As predictable as the sun rising and setting every day, tides will always go in and out. This unerring twice daily rhythm has the potential to generate 313 GW globally each year, yet there are only a handful of viable projects harnessing this great force around the world. …

The most rambunctious dinner party guest — Imagine gathering a group of great women from the past together for an informal dinner party. The kind that happens around the kitchen table, rather than formally in a dining room. I’ve already invited my late Aunty Jo, who is cackling over a dirty joke with Margaret Bourke-White, while Ruth…

Mountains, monarchs, and my new colleagues What was good about September? We started the month at the end of a week’s hiking in The Alps. Our intention was to hike from Les Houches in France to Courmayeur in Italy via the first third of the Tour du Mont Blanc (TMB). Booking a bunk in the…

Kay McNulty. Betty Jennings. Betty Snyder. Marlyn Wescoff. Fran Bilas. Ruth Lichterman. Let’s pay homage to the unsung heroines of the computing industry. Without these six brilliant mathematicians and programmers, the world’s first digital computer would have remained a theoretical concept wrapped inside a very expensive hunk of metal. The…

What was I just thinking about? And why do I now own a selfie stick and other random phone peripherals?! Put your hand on an unexpectedly hot stove top and it’ll immediately fly off before you’ve had time to process the fact. Watch a scary movie and your whole body…

Whenever your brain is not doing a specific task it is hanging out in the default mode network. You’ll recognise this space as the one you go to when you’re not paying attention to anything in particular. Sometimes it is a shiny, happy and warm cocoon. You mull over ideas…

Why Queen Elizabeth II’s death is such a blow to us all I knew the Queen was ill when my WhatsApp pinged. I have a journalist friend who gets called up on days off only when there’s a huge story to cover. …

I’m in a bind of my own making, yet Robert Cialdini could have totally predicted this. A friend at work and I went for “a quick drink” a few months back, which in London means that you spend the entire night getting drunk together, eat expensive bar snacks, and then…

I work in communications so I am fascinated by the art and science of negotiation. I’m also neurodivergent and find humans incredibly challenging subjects to understand. People rarely say what they mean and the majority of information transferred in a conversation is done so via a layer of dense, overlapping…