Smoggy Days Are Here Again

Happy days here again?

theory simply because no test tubes are involved: most computational biology, including most of the things my group does, is really computational experiment. Genuine theory, where theoretical models are built and pitted against observations, is on the rise too, but I do not think it will ever be as important in biology as it is in physics. This is because many crucial aspects of biological syst...

Remind me again: why are we here?

Shale is here again.

What do we know about ageing at work? Evidence-based fitness for duty and health in fire fighters. The current enthusiasm for fracking takes me back to the oil crisis of the late 1970s. I had been asked to see a post-thoracotomy patient and, when he recovered, found that his lesion had been pneumoconiotic. When I enquired which mine he worked in, he told me that it had been a shale mine and sin...

Here we go again: repeating implementation errors.

The current reforms of the English NHS are being carefully watched in Eastern and Western Europe, parts of Latin America and Asia, and in former Commonwealth nations, because they aim to develop the concept of a “primary care led health service” more fully than has ever been realised before. Building on the transformation of the NHS from an administered to a commissioned service, the Labour ref...

The bad old days are still here: abortion mortality in developing countries.

Each year, complications related to unsafe abortion account for at least one in seven maternal deaths worldwide. Nearly all of these deaths occur in developing countries and most are preventable. The authors argue that to prevent abortion-related deaths, all women must have access to safe abortion and contraceptive services, and they discuss the strategies used to prevent abortion-related death...