The important image is in the middle on the bottom row; a plant infected with one strain of a virus is hotter than an uninfected plant, to its left. It is also hotter than a plant infected by a different strain of the same virus, the box to the left.

About a month ago now, the headline of a press release grabbed my attention, in a good way. ¹ Disease-causing virus manipulates crop plants to favor its vector. I had to read it, and the original paper. No longer being in the business of science journalism, I did nothing with my amazement, until now.

The story, in a nutshell:

This morning I read in The Guardian that “Celebrities and politicians with large social media followings are proving to be key distributors of disinformation relating to coronavirus”. That well-known epidemiologist Woody Harrelson is among those blaming 5G network masts for coronavirus.

Research by Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the study of journalism found that while politicians, celebrities and other prominent public figures were responsible for producing or spreading 20% of false claims about coronavirus, their posts accounted for 69% of total social media engagement.

And yet, right there is the self same Guardian, is coronavirus-adjacent misinformation from Guardian columnist Adrian Chiles: I have finally mastered the dark art of sourdough baking. Here's how to do it. OK, I can cut Mr Chiles some slack for his fast-and-loose history; a hack has to meet their word count. But I must correct three bits of egregious misinformation.

Lockdown has boosted my motivation to do some organised exercise, and as a mark of progress, I have a new frustration. I started off doing the 7-minute High Intensity thing a few months back (having lapsed on the Canadian 5BX a few months before that). I liked it, and I like the app I settled on fr...

That was totally enjoyable, and I have no idea why I didn’t try it before. I wanted to watch a new documentary film, and I wanted to watch it in the company of a friend who is equally interested in the topic. So we fired up the film, got onto a Google Hangout together and just did it. And you know w...

As we enter the third week of lockdown, the restrictions are beginning to get to me. Not that I am any kind of gung-ho athlete, but I do like getting at least a couple of walks in every day, and some more strenuous cardio exercise two or three times a week. That’s been out of the question for about...