It is, apparently, World Homeopathy Awareness Week. I’ve written a long, detailed post about homeopathy, which is none-too-favourable, as one might expect coming from any author with even the vaguest inkling of scientific method. Anyway, in the spirit of things, I have diluted my original post repeatedly, removing random characters each time, and banging my computer in what is technically referred to as ‘just the right way’ at regular intervals. The result is a homeopathic post about homeopathy. To you, with an untrained (but oh-so-delightfully blue/green/grey/brown/false*) eye, it may seem like there’s nothing there at all. But! rest assured the pixels of your screen retain the resonances of my well-reasoned arguments, and you will still feel its benefit, and be able to act on its sage advice about the damage homeopathy can do when, amongst other things, it is applied to communicative diseases, replacing medicines which have been shown to work in both double-blind studies and in general use. This post does differ from normal homeopathic offerings, in that you can have it for free: who says you can’t get something diluted to nothing for nothing?

     Homeopathic post begins.
     Homeopathic post ends.

     Thank you for reading. You may also like this piece by Martin Robbins in The Guardian.

     *delete as appropriate

Yes, this is a bit random. No, it doesn’t really fit into the overall goals of the blog. But, yesterday I went to a Doctor Who exhibition in London and I figured it might be fun to have a Tardis-themed lock screen on my iPhone. I couldn’t find one that fitted my criteria: had to work with messages I received, had to show the time and date clearly, should be as ‘full-screen’ as possible. Anyway, I spent a productive breakfast editing images, and came up with the following. I thought I’d share it, in case anyone else wanted to use it. The colours look odd, but that’s to compensate for the iPhone’s lock-screen shading. The ‘Police Box’ text is missing, but that’s because the date sits there.

     Post a comment if you use it. Thanks.

     (I stupidly deleted the original Tardis image file, and can’t remember where I found it. I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes. If you’re the rights holder and want it taken down, or credited, then please accept my apologies: contact me through comments and I’ll oblige. It just seemed like a harmless thing to share with people, in a derivative-work-kind-of-way.)

Washington Post wins award for “Highest number of times ’2008′ can be included in a short video description”. Yesterday, there were evidently a lot of links to a piece in the Post which suggested Romney had dropped out of the primaries. Today, the Post has clearly taken steps to remove any confusion. I figured this would happen, so I took a screen shot. Not important, but it made me smile and I thought I’d share it with you.

More of an extended Facebook post than a blog post, but I do want people to be aware of this opportunity, so…

     Peter Thiel launched the Thiel Fellowship today. If you were born in 1992 or later then (a) get off my lawn and turn that music down, if you can call it music, it just sounds like noise to me and are those supposed to be clothes… oh, sorry… and (b) you can apply for a Fellowship. The details:

Thiel Fellows are given a no-strings-attached grant of $100,000 to skip college and focus on their work, their research, and their self-education. They are mentored by our network of visionary thinkers, investors, scientists, and entrepreneurs, who provide guidance and business connections that can’t be replicated in any classroom. Rather than just studying, you’re doing.

     Regular Facebook followers (and don’t feel obliged to admit to that) will know that I find some elements of the wider education ‘debate’ lacking in nuance: definitions of ‘success’, for example, seem to be increasingly limited and tautologous, and I’d rather see someone become a doctor than invent ‘Angry Birds IX – Doric Column Edition’. However, I do think that people should ask themselves whether or not college is their best route to the success they want, and if they have an entrepreneurial bent, and talent, this is a marvellous opportunity for them.

     Furthermore, a two-year break from education doesn’t remove the possibility of returning to it. I spent 7 years in business between my BA and MA, and another three years between my MA and BSc/PhD.

     In short: if you’re in the age range, and considering your options, head over to the site and take a look.

My friend Kelly needed some headshots for magazines at short notice, so I took a break from matters mathematical on Sunday to help her out. I thought I’d share one of the pictures, to brighten up the front page of the blog, if nothing else.  She designed the anatomical wallpaper in the background, by the way.

Monday will see the end of my role as Executive Vice President of SENS Foundation. I’ll say more about that in a moment, but I think it’s important to understand that the Foundation is a lifetime commitment for me. I’m a co-founder, after all, and I can’t imagine a world in which I’m not extolling the virtues of the organization, its mission, and the wider concept of rejuvenation biotechnology; whatever else I’m doing, or whatever environment surrounds me.

     Why am I stepping down? Because I have a personal project which I wish to pursue. And given the criticality of rejuvation biotechnology, you should get a feeling for just how important I consider this next project, but also how hard it has been to reach this decision.

