A conference on wildfires, a terrier on bed rest, and Europe's first pyrocumulonimbus — the week refused to rank them. Fire, convalescence, and a full English.
Every heatwave, the cameras find the same shot: ice cream, paddling pools, sunbathers in the park. In May and June that imagery sat alongside 2,700 estimated heat deaths in England and Wales. Representation doesn't just describe risk - it decides how seriously we take it.
A heatwave outside, a conference inside asking what cities must become to survive the next one.
This week, between Cambridge Tech Week, the Centre for Risk Studies Symposium, and agreeing to help run a UCL STEM day for teenagers — made newly urgent by a Scientific American piece on US science — I also wrestled my dissertation's quantitative core through UCL's HPC cluster.
The Climate Change Committee published its fourth assessment of UK climate risk a matter of weeks ago and a couple
The Nobel Prize’s integrity is a reminder that excellence still prevails over politics. Amid funding cuts and cynicism, the MacArthur Fellows highlight America’s diversity and brilliance - an antidote to the relentless noise and despair of the news cycle.
A cultural roundup: Real Hackney Dave’s bold screen prints, Professor Alexander’s disaster foresight lecture, a landmark tree photobook, Niwaki’s Field Report, Apple’s awe-inspiring launch, Jony Ive’s design insights, and the urgent crisis of US leadership amid famine and displacement.
Public discussion continues to be dominated by lab leak narratives and political agendas - discourse that is often conspiratorial or speculative. Misinformation actively hinders our ability to prepare, detect, and respond to the next pandemic threat.