http://www.mysite.com Get the lates news from my very interesting site! http://www.mysite.com/news.php?mnid=4 The egregiously named pollster YouGov has announced the results of a survey of UK mobile phone users. One in five apparent think that being out of mobile contact is as stressful as moving house or breaking up with a partner. Now, who might have commissioned such a time wasting poll? Could it perhaps be a publicity-seeking digital service provider of some kind? Step forward, the Post Office. 'Being phoneless and panicked is a symptom of our 24/7 culture', said its head of telephony. The Post Office has thoughtfully produced a guide to help victims of this life-threatening condition. In brief, it advises: 1. don't go out without your mobile so you can keep paying us; 2. if you lose your mobile, replace it quick so you can keep paying us; 3. make a back-up of numbers so you can start calling again straightaway and keep paying us; 4. give your friends alternative numbers for you so they can keep paying us. There again, I've learnt I've been nomo-phobic all my life. I don't use a mobile. Actually, I feel fine, thanks. http://www.mysite.com/news.php?mnid=11 ‘Identity’ ran at the Wellcome Collection, London, to April 2010. The catalogue Identity & Identification is still available from the Wellcome Collection shop or Amazon. The eight rooms are named after individual figureheads who serve to introduce a wide variety of questions about personal identity. Thus, Samuel Pepys opens a discussion of whether the diary can ever really offer an honest record of the self. Other diaries include those of Tony Benn, amnesia sufferer Clive Wearing, imprisoned suffagettes, and the dubious confessionals of Big Brother. Other figureheads include gender transition pioneer April Ashley, self-portraitist Claude Cahun, and the actor Fiona Shaw. http://www.mysite.com/news.php?mnid=13 At long last, my cultural companion to the chemical elements Periodic Tales is published. From sodium street lights (essential in fictional dystopias) to cobalt blue, and from arsenic poisonings to the zinc bars of the Left Bank, it's packed with stories that show how we understand the elements through culture – and no nerdy chemistry. Find out why Shakespeare was a chemist and T. S. Eliot a spectroscopist! It was Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4 in February, and has gathered many great reviews, including a rave from Matt Ridley. In the next few weeks, there will be more public occasions, including an evening devoted to the elements at the Wellcome Collection in April (see below), and I'll be appearing at the Hay Festival on 30 May and the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August. http://www.mysite.com/news.php?mnid=17 Here’s a link to a short interview I did recently on the main American radio news programme, ‘The Takeaway’. http://www.thetakeaway.org/2011/mar/31/hugh-aldersey-williams-periodic-tales/ We talked about the invention of the periodic table, Daniel Libeskind’s use of zinc on the Jewish Museum, and where to get plutonium ... but mostly they wanted to know, did I really make phosphorus from my own urine? ‘The Takeaway’ is America’s top nationwide radio news programme. Obviously, if I’d been on one of those country AM stations I would have put the emphasis on ‘FAAAAH and BRIMSTONE!!’ http://www.mysite.com/news.php?mnid=14 In April, chemist Andrea Sella and I put together an evening event at the Wellcome Collection in London, inviting visitors to consider whether the elements are 'good' or 'evil'. We focused on four – arsenic, mercury, iodine and oxygen. You might think the first two the bad guys and the other two good, but it's not as simple as that, as visitors found when considering everything from beautiful mercury pigments to arsenic medicines and a greengrocer's barrow laden with anti-oxidant fruit. A few days later came news from the British Thyroid Association that the UK population as a whole may now be dangeriously low on iodine, mainly because children are drinking less milk. It’s claimed the deficiency claims 13.5 IQ points. The evening included lectures, theatre, music, chemical demonstrations and opportunities for 'messy play', and attraacted a crowd of 1600 people, many of whom spent a good part of the evening queueing for the oxygen bar. You can see how it all went at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/elements-explode-at-new-science-exhibition-2266647.html and http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2011/04/double-edged-elements-generate-a-mixed-reaction.html.