freelance science journalist and author
From ABC Health and Wellbeing, 27 January 2015: Sixty years ago, childhood leukaemia was a uniformly fatal illness. With nothing in the medical arsenal to treat the disease, it killed just about every child who developed it. If a child is diagnosed with leukaemia today, they have around an 80 per cent of surviving beyond … Continue reading Being a ‘guinea pig’ in a clinical trial
From ABC Health and Wellbeing, 9 December 2014: “You’re too young to be in here.” I couldn’t agree more. I look around the cardiologist’s waiting room, guessing that I’m the youngest person by at least 20 years. Everyone else is slightly crumpled; soft, wrinkled and grey. But, despite my youthful vigour – well, maybe slightly … Continue reading When health anxiety set my mind (and heart) racing
From Australian Doctor, 21 November 2014: When Archie Cochrane attempted what he later described as his “first, worst and most successful clinical trial” among fellow prisoners of war in World War II suffering from jaundice and oedema, he might have been reassured that whatever the outcomes of his efforts, the majority of his study subjects … Continue reading The race to find a cure for Ebola
From ABC News in Science, 26 November 2014: Vultures manage to survive exposure to a host of nasty bacteria by keeping their own team of gut bacteria that outcompete even the most deadly pathogens, new research shows. The study of the gut microbiome of New World vultures, published today in Nature Communication, reveals a remarkably … Continue reading Vultures survive toxic diet with bacterial help
From Nature Outlook, 13 November 2014: At first glance, a child with sickle-cell disease may appear healthy. But what you cannot see — and what dominates the child’s life — are bursts of searing, crippling pain that strike without warning. These episodes require trips to hospital, and even the highest doses of the most powerful … Continue reading Life beyond the pain of sickle cell disease
(I wrote this piece about ten years ago about my trip to the Korean Bath House in Sydney’s Kings Cross, and never managed to find a home for it. Rather than let it die in the electronic shadows, I thought I’d publish it here). I’m a big fan of nudity. In my bedroom, with the door … Continue reading Memories of a Korean bath house
From ABC Health and Wellbeing, 11 November 2014: When talking about the problems of illicit drug use in Australia, conversations will tend to focus on ice, heroin, ecstasy and similar drugs. But one class of drugs rarely gets a mention, despite the fact that it’s now overtaking heroin as the cause of calls to drug … Continue reading Our growing addiction to prescription painkillers
Originally published in ABC Environment, 10 November 2014: “IMAGINE A SUSTAINABLE world, driven by clean and renewable energy. Now imagine large space sailboats driven by solar radiation, production of biofuels via nanotechnology, the advent of photosynthetic humans, and, as there is no perfect society, even terrorism against corrupt businesses and governments. Welcome to the bright green … Continue reading Solarpunk: a positive future
From Monash magazine, October 2014: Giving someone the wrong blood in a transfusion causes the body to go into anaphylactic shock as the immune system is effectively forced to attack itself. Determining a patient’s blood type traditionally requires complex and expensive laboratory equipment, careful refrigeration of antibody reagents and a university degree in pathology. It … Continue reading Blood lines spelled out
From Monash magazine, October 2014: One of the big challenges facing health officials trying to supply, and use, vaccines in remote regions where refrigeration is either limited, unreliable or non-existent is that vital vaccines are sensitive to hot conditions. Too often vaccines fail to provide the necessary immune protection because the refrigerated supply chain that … Continue reading Cool cubes
