Why GMO food activists in East Africa say the debate on modified maize in Kenya won’t be won or lost in courts
Kenya is in the middle of its worst drought in 40 years. In the parched north of the country, rivers have run dry and millions of livestock have perished due to lack of food. Around 5.4 million Kenyans don’t have enough to eat, and the situation will worsen if this...
Richard Branson: When hiring, avoid requiring minimum education and experience; look for skill and character
Thank you, as ever, to everyone who shared such great questions for my Ask Richard Newsletter this month. I chose this question from Karen Morgan, as I have a lot of thoughts on the matter. I also paraphrased her question a little bit to fit into a headline, but I...
New evidence details how drug made by Merck pharmaceuticals triggers Covid mutation, resistance
A drug widely used to treat Covid-19 might be spurring the evolution of new SARS-CoV-2 variants. The drug, molnupiravir, works by introducing a flurry of mutations to the viral genome; this helps to clear infections. But a study of more than 13 million SARS-CoV-2 sequences has uncovered sequences that bear...
Why the hippie weed is gaining approval in medicine for squashing anxiety, spurring appetite and salving seizures
The 1960s was a big decade for cannabis: Images of flower power, the summer of love and Woodstock wouldn’t be complete without a joint hanging from someone’s mouth. Yet in the early 1960s, scientists knew surprisingly little about the plant. When Raphael Mechoulam, then a young chemist in his 30s...
America registers world’s highest incidence of drug resistant gonorrhoea with 700,000 new cases every year
To an unfamiliar eye, the press release from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health in the US two weeks ago looked pretty routine. Its language was a little unnerving, maybe, but phrased carefully: Analysts had discovered a resident with a strain of gonorrhoea that showed “reduced response to multiple antibiotics,”...
Billionaire Richard Branson says family and business need not be separate, following your dreams emboldens your children
As we settle into the year ahead, it was wonderful to see so many enthusiastic submissions for my newsletter this month. As ever, it was a struggle to select just one question to answer, but something about this one from Derek Notnam really heartened me. He asked: What advice do...
Covid jab was biggest hoax in vaccine history by elite scientists, Newsweek magazine and doctors in US now admit
An opinion-cum-editorial in Newsweek today blasted the elitism of the scientific community and called on it to take responsibility for the deadly consequences of misleading the public about Covid-19. “I was wrong,” wrote Kevin Bass, a 7th-year medical doctor and PhD student at a Texas medical school. “We in the...
Kicked out of Australian Open in 2022 for declining Covid jab tennis star returns to win his 22nd Grand Slam title
One year after he was deported for refusing the Covid-19 vaccine – precluding him from playing in the 2022 Australian Open – tennis star Novak Djokovic on Sunday made history when he returned to Australia to win his 10th Australian Open and 22nd Grand Slam title. With Bill Gates in...
Legacy media, including Kenya’s Nation Media, sued in US for colluding with vaccine makers to hide truth about Covid
A lawsuit filed today by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr and multiple other plaintiffs, alleges the Trusted News Initiative, a self-described “industry partnership” launched in March 2020 by several of the world’s largest news organisations, partnered with Big Tech firms to collectively censor online news. In a live interview on Tuesday...
Fresh fears emerge over safety of Covid vaccines, especially booster shots in wake of cancer spikes
Cancer rates have increased since the introduction of the Covid-19 shots and are one of the top three leading causes of premature death among younger adults – a trend that in turn is driving down US life expectancy. In 2019, the average life span of Americans of all ethnicities was...
