The Thin End

How would you react if your neighbour told you he was going to spray his garden with a neurotoxin used in WW2? "Oh don't worry!" he assures you, "it's only a low dose!" "A neurotoxin?" you ask incredulously "Are you crazy?" "It's very effective!" he asserts. "How does it work?" you ask. "It stops the pests' brains working" he asserts with a smile.  "Everyone uses it." "But..." Campaigners in the USA hope  that with Scott Pruitt’s resignation, and with a new administrator Andrew Wheeler at the helm of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), this presents another chance to apply pressure and achieve a national ban in the United States on the organophosphate pesticide chlorpyrifos once and for all. Photo by Elle Dunn Organophosphate insecticides, such as diazinon, chlorpyrifos, disulfoton, azinphos-methyl, and fonofos, have been used widely in agriculture and in...

It wouldn't be Christmas without stories appearing about Einstein's brain. It is a recurring theme; the intellectual man's chitchat about the weather. A group of scientists are studying the pickled brain of Einstein to see if they can 'discover' what was exceptional about it; something that could have given him his extraordinary intellect. I cannot think of a more potentially fruitless scientific endeavour. Even supposing they find something odd about his brain, it is difficult to see how they could now associate this with his intelligence. They might find, for example, that a particular part of his brain was proportionately large or small, but to conclude that this somehow gave him extraordinary powers of understanding would remain pure speculation. None of this is particularly new. Indeed, an odd feature has already been found in Albert Einstein's brain. Back in 1999, it was reported in The Lancet  that a unique morphological feature had been found in Eins...