I’m not convinced by the idea of AI throwing everyone out of jobs or taking over the world, but I thought I should read up some thoughtful writing on the subject, so I turned to Neil Lawrence’s 2024 ...

There has been much fuss and flapdoodle about a company called Colossal Biosciences that aims to use the wonders of modern genetic technology to call extinct species back from the other side of the ...

I am at a loss to understand how these actions are consistent with a code of conduct that requires Fellows to have “due regard for the statement of values developed from time to time by Society”, ...

Here I am in my home studio, Flabbey Road, which serves double triple multiple duty as office, library of SF, repository of ancient and medieval literature, reptile room, and man cave, just about to ...

I asked Chat GPT: Please recast the argument between Donald Trump and Elon Musk as a scene from a play by William Shakespeare. A courtyard in the realm of public opinion. Enter DONALDUS, the exiled ...

I love ponds. I love digging ponds. I love furnishing ponds with plants. I love watching as the wildlife spontaneously arrives. I have had a number of ponds in various places in my garden — and ...

This was the first time I have attended a music library conference. I’m an old hand at libraries generally but a novice in terms of music libraries, so I had a curious mix of feelings. I felt a ...

This year I read 64 books, the first time since records began (2014) that the number has exceeded my age in years (I am 62). The total might be inflated, though, as some of the books have been ...

Graeme Hall: All Dogs Great and Small My dogs’ favourite TV show is Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly, in which genial, tweed-waistcoat-and-cravat-wearing Yorkshireman Graeme Hall sorts out the problematic ...

About Sylvia McLain Girl, Interrupting aka Dr. Sylvia McLain used to be an academic, but now is trying to figure out what's next. She is also a proto-science writer, armchair philosopher, amateur ...

Edward Gibbon: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume 4 (Folio Society Edition). We arrive at last at the Fifth Century and the agonising collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Assailed by ...

The thing is, the noir styling suits what elsewhere in Reynolds’ fiction can grate — that is, the habit of the characters to talk to one another in pithy, sarcastic asides. Here is suits the text down ...