Communion Hosts, Canon Law and Coeliac Disease: A Solution

I’m Catholic, I’m an immunologist, and I have coeliac disease. So I’m giving this a crack. This post has some religion [here defined as a concept or belief that cannot be disproved] and some science. For a rational debate to occur, we must accept the co-existence of those two concepts. Is coeliac disease an allergy? […]

I Went To The Museum

The irony wasn’t obvious at first. But by the time I’d read to the end of the Denisovan piece, and checked a thing or two, it was clear. DNA analysis from a 50,000-year-old finger found in a Siberian cave confirms it belonged to human ancestors called the Denisovans. Denisovans? An ancient civilisation? Visitors from an alien […]

The Sun Rises In The Evening

It’s paradoxical but one of the main producers of gluten-free products is a country built on pasta. Yep, Italy produces a huge range of excellent gluten-free food; that is, except for the beer. Couldn’t drink it. So was I excited when O’Brien’s Brewery opened in 2007. They now supply Australia and the world with the […]

There Is No Limit To This Moment

I would like to thank Fritjof Capra. Like millions of others since 1975, I own a copy of The Tao Of Physics. I have the 1982 Flamingo paperback edition, pages dog-eared and yellowed, cluttered with scribbles and highlights, re-read often. The subtitle of this book summarizes its attractiveness: ‘An exploration of the parallels between modern […]

And This Image We Call Time

People spend a lot of time thinking about Time. I’ve just searched Amazon books for ‘time management’ and there are 17,283 entries. From ‘The 4-Hour Work Week’ (in your dreams) to ‘Getting Things Done’. The seductive titles are bespattered with noble nouns which are all attractive, and all relate to managing Time: Happiness, Discipline, Strength, […]

A Tail, Like The Other Foxes

By 1859, when Charles Darwin’s Origin was published, its author had a continuing history of multiple somatic complaints. He needed long periods of convalescence, and the inevitable debates that followed were shouldered, for the main, by the greatest science educator of the 19th Century, Thomas Huxley. Of prodigious intellect, and with an outstanding debating skill […]