Mathematical models, political decision making and public perceptions
March 3, 2020
On Tuesday, 3 March, Boris Johnson revealed the government’s action plan on how to deal with the novel coronavirus and the spread of Covid-19. Despite doubts about the usefulness of experts expressed some years ago by some of his colleagues, he was flanked by experts, namely Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, and …
Warnings, war metaphors and infectious diseases: A little lit review
January 30, 2020
We are living through another global outbreak of an infectious disease: this time it’s a new version of the coronavirus. This outbreak of disease is, as usual, accompanied by an outbreak of war metaphors…. (some of them now collected in a later blog post). This brings back memories of other outbreaks, both in animals and …
The GM/gene drive communication confusion
September 20, 2019
The other day, I was at the airport waiting for a plane back to the UK, when I noticed on twitter that there was some kerfuffle going on about a field trial in Brazil intended to eliminate disease carrying mosquitoes, which had had, it seems, some unintended consequences (see study). Here is a short summary: …
Searching for Zika: Where are the women?
October 21, 2016
Newsflash: Article based on more qualitative analysis now out!! Media coverage of the Zika crisis in Brazil: The construction of a ‘war’ frame that masked social and gender inequalities (open access) *** The Zika virus has attracted a lot of attention over the last year. For some people it’s a faraway threat, for some it’s a …
MSP bookmarks
- Twitter May 8, 2017
- Social innovations in Europe #RRI November 3, 2015
- Harvey Graff, the undisciplinarian September 20, 2015
- Replacing Pesticides With Genetics August 31, 2015
- Addressing hazardous chemicals in the circular economy August 25, 2015
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