Blessed Are the Bacteria

Posted on by Tom Fleming

Halfway through reading Ed Yong’s first book, I found myself in A&E with a son in anaphylactic shock after he unwittingly ate some nuts. According to the book I’m reading, I told the medics gathered round his bed, the surge in allergies over the past fifty years could be due to our obsession with

Words to the Wise

Posted on by Tom Fleming

A decade ago Tom Wolfe delivered the Jefferson Lecture to the National Endowment for the Humanities. His talk was called ‘The Human Beast’ and much of it consisted of an assertion that around 11,000 years ago speech took over from evolution the job of shaping the human future. It was the faculty of speech, Wolfe argued, […]

The Kids Aren’t Alright

Posted on by Tom Fleming

ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) has been the most commonly diagnosed childhood psychiatric disorder in the USA since the 1960s. Opinion about how and when it should be diagnosed, whether it should be treated with stimulant drugs and what it says about our behaviour towards children and understanding of childhood has long been split. While […]

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