Those who know me know I procrastinate, especially when it comes to unpleasant matters – or at least that was my practice until not long ago. In our age group most of us

From the simplest cells to complex creatures gifted with language, imagination and creativity, life has a beginning, interims and an ending. There’s no escape. Good genes, a healthy lifestyle, timely and effective intervention,

Science, the study of the natural world, evolved early, possibly in nascent forms long before the emergence of modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans. Enabling traits would have been curiosity, imagination and learning by

Artificial intelligence seems to be taking over the world these days, what with repeated scary predictions in media, online and in science and medicine journals, where up to 10 per cent of the

Biology is far more complex than quantum physics and the study of the universe and stars. And in biology, the brain is the most complex system with the possible exception of the operations

I’m struck by how old some Nobel Prize winners are when they finally are honoured. In 2019, at the ripe age of 97, John Goodenough won a share of a Nobel for his

The process of choosing Nobel Prize-winning work and winners begins soon after the awards ceremony the previous year. Invitations are sent out for nominations to hundreds of experts around the world, including previous

The Nobel series, an annual November-December review of the year’s Nobel Prizes announced in October, has been a success for the Niagara-on-the-Lake Public Library since it began in 2017. Sometimes it’s possible to

Well before Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier received their richly deserved Nobel Prize in 2022 for pioneering work on gene editing, it was obvious the practice held great promise for hundreds of hereditary

One of the things I enjoy and admire about science is that nothing is for certain. Hypotheses we thought were true may turn out to be wrong, or at least in heavy need

Unfortunately, strokes remain common. The most common are ischemic in origin – the result of a block in an arterial branch, whether a local blood clot or an embolus that deprives the affected

The three most important evolutionary changes on the way to modern humans were bipedalism, repurposing the forelimbs and especially the hands for fashioning and using tools, and a brain capable of symbolic thinking,

The perfect marriage, in a technical sense, was the relationship between the computer and artificial intelligence (AI) which began in the 1940s and 1950s. Like the best human marriages, it got better and

Despite his age, 36-year-old Novak Djokovic has been at the top of men’s tennis for a decade with no clear end in sight. So far, he has surpassed his rivals of the last

The brain is incredibly complex – so complex that some scientists – including Nobel Prize-winning particle physicist Steven Weinberg, were prompted to wonder whether humans will ever fully grasp how this marvellous organ

When I worked at the New England Medical Center in the 1990s, I was part of a sports medicine clinic that served professional and college athletes, and dancers in the Boston Ballet. Far

Were any disease to be called cruel, Alzheimer’s disease would surely be near the top of the list. It wipes out a lifetime of memories, relationships with long-time partners and friends and toward

If you want to figure out how the brain works, there are several options. One classical method, which served clinical neurologists and neurosurgeons very well in the 19th and 20th centuries, was to

In the springtime of the initial four years we lived in Niagara-on-the-Lake, a female fox with a decided limp in her left leg took up residence in the culvert beneath our driveway. With