I'm a journalist and writer and host of the New Scientist Weekly podcast. Books: SUPERHUMAN (2018) and HOW TO SPEND A TRILLION DOLLARS (2021)
Regenesis review: Farming is killing the planet but we can stop it
“Farming is the most destructive human activity ever to have blighted the Earth.”
Review of George Monbiot's book
Frans de Waal on what apes can teach us about sex and gender
I interview primatologist Frans de Waal on his views on gender identity and role in the great apes
What’s next now Tesla is worth a trillion dollars?
Financially speaking, Tesla is a massive success. The question is what will it do with all that money. Rowan Hooper reports on an encounter with Elon Musk
Andreas Malm interview: Why climate protesters need to embrace unrest
WHAT is it about Sweden and climate campaigners? It has produced Greta Thunberg, of course, but also Andreas Malm, a writer and human ecologist at Lund University and a long-time climate activist. You might think of him as Greta turned up to 11. His controversial new book, How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to fight in a world on fire, has a deliberately provocative title
Listening to friends tell you about their dreams helps develop empathy
Sharing dreams may serve a purpose. A study finds that describing the content of our dreams or nightmares – whether boring or truly bizarre – may function to bond people and groups together, and that listening and responding to the strange content of dreams can increase empathy.
Suzanne Simard interview: How I uncovered the hidden language of trees
Suzanne Simard was raised in the Monashee mountains in British Columbia, Canada. Her research, beginning with the discovery of the wood wide web, has transformed our understanding of forests. She is now a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia.
How to spend a trillion dollars to fix climate change and end poverty
MOST of us have had that conversation: what would you do if you won the lottery? Pay off the mortgage, quit your job, maybe start a small business doing something you have always dreamed of. But what if you acquired a truly vast fortune – not just a few million but a trillion dollars? And what if you had to spend it on making the world a better place?
Quadruple-stranded DNA seen in healthy human cells for the first time
The world’s most famous molecule – the DNA double helix – sometimes doubles up again. Researchers have now found this quadruple-stranded form in healthy human cells for the first time
Optimism can avert climate disaster, say duo who brokered Paris deal
Interview with Christiana Figueres, who led the 2015 Paris Agreement, and her stategist Tom Rivett-Carnac. They tell me why they’re hopeful for the future, and explain how fighting climate change is “the most exciting experiment in history”
How coronavirus is affecting your dreams - and what to do about it
Sleep and dreams in the time of covid
Devs: Here's the real science behind the quantum computing TV show
My review of Alex Garland’s beautiful and intelligent quantum drama
Explaining consciousness and the other biggest mysteries of your brain
Two pieces by me: (1) What is consciousness, and (2) Are smarter people’s brains different?
Are there multiple universes?
What – one vast, ancient and mysterious universe isn’t enough for you?
Revealed: What happened, physically, to the city of Hiroshima after the A-bomb
Startling and chilling discovery from the beaches around Hiroshima
Japan's return to commercial whaling has no economic or cultural case
Japan has a reputation for modernity, but in whaling, it is desperately out of date