Matt Ridley

The Covid lab leak theory just got even stronger

20 November 2021 6:20 am

Two years in, there is no doubt the Covid pandemic began in the Chinese city of Wuhan. But there is…

China is using the climate as a bargaining chip

9 October 2021 9:00 am

For China, the climate is a useful bargaining chip

Dismantling the environmental theory for Covid’s origins

28 August 2021 9:00 am

Dismantling the environmental theory for Covid’s origins

A volte face over what caused the pandemic needs explaining

31 July 2021 9:00 am

Sir Jeremy Farrar, the head of the Wellcome Trust, writes that ‘the last year has been an eye-opener for me.…

Organic food isn’t better for us – or the environment

24 July 2021 9:00 am

The case against organic food

The Covid lab leak theory is looking increasingly plausible

29 May 2021 9:00 am

What was once a Covid conspiracy theory is looking more plausible

Britain is in danger of repeating its post-war mistakes

17 April 2021 9:00 am

What we can learn from Britain’s rationing mistakes

Stresses and strains: the evolution of Covid is not random

6 February 2021 9:00 am

The evolution of the virus is not random

Why mRNA vaccines could revolutionise medicine

19 December 2020 9:00 am

Why mRNA vaccines could revolutionise medicine

Was Covid beginning to peak before the second lockdown?

24 November 2020 9:46 am

‘I don’t think that word means what you think it means,’ says the Spaniard Inigo Montoya in the film The…

Temper your excitement about the Covid vaccine

14 November 2020 11:59 pm

Ever since Giacomo Pylarini, a physician working in the Ottoman Empire, sent a report to the Royal Society in 1701…

Students who catch Covid may be saving lives

17 October 2020 9:00 am

Students who catch Covid may be saving lives by building up immunity

Could the key to Covid be found in the Russian pandemic?

6 June 2020 9:00 am

What we can learn from the Russian flu pandemic

The growing evidence on vitamin D and Covid

18 May 2020 11:32 pm

The argument that vitamin D deficiency may contribute to more severe cases of Covid is gaining ground. It is now…

We know everything – and nothing – about Covid

9 May 2020 9:00 am

There’s no such thing as ‘the science’ – but facts are emerging from the Covid fog

The contenders – and challenges – in the race to cure Covid

24 April 2020 11:00 pm

The contenders in the race to cure Covid

The curious age discrimination of coronavirus

28 March 2020 9:00 am

Why does coronavirus affect the generations differently?

We are about to find out how robust civilisation is

21 March 2020 9:00 am

I had believed this kind of infectious pandemic could not happen today

Why have so many of our recent viruses come from bats?

21 February 2020 10:00 pm

Why are they responsible for so many of our recent viruses?

Britain needs to rediscover failure if it wants to prosper

1 February 2020 9:00 am

Britain needs to rediscover trial and error, serendipity and speed

We’ve just had the best decade in human history. Seriously

21 December 2019 9:00 am

Let nobody tell you that the second decade of the 21st century has been a bad time. We are living…

The most dangerous thing about the Amazon fires is the apocalyptic rhetoric

31 August 2019 9:00 am

Cristiano Ronaldo is a Portuguese expert on forests who also plays football, so when he shared a picture online of…

Lying with science: a guide to myth debunking

2 March 2019 9:00 am

‘The whole aim of practical politics,’ wrote H.L. Mencken, ‘is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be…

Nothing to do with global warming

Ignore the global warming hysteria: hurricanes are not getting worse

20 October 2018 9:00 am

When I land on the east coast of America, people tell me they’ve never met a Trump voter. When I…

The eradication of South Georgia’s rats proves we can do anything – even Brexit

19 May 2018 9:00 am

The extermination of every single one of South Georgia’s rats, for the sake of its birds, was confirmed at a…