Update (17:00 03 Mar): all members of the UK or international scientific community were invited to indicate their support by signing the letter. The opportunity to do so closed at 17:00 UK time on 03 ...

Last month I attended the IAML UK & Ireland Annual Study Weekend (ASW). IAML is the International Association of Music Libraries, and this is an event run each year by the UK & Ireland branch. This ...

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 ...

Last night I dreamt I was pipetting. It was a beautiful Gilson p200, the classic model of my formative years. The precision instrument felt reassuringly heavy and solid in my right hand. Despite its ...

Earlier this week several Gees drove 300+ miles across Britain to spend a few days in an entirely different country — Wales. Specifically, Carmarthenshire, where Mrs Gee has relations. We rented a ...

Susanna Clarke: Piranesi A young man called Piranesi lives in a strange, Borgesian world, an infinite series of gigantic marble halls styled on classical lines, and ornamented by uncountable statues.

Barbra Streisand: My Name Is Barbra I first came across Barbra Streisand with a fluffy comic song in my parents’ record collection. It was ‘Second-Hand Rose’, which I now know was written in 1921 and ...

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 ...

I am only happy to write about this today because I suspect it is finally almost over. I’m no longer so superstitious that I think I’m tempting fate by doing so now. In short, I’ve been ill for a long ...

Max Adams: Aelfred’s Britain Max Adams is an archaeologist and writer specialising in Early Medieval Britain (that is, between the departure of Rome in 410, to the Norman Conquest) . His other books ...

The thermometer has been stuck between 1ºC and 4ºC for about three days. The hens are huddling together in the coop, rather than sleep alfresco on their favourite perch. Only one of them has been ...

Between leaving school and going to university I spent a year working as a library assistant in a public library service; not a branch library but the headquarters of the service. The Library HQ had a ...