Having previously discussed the thumb, the index finger, and the middle finger, I turn to the ring finger, which the Romans called digitus anularis, from anulus, the diminutive form of […]
Columnists
Richard Smith: The public health of death, dying, and grief has been neglected, but now is the time
The dying spend less than 5% of their time with doctors and nurses, and 95% doing something else, perhaps alone, with family and friends, walking the dog, making love, reading […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Dragon’s teeth
A colleague recently showed me a recipe, dating from around the beginning of the 20th century, for a tooth powder. It appeared to contain, among other things, dragon’s tooth. The […]
Deal or no deal? The Brexit process has descended into farce but will it become a tragedy?
The risk of a “no deal” Brexit is now extremely high and, if May’s plan goes wrong, it will be the NHS and its patients that bear the brunt of […]
Billy Boland: How can you know what culture you are operating in, and can it be measured?
It was Heraclitus, the pre-Socratic Philosopher who famously described the concept of constant change. As we move through our life and careers, what appears at first appear to be constant, […]
Richard Smith: Can fiction save us from climate catastrophe?
After reading John Lanchester’s chilling dystopian novel The Wall about how the world will be after climate catastrophe I had the unsettling sense for several days that the world he […]
The robot needs a human heart—why AI in medicine brings moral choices into focus
In a crisp, white building deep in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, teams of people make moral choices on your behalf. The development of self-driving cars may improve global […]
Richard Smith: Pharmaceutical companies follow public funders of research in efforts to reform science publishing
Funders of research are the one group who have the power to change the slow, inefficient, old-fashioned, wasteful, arbitrary, and, some would say, iniquitous way that we publish science. About […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Naming the digits—the middle finger
Having previously discussed the thumb and the index finger, I turn to the middle finger. The Greeks called the middle finger ὁ μέσος δάκτυλος and likewise the Romans called it […]
Nick Hopkinson: Dynamite the sewers!—the UK’s shameful record on poverty
Installed in his first job in the poverty-stricken Welsh Valleys, young Dr Manson, the hero of AJ Cronin’s 1937 classic The Citadel is faced with a cluster of cases of typhoid. […]