Moment that mattered: Scientists in South Africa announce the identification of the Omicron variant For 24 hours Shabir Madhi knew something the rest of the world did not. As former chair of South Africa’s National Advisory Group on Immunization and a senior advisor to the World Health Organization, he had been given advance warning that a potent new variant of Covid-19 had been identified. “I know one of the […]
“We’re pushing into the unknown” The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope could be this generation’s giant leap for mankind. Taking almost 30 years and $10bn (£7.5bn) to develop, Webb (named after the former Nasa boss who headed the Apollo programme) has three main missions: to see the some of the earliest light from the beginning of the universe; […]
April Ashley 1935–2021 April Ashley, who died on 27th December aged 86, had a remarkable life. Born in Liverpool in 1935, in 1960 Ashley became only the second Briton ever to undergo male-to-female gender reassignment surgery. Registering officially as a woman, she became a socialite and a successful model, appearing in British Vogue. But in 1961 a friend […]
“Aretha was the riot, was the leader” the Black songs started coming from the singers on stage and the dancers in the streets / aretha was the riot, was the leader, if she had said “come / let’s do it” it would have been done ‘Poem for Aretha’ “I wrote ‘Poem for Aretha’ years before I actually knew her. I would never […]