Monthly Archives: November 2008

Last month I was asked to give a dinner speech for a Wellcome Trust/New Scientist shindig. A few days ago, when I was tidying up the house, I ran into the forgotten goodie bag that had been thrust at me … Continue reading →

We’ve all been there. It’s been a frenetic afternoon in the lab. You have half a dozen experiments on the go and, what with various interruptions – the rotating graduate student can’t find an enzyme; you’re the only one who … Continue reading →

Many years ago when my first novel Experimental Heart was in the process of being repeatedly rejected, editors would tell my agent that its main problem was one of categorization: What cover would we put on this? At the time, … Continue reading →

I’ve just returned from a lab retreat at the Convento de Arrábida, a crumbling former Franciscan monastery about twenty miles south of Lisbon. Clinging to a hillside overlooking the sea, the white stucco buildings were set in a landscape of … Continue reading →

In a few hours I’m off to a lab retreat in Portugal for the next four days, so unfortunately will be missing a wonderful opportunity to do some public engagement. But for those of you who live in or around … Continue reading →

In fiction, there seems to be an instinctive belief that anything mentioned by characters in dialogue is automatically rendered casual or unobtrusive – that the puppet strings of authorial intent are rendered invisible by speech. I say instinctive because, of … Continue reading →

Sometimes training can become a way of life. When I was a graduate student in Seattle, I once left a nightclub at two in the morning to grab a burger at a nearby fast-food establishment. With hindsight, walking through the … Continue reading →