Why do we need to sleep?
January 23rd, 2026 by Roger Darlington
A new study has shed light on a profound connection between humans and jellyfish while illustrating the importance of one of the most fundamental human needs. According to “Discover Magazine”, researchers at Bar-Ilan University in Israel discovered one of the biggest reasons animals rest and sleep, courtesy of looking at jellyfish and other species without brains but with nervous systems.What they found was that sleep and rest are essential to protect neurons from DNA damage.
Neurons, or nerve cells, are the core of all animals’ nervous systems, allowing brains to communicate with the rest of the body and controlling animals like jellyfish that lack brains. The researchers found that neurons accumulate damage to their DNA during waking hours and that sleep is essential to giving those cells a chance to repair that damage and avoid long-term issues.Researchers discovered that jellyfish, zebrafish, and sea anemones all maintain schedules that include at least eight hours of sleep and rest, a cycle that closely mirrors that of humans.
“Our findings suggest that the capacity of sleep to reduce neuronal DNA damage is an ancestral trait already present in one of the simplest animals with nervous systems,” said Lior Appelbaum, the principal investigator of the Molecular Neuroscience Lab at the Faculty of Life Sciences and Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University.
Scientists have long wondered about the reason behind sleep, as it seemed to serve no basic purpose. Time spent sleeping or resting is time not spent hunting, eating, or mating, and leaves the animal vulnerable to predators. Experts previously speculated that sleep was for dreams, to provide the body time to rest and recover, or to help memory transfer in the brain.
So we do need sleep, sone seven-nine hours a night. But: are you getting enough?
Posted in Science & technology | Comments (0)
A review of the new book “This Is For Everyone” by Tim Berners-Lee (2025)
January 22nd, 2026 by Roger Darlington
The World Wide Web is one of the most transformative technological developments in the history of humankind. It was invented by the British scientist Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 when he was 34 and working at CERN in Switzerland. He chose to give it to the world for free.
In 1999, he wrote a book called “Weaving The Web” in which he explained why and how he developed the web and described its early evolution. At that time, the Internet was being used by around 150 million people. A quarter of a century later, Berners-Lee is nearing the end of his illustrious career and the web now has over 5.5 billion users or close to 70% of the global population. His new book is very readable, if rather unexciting, and it is part memoir and part manifesto.
The memoir material sets out how both his parents were mathematicians and electrical engineers, how he did a degree in physics at Oxford University, how he conceived the web as simply “the slow and patient crystallization of an idea”, how he created the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to formulate evolving standards for different features of the web and the the World Wide Web Foundation to promote the greater use of the network, and how he has pushed for more open use of data through initiatives like the non-profit Open Data Institute and his new business Inrupt (a name combining the words ‘innovation’ and ‘disruption’).
He invented URLs, HTTP and HTML – all of which are still the beating heart of the web. He writes about the browser wars (Viola vs Mosaic and Netscape vs Explorer), the growing dominance of a small number of behemoths (Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta), and the huge impact of artificial intelligence: “I’m not terrified of AI. But I think that we do have to control it.”. Along the way, we learn about some of the many awards that he has received, his three wives two children, and three stepchildren, his love of sailing, and his admiration for Wikipedia (“probably the best single example of what I wanted the web to be”).
The manifesto element is driven by his concern at how the web has developed: “I had known for a while that something was wrong with the web. What was intended to be a tool for creativity and collaboration had become divisive, polarizing and toxic.”. He writes: “I generally oppose the regulation of the web” and “My feeling is that regulation should be minimal”, but he does want to see regulation of “the addictive algorithms”.
He came to resent the commercialisation of the web: “The user had been reduced to a consumable product for the advertiser. Expectations of privacy, of dignity, of sovereignty, had been corroded in the quest for profit.” Above all, he wants the user to have complete ownership and control of their data, to be able to hold all of it in one place, and to be able to link any of their data with any other data.
Therefore he is pushing hard for something which he used to call Personal Online Data Stores or pods but which he now terms ‘data wallets’ which would be enabled through a new protocol called Social Linked Data or Solid. Optimistically he declares “I anticipate the growth of Solid as being similar to the growth of the web.” Really?
Berners-Lee is a brilliant man, liberal and humanistic, motivated by people rather than profit. But perhaps he is simply too idealistic. I believe it is too late to regulate the Internet as some of us argued and too improbable to expect that we can now reclaim ownership of our data from the monopolistic giants who control the web.
Posted in Internet | Comments (0)
A review of the new award-winning film “Hamnet”
January 18th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
We know so little about the life of the greatest English writer William Shakespeare, but that does not stop us wanting invented stories about him including earlier films “Shakespeare In Love” (1998) and “All Is True” (2018). What we do know is that Shakespeare had a son called Hamnet who died aged 11 in 1596, that three years later the Bard wrote his most famous play “Hamlet”, and that – as this film tells us in its opening shot – in those days Hamnet and Hamlet were different pronunciations for the same name.
