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Sam Altman, the recently fired (and rehired) chief executive of Open AI, was asked earlier this year by his fellow tech billionaire Patrick Collison what he thought of the risks of synthetic biology. ‘I would like to not have another synthetic pathogen cause a global pandemic. I think we can all agree that wasn’t a […]

Every year I lay a wreath a week early, because Blyth, my nearest town, was a submarine port. Submariners were banned from the first Armistice Day parade in Whitehall by a bossy admiral on the grounds that they were pirates who targeted civilians. In response they adopted skull-and-crossbones badges and arranged their own celebrations on […]

The truth is out. An official report has admitted for the first time the scale of the cost of reaching net zero by 2050. A study by the National Infrastructure Commission, released on Tuesday, concluded that hitting the 2050 target will roughly double the amount of money we would have spent anyway on infrastructure over […]

Who cares about whales? Whales might be dying because of sonar surveying, but Greenpeace simply ignores the science that doesn’t suit it. So far last year, 71 whales have washed up dead on the shores of New England and neighbouring states. The rate seems to have risen in recent years along with a growth in […]

Politicians should stop endorsing an energy source that isn’t particularly clean or secure, and won’t bring down prices. The MPs who have forced Rishi Sunak into a U-turn on onshore wind power love to repeat the favourite slogan of the wind industry: “wind is cheap”. “Cheap, clean, secure,” says Sir Alok Sharma. “Cheap,” cheeps Ed Miliband. […]

If I waved a magic wand and gave the world unlimited clean and cheap energy tomorrow, I expect many climate scientists would be horrified Patrick Brown, the co-director of climate and energy at the Breakthrough Institute in California, has blown the whistle on an open secret about climate science: it’s biased in favour of alarmism. He published […]

The president of Stanford University, the neuroscientist Marc Tessier-Lavigne, has announced his resignation following an investigation into allegations of fraud and fabrication in three of his lab’s scientific papers, including one cited as the most important result on Alzheimer’s disease in 20 years. The report exonerated him of committing the fraud but found he had […]

Ateam of South Korean scientists has pre-printed a paper asserting that they have achieved superconductivity at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. The paper has led to widespread speculation that this is the most significant physics discovery in decades, with huge implications for energy, medical technology and computing. Even Jordan Peterson is asking if room-temperature superconductivity […]

Yes, heatwaves are getting more intense thanks to global warming, but the alarmism is shameless   On Tuesday this week in Northumberland, the mercury never even reached 16C. I gather from one or two gentle hints on the BBC – sorry, apocalyptic rants – that it’s a bit hotter in the Mediterranean. My point is […]

Every five years Latvia stages a week-long song and dance festival and this year my wife’s Latvian cousins got us tickets to two of the biggest events. I had no idea what to expect. The first evening, in a vast open-air arena in the Mezaparks forest outside Riga, while the light faded behind the tall […]