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Friday 15 December: Is this how it ends, two weeks in a row without a weigh-in and a complete lack of regularity? No, indeed not. But all the signs are there, of much work, much travel, and the impending holiday season. I haven’t had early-morning acce...

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Last year at the Annual General Meeting of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research I don’t believe I heard the word “biomass” once. This year, along with its kissing cousin “climate change,” it was a cold sore on everybody’s lips. For whatever reason—and you can think of as many as I can—these are ideas whose time seems to have come. And by a strange coincidence, two fascinating papers in this week’s Science (as ever hard to access in full for non-subscribers) tackle biomass and bio-energy head on. (They’ve had quite some coverage, but I thought it worthwhile adding a slightly different angle.)

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I cannot remember the last time I paid money to see a Bond film. There were a couple I couldn’t avoid on TV, and one that helped to pass the time of day on a flight. But actual money? Not since the main purpose was a snog in the back row. Yesterday, however, buoyed a bit by the buzz, I laid my money...

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Just back from Fast Food Nation and I feel as if I’ve been bludgeoned for hours with a semi-thawed side of beef. Ponderous does not begin to describe this film, and I speak as someone who would sooner eat his own arm than gum on a fast food patty. I know what goes on in the food industry -- one reas...

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I doubt that anyone is using this blog to follow events in the world of no-knead bread, but just in case, there’s a follow-up article in yesterday’s New York Times. Lots of people have tried lots of experiments, and the article rounds up some of them. But it does not mention my greatest discovery,...

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