It is from that sparse knowledge that Maggie O’Farrell crafted her hugely successful 2020 novel, a book I’ve not read but one consumed with devotion by many of my women friends, including my partner with whom I saw this film. The novel is non-linear and structured around interior thoughts, whereas the film is linear and necessarily visual, but the essence of the book is maintained in the film by O’Farrell being both co-produced and co-scriptwriter.
For such a quintessentially English story, it’s striking that, as well as Farrell, the lead actors – Paul Mescal as William and Jessie Buckley as his wife Agnes – are Irish, while the director is Chinese, Chloe Zhang who won an Oscar for “Nomadland”. But the film is a triumph and Buckley is simply outstanding in this heart-wrenching tale of grief. This is an England both bucolic and bubonic, when life was precarious, but theatres like the Globe staged stories that would live for ever.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Happy birthday (and thank you) to Wikipedia
January 15th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
On 15 January 2001, a new online encyclopaedia was born: it was originally called Nupedia. The concept then was to invite experts to contribute articles and, by the end of the first year, they had a grand total of 22. The next year was not that much better.
The plan changed dramatically when the founders decided to use the idea of the wiki which enables any Net user to contribute an article or to edit one. In the first two weeks of the new approach, they had more articles than in the two years of Nupedia.
In October 2007, I wrote a column entitled “Is Wikipedia the best site on the web?” I concluded: “After years of using the site literally every day, I am a huge fan. It is not perfect, it is not brilliantly written, but it is hugely informative and very user-friendly. As a starting point to learn about a topic, it is currently unbeatable.”
At that time, Wikipedia had almost two million articles in English. It now has over seven million. But Wikipedia is a genuinely global resource with material in over 240 languages totalling over 66 million pages.
All this is done by volunteers, anyone can create or edit a page, and the whole thing is free to anyone with an Internet connection.
The inventor of the World Wide Web, the British Tim Berners-Lee, has written in his new book “This Is For Everyone”: “Wikipedia is probably the best single example of what I wanted the web to be” and calls it “an invaluable repository. of human knowledge that I consider one of the modern wonders of the world”.
I use Wikipedia every day. I’m so impressed at its scope and quality and so appreciative of its free availability that I donate to it each month.
Posted in Internet | Comments (0)
Regulation of the Internet: then and now
January 12th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Once again, we have a fierce debate about Internet content that may not be illegal but could be harmful and is certainly grossly offensive.
In this case, it is sexualised images of people without their knowledge or consent created by the artificial intelligence chatbot Grok supported by the social media site X. In Britain, the matter has been referred to the regulator Ofcom which recently acquired some powers to regulate Internet content through the Online Safety Act 2023.
This debate is not new. Twenty years ago today, I first gave a presentation on why and how the Internet should be regulated. You can study my views here. You will note that, the next day, I gave the same presentation to a meeting of staffers at Ofcom which now effectively has the role which I assigned to “a defined body”.
I didn’t leave it there. In 2011, I actually made a submission to a Communications Review conducted by the Government’s Department for Culture, Media & Sport when essentially I made the same case. You can read my proposals here.
It is right that politicians should not rush to regulate a technology that they don’t understand, but politicians do need to listen to those who do comprehend the risks as well as the benefits of new technology and act before the harm becomes too great.
Posted in Internet | Comments (0)
It’s time for another revolution in Iran
January 10th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
No regime lasts forever. Totalitarian regimes frequently look immovable but often collapse surprisingly quickly. Think of apartheid in South Africa or Communism in Central & Eastern Europe.
What is happening in Iran right now may be the death throes of the current regime. We must hope so.
I visited the country in 2009, a year in which there were massive protests which unfortunately failed to topple the government. My account of that trip includes information on the history of Iran and the nature of the regime.
Then and now the people Iran are crying out for change and justice. But it takes enormous courage to go out on the streets and face the various militias.
After my trip, I was moved to write a short story called “The Man From Iran”. Recently, I viewed an amazing film which will give you a flavour of what is happening in Iran now where there is a news blackout: “The Seed Of The Sacred Fig”.
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
A review pf the new blockbuster movie “Avatar: Fire And Ash”
January 9th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
Any film directed by James Cameron is a must-see and any film in his “Avatar” franchise is a veritable spectacular. We had to wait 13 years for the first sequel but only another three years for this third adventure.
As with all the “Avatar” movies, I choose to see this in IMAX and 3D on the largest screen in Britain at the BFI. It’s great fun with lots of action, but the notion of the avatar and the world of Pandora are now much less novel than they were and again the film is far too long. “Avatar 1” was 2:42; “Avatar 2” was even longer at 3:12; and “Avatar 3” has a bottom-numbing running time of 3:17.
