The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire is now available in paperback in a land run by criminal gangs with no respect for ...

I wrote somewhere that there is no surer sign of an unwillingness to write than an untended blog. I should perhaps qualify that statement, because blogs might remain untended for all sorts of reasons, ...

I wrote somewhere that there is no surer sign of an unwillingness to write than an untended blog. I should perhaps qualify that statement, because blogs might remain untended for all sorts of reasons, ...

This is the year that AI in science first began to scare me. (Disclaimer: I’m not talking about machine learning, which is a useful and powerful scientific tool. I’m using the term AI here as ...

Update (17:00 03 Mar): all members of the UK or international scientific community were invited to indicate their support by signing the letter. The opportunity to do so closed at 17:00 UK time on 03 ...

This means that I don’t have much time to write this blog, in particular to update my list of books read in the preceding month, which is becoming every two months. So here is what I read (or, mostly, ...

It never seems as if the academic stress will end, until suddenly, sometime in late June, it just does. The students disperse for the academic year like fluffy tree pollen on the wind. The final marks ...

This year I read 64 books, the first time since records began (2014) that the number has exceeded my age in years (I am 62). The total might be inflated, though, as some of the books have been ...

The preachers and the scientists got soaked just the same I cannot point to a moment when I knew I was called to serve God like this. The image is more like a watercolour, built up in layers, or a ...

The anticipation of Christmas under commercial pressure has also made it harder to sustain the appropriate sense of alert watchfulness. We as a staff team at St Mary’s Hornsey Rise try to sustain our ...

Up to 2022 much of my social media use was work-related, so my Twitter timeline was full of open access, publishing, libraries, scholarly communications and science. I’m still interested in all these ...

Today, one year has passed since I published an open letter, signed by almost 3,500 members of the scientific community, asking the Royal Society to deal meaningfully with breaches of its code of ...