BLOG

What do you think of when you hear the words “magic mushrooms”? It’s likely that you may be picturing long-haired hippies, experimental rock bands or cross-legged gurus preaching about peace and love. Our view of psychedelic drugs like LSD and magic mushrooms is still largely shaped by events of the 1960s. In these ten years, they went from defining the art, music and politics of a generation, to being outlawed amid terrifying headlines about “bad trips” and damaged minds. It

Last month was the hottest ever recorded on Earth. It is a fact that the planet is heating up and, without drastic action, the changing climate threatens to unleash a wave of global disasters. Human activities are responsible for this and, while we are taking some gradual steps to become greener, we still generate most of our energy by burning heat-trapping carbon. But what if, in addition to reducing our carbon dependency, we could undo some of the damage we’ve already in

From eyes that see over a million different colours to ears that detect a staggering range of frequencies, the human senses are incredible. But none can hold a candle to the most powerful part of our sensory system: the brain. The human brain does the most impressive feat of data analysis imaginable – decoding electrical impulses from all over the body and combining them to create the rich, multi-modal experience we call reality. But what if a connection fails, and a sense is

Here’s a cheery question: what medical condition claims more lives than any other? The answer might surprise you. It’s not cancer, heart disease or strokes. It’s old age. That may sound a bit ridiculous – old age isn’t a disease, it’s just a fact of life. Right? But what if old age isn’t as inevitable as we think? Recent advances in medical science might help us to push back old age and even bring the idea of "eternal youth" out of the realm of fantasy and into the real world

How objective are you? Most of us like to think that we always make rational and fact-based decisions, but studies show that we are often swayed by unconscious biases. Thankfully we can rely on science to give us an objective and unbiased take on the world, with its robust, impartial research and cold, hard data. Or can we? It turns out the truth is a bit more complicated… In a recent iluli video, I explored how science and technology have reinforced inequalities in our socie

Do you often find yourself endlessly scrolling your social media feeds for no apparent reason? You may have asked yourself "Why am I doing this?" The answer to that very 21st century question is likely to be a single naturally occurring chemical – dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter – a chemical that brain cells use to communicate with each other. It is released into the brain when we experience something pleasant or new and plays a big role in motivating behaviour. In t

For many of us, the concept of nuclear power can sound a bit scary. We hear the word "nuclear" and images of mushroom clouds, Chernobyl or other more recent disasters spring to mind. And it’s not a completely irrational response – when thing go wrong with nuclear, they go very wrong. But it got me wondering – might we take a more rounded view of the pros, cons and untapped potential of nuclear power if we had a better understanding of how it works? We set ourselves the chall

Proteins probably don’t weigh too heavily on your mind day to day. It’s ironic, given every single cell in your brain, and the rest of your body, is made up of a myriad of protein building blocks known as amino acids. A whopping 20,000 proteins are expressed by the human genome. The information needed to create these proteins is contained in the nuclei of our DNA. Now, scientists have discovered an intelligent method for reading these instructions. We’re just beginning to scr

A 2021 study by WWF found an area of forest totalling 43 million hectares – almost double the size of the UK – was wiped out in just 13 years across the world’s key deforestation hotspots. Unsurprisingly, commercial agriculture was found to be the leading cause of deforestation. The Amazon rainforest is approaching a tipping point, where scientists fear losing a further 5% of area could lead to runaway climate change. Finding a solution is now a race against time. Enter tech

With temperatures continuing to rise around the world, it’s clear we’ll need to rely on something other than rain dances to fend off droughts.  That’s where 'cloud seeding' comes in – a type of weather modification that typically aims to increase the amount of rain or snow. According to a March 2021 article in The Guardian : Cloud seeding involves using aircraft or drones to add small particles of silver iodide, which have a structure similar to ice, to clouds. Water droplets

If you’ve ever felt a lump in your throat listening to a piece of music, you’re far from alone. It’s a strange phenomenon — that the soft strumming of a guitar or sad sax solo can make you well up, especially without any prior connection to the tune. Sure, you’d expect a melancholy hymn from a funeral you attended to evoke such emotion, but what of a new track you’ve just heard on the radio? Or that Spotify has thrown up on a playlist? If you’ve seen The Holiday — a festive f

Can you believe it’s been more than six months since that nail-biting US presidential election? For many of us “outsiders”, the choice between the two candidates seemed clear cut, but the incoming results proved anything but.  Onlookers around the globe endured a slow, tortuous few days glued to CNN and the like before the rightful victor was called. For anyone with only a passing interest in US politics, such a complex voting system can be incredibly confusing. The Guardian

Remember the good old days of playing board games? So-called 'family fun', sitting inside on a rainy afternoon with your sibling getting increasingly irate as you gleefully demand rent for your three hotels on Park Lane. Well, those days might have changed for good since Monopoly introduced a voice-activated edition of their family staple... Boasting that ‘Mr. Monopoly now listens’, you simply say commands like "pay rent on Piccadilly" and bam! the payment is moved to the pla

I revisited a Q3 2018 report from StartUp Health around digital health funding earlier this week. It contains insights into the most active investors, functions and technologies from January to end of September 2018, and generally paints a rosy picture of growth within the digital health funding landscape.   It’s fascinating stuff. Not least because Q3 2018 achieved the highest quarter performance since tracking began in 2010, with a whopping $4.5bn generated through seed, v

“You won’t always have a calculator on you, will you?” The lasting words of maths teachers, engrained in the memories of the masses — at least if you were born before the year 2000. Nobody could have predicted just how wrong they were. Now, everyone with a smartphone literally has a calculator, diary, library, radio station and so much more in their pockets — and on their person — from the moment they wake up to the time they go to sleep. And whilst traditional aids such as p