Starch is not the first substance that springs to mind when someone mentions chili peppers. What one is interested in is capsaicin, heat. I mean, who cares about the starch in peppers? Linda Perry and her colleagues, that’s who, because by studying starch grains from chili peppers they have shown th...

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Spam is hateful stuff. It clogs up my email inbox. I have to scan that inbox and deal with it. I have to scan my spambox in case something meaningful accidentally ended up there. Despite the best efforts of my mail service, spam is both a time waster and deeply annoying, not least because it forces me occasionally to dwell on human greed and gullibility.

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With almost two years of regular podcasting under my belt now, three things emerge.

1. I really enjoy doing this. I would like to do it more and better.
2. Despite my love for the work, or perhaps because of it, a larger audience would be rewarding.
3. In the engine room, things need to change.

The three are, of course, commingled.

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The year just past -- especially the second half of it -- was not my finest hour. I was trying to do two (or was it three?) jobs at once, not to mention my "personal" work, and not doing any of it well. I got into all sorts of bad habits and spent far too much time lamenting my inability to move things forward when the truth of the matter, it now seems, was that I was trying to move too many things. Dissipation was my middle name.

No more.

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This is counter-intuititive; wearing a helmet makes biking more dangerous -- at least in Bath and Salisbury. Dr Ian Walker, a pychologist at the University of Bath, discovered that cars, trucks and buses gave him much less room when he wore a helmet that when he didn’t. Walker reckons that this may...

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