News feedback facility flares with the magnesium-bright burn of public stupidity: “What a convenient epidemic! Why didn’t it happen last […]
Read More09Mar05 — 3
Jungle VIPs
Scientists are almost as susceptible to a certain type of urban myth as the rest of the population. One popular one was that there are 100 000 genes in the human genome. When the first estimates of “the number of genes”—I use quotes because exactly what constitutes a single gene is subtle, complex, and controversial—based on […]
Read More18Feb05 — 0
The Threat From The Curds
Hot Wheels Helena now has her own ‘Blog, but I am not allowed to link to it yet, which is why half of the posts this week are courtesy of her. Because Her Boy had (administrative, not financial) problems with his plastic we had to shop for dinner on Wednesday immediately beforehand. As I wandered […]
Read More14Feb05 — 4
Don’t Panic
I think the quote at the end of this piece is probably accurate. It undercuts the rest by saying that fears of a new, aggressive strain of HIV are “a storm in a teacup” [© Benjamin Mackie 2004]. But ten years ago I was sitting in a common room when one of the most senior […]
Read More30Jan05 — 1
Clap Clap Clap
The “file not found” error message on counsell.com features Maryam, the daughter of my friend Nicholas, whom I last saw when I turned up one week early for his and Hind‘s Christmas dinner party. We shared a frozen pizza in his kitchen. Hind was on a train. This week computational-biologist-turned-epidemiologist Nick became the second one […]
Read More24Jan05 — 52
If He Existed He’d Be Laughing
“THREE Muslim pilgrims were killed and 500 others suffered light injuries as they jostled to perform the ‘stoning of the devil’ ritual near Mecca, Saudi newspapers reported today. The crush was triggered by the arrival of ‘a large number of African pilgrims carrying their personal belongings’ at the site of the stoning in Mina called […]
Read More17Jan05 — 0
Ouch
Anthony and Jackie are both ‘Blogging about pain: Jackie about the pain women experience when giving birth and Anthony about the pain men ignore when they have long nails stuck in their heads. “The nail was embedded 4cm into his brain—barely missing his right eye. Six days after his 6 January work accident, Mr Lawler […]
Read More13Jan05 — 3
Last Minute Deals In Our Closing Down Sale
The Medical Research Council (MRC) currently has links to six press releases on the front page of its Website. One of them is about work by the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) on HIV and another is about work on the pufferfish genome by a group at the Human Genome Mapping Project Resource Centre—now […]
Read More08Jan05 — 1
Still No Cure For Genius
PooterGeek is number three hit on Google for “cure for stupidity“. Sadly, number one is James D Watson indulging in that favourite activity of previous Nobel prizewinners: talking cack.
Read More05Jan05 — 16
Marconi Plays The Mamba
Socialism In An Age Of Waiting links to a story about the legend of “Midgetville” today. It opens by saying that the likeliest candidate is a place called Jefferson Township. I couldn’t concentrate on the rest because all I could think of was a bunch superannuated hippies singing: “Don’t you remem-ber? We built this city, […]
Read More23Dec04 — 2
Dumber And Dumberer
Oh woe, a university chemistry department is closing. “What is to become of British biomedical research?” whine the great and the good of the scientific and medical establishment. Michael Rees, the head of the BMA’s medical academics committee, is a laugh a line as he cries: “If this trend of closures continues, it will cut […]
Read More12Dec04 — 0
It Was Something He Ate
It was confirmed yesterday that the recent striking changes in the appearance of Tony Blair are indeed the result of poisoning. Sources close to Mr Blair have suggested that the poison may have been administered during a dinner with Prime Minister-elect Gordon Brown at the north London restaurant Granita. Tony Blair, before and after
Read More06Dec04 — 0
“Viagra” For Women
I am a hypothetical man with an even more hypothetical woman. She doesn’t enjoy having sex with me. Chance that this is because:- I never listen to anything she says: 16 percent The only thing about me that ever turned her on was my after-tax income: 13 percent I am too heavy-handed: 7 percent I am too light-fingered: 8 percent I am […]
Read More30Nov04 — 2
Rise Up And Walk Again
If this is real it’s amazing. UPDATE: The site I linked to has free registration, but you could have a browse through these to see if you can find a simple click-through link.
Read More25Nov04 — 2
Still No Cure For Stupidity
As the International Herald Tribune reports, modern medical science has finally succeeded in curing an unvaccinated rabies victim of the disease—albeit using a pretty extreme approach: “[D]octors at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin put the critically ill teenager into a drug-induced coma and gave her anti-viral drugs, although it is not clear which if any […]
Read More16Nov04 — 4
Running On Empty
PooterGeek has long had a jokey button labelled “nice arse” over on the right hand side of its front page. It links to a picture of me running in an annual Cambridge charity relay race called “Chariots of Fire” last year. One of the other members of our particular Genome Campus team was a guy […]
Read More03Nov04 — 0
The Drugs Don’t Work
Thoughtful James Hamilton might come by to say something about this one. The Economist this week has a fascinating piece [subscription only] about the decline in suicide rates in the UK. No one has a sure explanation for why the numbers of men and women killing themselves in Britain have declined by tens of percent […]
Read More27Oct04 — 0
Future News: November
Live from next month, more of “Pooter’s Futures“: The Middle East The body of one of the militants believed to have been responsible for the bombing of the Hilton hotel in Taba on Egypt’s border with Israel has been washed up on a bank of the river Nile near the Egyptian town of Aswan. When […]
Read More17Oct04 — 1
More Racism
Courtesy of The Motley Fool: An Englishman, a Scotsman, and a Nigerian are sitting in the maternity ward of a hospital waiting for the births of their respective children. They are all very nervous, pacing, fidgeting, and fretting. Suddenly a nurse bursts through the double doors saying, “Gentlemen you won’t believe this, but your wives […]
Read More16Oct04 — 4
Why Set Out? Why Turn Back? Why Guinea Pigs?
Wonderful, wonderful BBC Radio 4. In how many countries can you come back from a run, stagger into the shower and turn on national radio at 10:30am to hear the scientific history of the year 1907? Almost inevitably the story started in Cambridge, at the British Antarctic Survey. Depending on what you believe, the explorer […]
Read More14Oct04 — 0
The People Must Know
I want the owner of this Website to try out this product. And I want action pictures.
Read More11Oct04 — 3
Stemmed Flow
Christopher Reeve is dead. The obituary on Radio 4 is already taking the “de mortuis nil nisi bonum” approach a bit too far by claiming that Reeve “avoided typecasting”. I, for one, remember his Henry V with profound admiration. Good lad, though, as Will Rubbish would say.
Read More10Oct04 — 3
David Beckham: Evil Genius
A poster going by the name of “YellowFeather” over at The Motley Fool has a theory why David Beckham thought it was okay to have the last “word” in his on-the-pitch feud with Thatcher [that’s the footballer, not the former UK Prime Minister or any of her relatives] during the England vs Wales World Cup […]
Read More04Oct04 — 0
Where The Hell Was PooterGeek?
First of all I hung out with Claire as she researched her new book, talking to various bright Cambridge dons about Europe and Britain and religion and immigration and anti-Semitism and the state of the World today. Her questions were so good and the resulting conversations were so long and wide-ranging that there is far […]
Read More30Sep04 — 3
Perhaps It’s The Climate
A running theme here is my depression at the state of British sexual mores. (Or it might be my depression at not getting more sex in Britain.) I’m told that sex can be extraordinarily pleasurable and life-enhancing. Unfortunately, having acquired a professional interest in surveys of sexual habits in the early 90s, I can tell […]
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