Helen Jaques

Here’s a Friday funny for you: my friend put me onto a hilarious website called “Kill or cure“, which classifies inanimate objects on the basis of whether British newspaper the Daily Mail says they cause cancer or cure it. Metal, according to the Daily Mail, causes cancer, but nobody panic, iron and zinc prevent it. [...]

You might remember all the hullabaloo last month about the HIV vaccine developed by the US military and tested on 16,000 people in Thailand.  Hailed as an “HIV breakthrough” and a “historic milestone“, the initial press release of the study certainly had the media convinced that a prevention for AIDs was just around the corner. [...]

Today my friends and I went to see the Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum, and it was AMAZING! The aim of this shiny new wing is to show visitors “the hidden world of museum science”. The Natural History Museum is rightly most famous for it’s natural history collection, which comprises more than 70 [...]

I make a living reading clinical research papers and am familiar with the big picture of clinical trials – papers published, guidelines amended and practice improved.  Grassroots clinical research – the work of doctors, nurses and patients undertaking a trial – has always seemed like a million miles away to me. However, I’m hoping to [...]

This week medical charity the Wellcome Trust presented their annual image awards, which highlight the best new pictures acquired in the past 18 months by their free picture library. The prizes are awarded to “the creators of the most informative, striking and technically excellent images” on the basis of “the ability of the picture to communicate the wonder and [...]

French food is famous around the world.  From the haute cuisine espoused by cordon bleu and the Michelin Guide to weird and wonderful dishes like frogs legs, the French are passionate about cooking and what they eat. However, a study published recently in the Journal of Nutrition has found that the diet consumed by the [...]