The summer of 1858 as gone down in British history as the year of ‘the great stink’, when the Thames became so clogged with effluent that Parliament refused to sit because of the smell. It was the turning point for water and sanitation in London, and once the MPs had calmed down and straightened their [...]
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The end of polio
When I was a child in Madagascar, we used to walk through a little village on the way to school. There was a man in a wheelchair who used to sit out by the roadside, his legs shrivelled and twisted under him, stick-thin and useless. Polio, my mum told us – a terrible disease that [...]
ColaLife: a simple idea can go a long way
A few years ago in what seems like another life, I was in Zanzibar on holiday. We rented a van and drove out to see some caves or something, and stumbled upon a remote little cove miles from anywhere. We were rather pleased with ourselves for finding such a secluded and idyllic spot, but we [...]
Thanks for asking – measuring Britain’s wellbeing
The limited usefulness of Gross Domestic Product is well known. It counts quantity, not quality, and measures activity without discerning whether it’s useful or not. Nevertheless, GDP remains the baseline measure of success for most nations. Running a health check on economic activity makes sense when countries are recovering from war or depression, or are [...]
Growing a GM cure for AIDS
On Tuesday, a group of European scientists made an announcement at the Wellcome centre in London: the first clinical trials have been approved for an HIV antibody produced by a genetically modified plant. The story was picked up by a few news outlets, but it’s a bad week for any kind of announcements and it [...]
Silent Spring and the mixed up story of DDT
Last year I picked up an old copy of The Limits to Growth report from the Club of Rome. It’s a much-maligned book, and I was surprised to find that almost all of the commonly held beliefs about the book are false. You only had to read the book and the controversies evaporated, but several [...]
Millennium Consumption Goals for the developed world
A professor in Sri Lanka has suggested the as well as the Millennium Development Goals, the west ought to draw up some Millenium Consumption Goals to help us reduce our emissions and materials use.
Bananas!*
A new documentary that premiered last night, Bananas!* tells the story of twelve Nicaraguan banana plantation workers and their case against the Dole corporation, for using a harmful pesticide. Dole are currently trying to block the film’s release, and are attempting to sue the director. All the more reason to see it, and hence it’s [...]
Mosquito lasers: the war on malaria goes high tech
What I wouldn’t have given for one of these when we lived in Madagascar – last week the audience of the annual TED conference was treated to a live demonstration of a laser that shoots down mosquitos. Using parts ordered off ebay, a team of scientists has created a laser that can pinpoint mosquitos in [...]
Hans Rosling on middle income countries
The idea of a split between developed and developing is a fifty year old idea, says Hans Rosling: (Don’t miss the little development race he runs about 15 minutes in) If you haven’t come across him before, Rosling is on a mission to make statistics interesting. Gapminder is his company, and there are some amazing [...]
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