Kester Brewin

There are so many technology stories every week it can be hard to know what’s significant or not. But this piece on the BBC about a new sort of camera has kept me thinking all day, so I thought I’d blog something about it. Put simply, the ‘Lytro’ camera – available for pre-order, but not [...]

Very good episode of In Our Time this week, which looked at free will. 50 mins or so – and very well worthwhile listening to, especially in the context of the debate on heaven and hell which is still rumbling around the publication of Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins. There are serious problems on [...]

As the cold snap grips, I thought a little starter course in thermodynamics might come in helpful First up: resist turning up the thermostat. Please. For the sake of everyone, now and in the future, we can’t afford to heat the huge air volumes in our houses by burning fuel. It’s highly inefficient. I was [...]

The story of the Chilean miners has been one of the most incredibly moving events I can remember. There’s something of the two-fingers-up-to-nature which is both exhilarating and troubling, and something of the deeply archetypal and transformative about the rescue… 33 Sliding, encased, through the bowels the earth thirty-three steel turds are evacuated into the [...]

Another extraordinary snippet from the WSJ interview with Eric Schmidt concerns the future of what Google wants to be able to do: “We’re trying to figure out what the future of search is… We’re still happy to be in search, believe me. But… I actually think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions, [...]

Absolutely fascinating programme on BBC Radio 4, looking at the cases of Sidney Bradford and Mike May, both of whom lost their sight very early in life, and were then lucky enough to be able to have it restored years later. What is it like to grow up blind, and then be able to see [...]

Fascinating series of images in The Daily Telegraph. Using an electron microscope, scientists have taken photographs (then recoloured) of bugs and insects… and it’s amazing just how ‘monstrous’ they look. It’s as if the human unconscious has its own microscope which has always been aware of these bizarre life-forms, which are so similar to the [...]

Very interesting report today in the Telegraph that NASA have detected a large solar flare erupting from the sun – which is likely to cause some spectacular displays of the northern and southern lights. These ‘coronal mass injections’ are actually a source of immense worry for disaster planners, as the largest eruption could result in [...]

Interesting piece in The Independent about the battle over the right to remain anonymous online – especially as waged in World of Warcraft recently. That’s not a world I have ever ventured into, but many many have, and, as Rhodri Marsden sets out: Female players were particularly concerned, very aware that revealing their gender could invite [...]

I’ve said it many times here before, but if you haven’t already tuned in to Radio 4′s ‘In Our Time‘ archive on your iTunes, then you’re seriously missing out. Listening to it I’m always reminded of the great quote in Good Will Hunting where Will quips to a Harvard student: you wasted $150,000 on an [...]