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Welcome to Matt Ridley's Blog

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Matt Ridley is the author of provocative books on evolution, genetics and society. His books have sold over a million copies, been translated into thirty languages, and have won several awards.

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Matt Ridley's latest book Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19, co-authored with scientist Alina Chan from Harvard and MIT's Broad Institute, is now available in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and elsewhere.

    Archive for date: May, 2013

  • Culture, genes and the human revolution

    Published on: Tuesday, 28 May, 2013

    By Simon Fisher and Matt RidleyRead Full Post
    By: Matt Ridley | Tagged: rational-optimist
  • TRIM21 turns immunity upside down

    Published on: Tuesday, 28 May, 2013

    Unexpectedly, antibodies work inside cells to defeat pathogens

    My latest Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal is on a surprising discovery about antibodies and the immune system:

    It isn't often that an entire field of medical science gets turned on its head. But it is becoming clear that immunology is undergoing a big rethink thanks to the discovery that antibodies, which combat viruses, work not just outside cells but inside them as well. The star of this new view is a protein molecule called TRIM21.

    Until recently, the conventional wisdom was that the body fights off infection in two separate ways. First is the adaptive immune system, which works outside the cell. It generates antibodies to intercept specific invaders, locking onto them like a tracking missile and preventing them from entering the cell. A second line of defense, the innate immune system, operates within the cell; it is like an expansive air-defense network, blasting away at all invaders.

    Read Full Post
    By: Matt Ridley | Tagged: rational-optimist, wall-street-journal
  • The implications of lower climate sensitivity

    Published on: Monday, 20 May, 2013

    Global warming will probably be a net benefit for several decades

    Update: I have added a reply to a critic of the article below.

    I have an article in the Times on the implications of a new estimate of climate sensitivity:

    There is little doubt that the damage being done by climate-change policies currently exceeds the damage being done by climate change, and will for several decades yet. Hunger, rainforest destruction, excess cold-weather deaths and reduced economic growth are all exacerbated by the rush to biomass and wind. These dwarf any possible effects of worse weather, for which there is still no actual evidence anyway: recent droughts, floods and storms are within historic variability.

    Read Full Post
    By: Matt Ridley | Tagged: rational-optimist, the-times
  • Too virulent to spread

    Published on: Sunday, 12 May, 2013

    Why influenza keeps failing to live up to pessimistic forecasts

    My latest Mind and Matter column in the Wall Street Journal is on infleunza:

    Here we go again. A new bird-flu virus in China, the H7N9 strain, is spreading alarm. It has infected about 130 people and killed more than 30. Every time this happens, some journalists compete to foment fear, ably assisted by cautious but worried scientists, and then tell the world to keep calm. We need a new way to talk about the risk of a flu pandemic, because the overwhelming probability is that this virus will kill people, yes, but not in vast numbers.

    Read Full Post
    By: Matt Ridley | Tagged: rational-optimist, wall-street-journal
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