Many of the characters are familiar, notably ex-marine, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), his Na’vi wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) and their possible nemesis Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) who was killed in the first film but is back as a Na’vi Recombinant.
But we have a new clan of Na’vi, the Mangkwan, led by the wonderfully evil Vrang (Oona Chaplin). And there are new creatures in the air and the sea. Once more, visually the work is simply stunning.
However, the story is a familiar one: wicked humans with huge military resources, seeking to expropriate the special energy source Unobtainium, are defeated by a combination of nature-loving and spirit-worshipping Na’vi with some help from a variety of Pandora’s wildlife. So a somewhat unoriginal narrative with some pretty leaden dialogue and (did I mention this before?) it is just so long.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the 2021 film “Operation Mincemeat”
January 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
This is the unlikely – and, for a long time, totally secret – story of a World War Two subterfuge that persuaded Hitler to believe that, in 1943, the Allies were going to make the first invasion of Europe in Greece instead of Sicily.
The film stays close to the true details of the operation, although there is an invented romantic sub-plot to make the work more commercially appealing. This is a war movie with a minimum of action and a great deal of words and, perhaps necessarily, much of the dialogue is expository, but it is all well done with some fine acting, led by Colin Firth as naval officer Ewen Montagu and Matthew Macfadyen as air force officer Charles Cholmondeley.
Note: Mincemeat was based on a 1939 memo, written by Rear Admiral John Godfrey, the director of the Naval Intelligence Division, and his personal assistant, Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming, the latter of whom became post-war the outstandingly successful author of the James Bond novels.
Link: Wikipedia page on the Operation click here
Posted in Cultural issues, History | Comments (0)
A review of the popular movie “Crocodile Dundee”
January 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
There is a genre of film known as ‘fish out of water’ where the protagonist finds himself or herself in totally unfamiliar surrounding, usually causing much humour and sometimes some fear.
This trope is featured twice in this delightful romantic comedy of 1986: first when New York journalist Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski) ventures into the Australian outback in pursuit of a story and then when Mick ‘Crocodile’ Dundee (Paul Hogan)is persuaded to exploit his sudden fame by exploring the strangeness of NYC. The story was inspired by the true-life exploits of Rod Ansell.
The low-budget film was such a major hit that there were two sequels, “Crocodile Dundee II” (1988) and “Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles” (2001), neither of which had the same measure of success.
Note: Sometimes films have real-world consequences. In the making of this movie, Hogan and Kozlowski – in spite of an age difference of almost 30 years – fell in love. He left his wife of 31 years and married Kozlowski, a union which lasted 24 years before she too moved on.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Timeline of major US interventions in Latin America: 1846–2026
January 8th, 2026 by Roger Darlington
- James K. Polk (1846–1848): Mexico. Invasion and occupation during the Mexican-American War, resulting in the annexation of Texas and California. In support of Gringo insurgents, depriving the inhabitants of their land and rights.
- Theodore Roosevelt (1903): Panama. Supported Panamanian independence from Colombia to secure U.S. control of the Panama Canal Zone. Some argue that the previous war with Spain over Cuba was a manufactured invasion.
- William Howard Taft (1912–1925): Nicaragua. Long-term Marine occupation to protect U.S. economic interests and prevent foreign canal construction.
- Woodrow Wilson (1915–1934): Haiti. 19-year military occupation following civil unrest and to secure U.S. financial control.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower (1954): Guatemala. The CIA-led Operation PBSuccess overthrew democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz after land reforms threatened U.S. corporate interests (United Fruit Company).
- John F. Kennedy (1961): Cuba. The CIA had engineered the replacement of Batista with Castro. Then , the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, where U.S.-trained exiles attempted to overthrow Fidel Castro.
- Lyndon B. Johnson (1965): Dominican Republic. Sent 22,000 troops to prevent a perceived “communist takeover” during a civil war.
- Richard Nixon (1973): Chile. Covert support for the military coup that deposed socialist President Salvador Allende and installed Augusto Pinochet.
- Ronald Reagan (1981–1990): Nicaragua & Grenada.
- Secretly funded Contra rebels against the Sandinista government.
- Launched Operation Urgent Fury (1983) to invade Grenada and oust its Marxist government.
- George H.W. Bush (1989): Panama. Launched Operation Just Cause to depose and capture General Manuel Noriega on drug-trafficking charges. He had previously been a CIA asset, but showed too much independence.
- Donald Trump (2026): Venezuela. Launched Operation Absolute Resolve on January 3, 2026, featuring large-scale airstrikes and the capture of President Nicolás Maduro, who was flown to the U.S. to face narco-terrorism charge.
Posted in American current affairs, History | Comments (0)