     Why can I step down now? Because the team which we’ve built at the Foundation over the past two-and-a-half years is so very, very talented and capable. Under the leadership of Mike Kope the executive team has gone from strength to strength. Tanya Jones joined us and has built an amazing Research Center facility in Mountain View, where our team of researchers continues to expand as we attract top-notch candidates to new positions. Aubrey de Grey’s role as CSO has been augmented by the expertise of those researchers, particularly our principal investigators. At the same time, our outreach activities are starting to fall to a widening circle of Foundation communicators. Our Academic Initiative, now under Daniel Kimbel, looks set to do great things in the coming year, as he builds a scalable framework for our interactions with the student community. Maria Entraigues, in LA, has taken our success at hosting ‘chapter’ meetings in the city and transformed it into a focused fund-raising effort which is growing our presence and supporter-base there, and which looks set to be a model for other locations in the US and beyond.

     I could fill a many more paragraphs with similar observations: I haven’t even mentioned the development of our Board, or the expansion in our funding and external collaborations. I urge you to visit the Foundation’s website to see what we’re doing, and meet our team: I couldn’t mention everyone by name here, but they all deserve your time and attention, I assure you.

     And on a personal note, I’m going to miss their company, a very great deal.

(There’s a blog post by Mike Kope on this subject, too.)

Finally, a chance to combine Darwin, Marat, mermaids, taxidermy, Star Wars, Poussin, Rilke and Japanese death poetry in a single essay.  Let me explain.  A talented artist friend, Kelly McCallum, is having a solo show at Shizaru Gallery in Mayfair.  Simon, the gallery director, was kind enough to hire me to write a short piece for inclusion in the catalogue, and thus was born Plumage and Paradise : Art and the Catalysis of Personal Narrative.

     Now, thanks to the wonder of the internet, you, too, can own and enjoy a fine copy of this timeless piece of cultural analysis.  This lovingly hand-crafted pdf is guaranteed to bring moments of reflective happiness to any enquiring mind.   It also includes photographs of Kelly’s work, to give you an idea of what I’m actually talking about.  Just click here or on the image below to download.

     Better still – and I highly recommend this – get down to the gallery to see the exhibition.  You can find full details on Shizaru’s website, but in summary: Plumage and Paradise, 15 September – 29 October 2011, Shizaru Gallery, 112 Mount Street, London, W1K 2TU, UK.

In which Holmes is excited, your host reflects on physics, and a little nostalgic reverie is shared.

I was awakened by a tugging at my shoulder. It was Holmes. The candle in his hand shone upon his eager, stooping face, and told me at a glance that something was amiss.

“Come, Watson, come!” he cried. The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!”

(The Adventure of the Abbey Grange, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1904)

In science, discovering that a theory is supported by experiment is wonderful. But discovering that it’s wrong is often when the real excitement begins.  And more often than not, it involves wearing clothes. I'm dressed and ready to read more.

So, you may have heard whispers of a slight hoohah in London last night.  I ventured out this morning and took some photographs. (For wherever there is trouble I shall be bravely there, a few hours later, when things have calmed down, and it’s daylight, and I can get a cup of tea.)  Please insert your own social commentary as required. Photos after the break.

Shakespeare meets science…  So, the Fifth SENS Conference is looming, and I had a tight deadline on an abstract for SENS Foundation‘s CEO talk.  My tongue-in-cheek response ended up in the program, so I guess there’s no harm in sharing it here.  Let’s call it a gift from me to you, on my birthday.  (Extra marks for spotting references to our LysoSENS work on AMD and heart disease, ApoptoSENS, and GlycoSENS.)

Once more unto the bench, dear friends, once more;
Or close the world up with our agèd dead.
In life there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the cast of death falls on our fears,
Then elevate the actions of the soma;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Repair fair nature with hard-won physic;
Then lend the eye a clearèd aspect;
Let spry sight in portage of the head
Be renewed anon; let enzyme o’erwhelm ills
As joyfully as doth a galled vein
O’ercome and hurry his confounded blood,
Swill’d with the lysosomal nostrum.
Now fix the teeth and flex the softened hide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest human.
Whose blood is free from senescent cell-load!
You here that, like so many visionaries,
Have in these walls from morn till even heard
And writ your notes on well-made argument:
Discover now your purpose; now attest
That those whom you call speakers did inform you.
Be copy now to men of other climes,
And teach them what might be. And you, good people,
Arrayed in seats before me, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; come now swear
That we are worth donations; which I doubt not;
For there is none of us so mean and base,
That hath not noble intent in our mind.
You see us stand as scientists in our labs,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry ‘Good for Aubrey, Michael, and SENS Five!’

EXEUNT OMNES, to Agingcourt.

Too much?  Now, somewhere I have a half-written script about Hamlet and quantum mechanics…