Things to come … Big Brother for bugs
First published in Management Today, June 2003Creepy-crawlies account for more than half the known species on the planet. Better understanding of their behaviour could yield breakthroughs, not least in the fight against insect-borne diseases such as malaria and sleeping sickness. But observing insects is difficult.
Now a Bristol film-maker has built a camera with a lens only 6mm wide, compared to the usual 30mm-100mm. Attached to a 3m robot arm, the camera gives a bug’s eye view without disturbing the insects, so their behaviour is not influenced by filming.
Martin Dohrn has used his device to probe a killer ants’ nest, and his film was a Bafta contender (and may have won an award by the time you read this). A fly-on-the-wall documentary to catch.
Gregg Wallace might be a difficult man to defend. Some of the allegations against him are very serious and he has responded to the scandal woefully. But he deserves due process like anyone else, says Luke Gittos
There are working class people, a lot of them women, being unfairly discriminated against in workplaces every day.
The entitled celebrities who've been complaining that Gregg Wallace offended them couldn't give a toss. Wrong kind of women, I guess.
Innovators I like
Robert Furchgott – discovered that nitric oxide transmits signals within the human body
Barry Marshall – showed that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori is the cause of most peptic ulcers, reversing decades of medical doctrine holding that ulcers were caused by stress, spicy foods, and too much acid
N Joseph Woodland – co-inventor of the barcode
Jocelyn Bell Burnell – she discovered the first radio pulsars
John Tyndall – the man who worked out why the sky was blue
Rosalind Franklin co-discovered the structure of DNA, with Crick and Watson
Rosalyn Sussman Yallow – development of radioimmunoassay (RIA), a method of quantifying minute amounts of biological substances in the body
Jonas Salk – discovery and development of the first successful polio vaccine
John Waterlow – discovered that lack of body potassium causes altitude sickness. First experiment: on himself
Werner Forssmann – the first man to insert a catheter into a human heart: his own
Bruce Bayer – scientist with Kodak whose invention of a colour filter array enabled digital imaging sensors to capture colour
Yuri Gagarin – first man in space. My piece of fandom: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/10421
Sir Godfrey Hounsfield – inventor, with Robert Ledley, of the CAT scanner
Martin Cooper – inventor of the mobile phone
George Devol – 'father of robotics’ who helped to revolutionise carmaking
Thomas Tuohy – Windscale manager who doused the flames of the 1957 fire
Eugene Polley – TV remote controls
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