The period between Christmas and New Year is always weird, but I do quite like getting a chance to take stock of the year; to figure out what I've done, and what I'd like to do next or better.
In terms of sheer numbers, I'm definitely less productive than some. The great tech writer Chris Stokel-Walker posted on LinkedIn that in 2025 he "published 563 stories across 52 different outlets... even while successfully defending my PhD". Chris did add that he is now "getting close to capacity", but even so: holy shit, dude.
I looked through my Authory portfolio and found 81 items published in 2025, an average of just under 7 per month. Now, it's actually more than that, because my Authory portfolio doesn't include the anonymous Feedback column that I write for New Scientist every week: add another 50 or so for that. Also, one of the items is The Future of Glaucoma, which was actually a collection of articles: add another 7. On top of that, there are some bits and pieces I wrote or edited for corporate clients, which are necessarily un-acknowledged. So, maybe I did 150 pieces last year? Something like that.
Out of those 150ish stories, here are my ten favourites, in no particular order. Many of these are paywalled: I make no apology for that, because it pays my bills and allows me to spend a lot of time doing thorough work.
How these strange cells may explain the origin of complex life
My first feature for Science News, this story pulls together the first 10 years of research into the Asgard archaea: a mysterious group of microorganisms that, as the title says, may hold the key to the emergence of complex life. This is smack bang in the middle of my interests: I also think it's one of the best bits of narration I've managed this year.
What is really driving skyrocketing diagnoses of ADHD and autism?
Another debut, this time for doctors.net.uk - which is a site for UK medical professionals, and which is now being run by my colleague Tiffany O'Callaghan. Amid all the chatter about supposed overdiagnosis of ADHD and autism (an idea being exploited by populist right-wing politicians), I did the simple thing of asking about the actual numbers. It turns out that both conditions remain underdiagnosed, compared to their estimated prevalence, especially in older age groups. If there is overdiagnosis, it's probably isolated and limited, and does not account for the rising numbers, which are largely due to growing awareness.
7 basic science discoveries that changed the world
While we're on political hot potatoes, this story was commissioned for one simple reason: to highlight the impacts of the Trump administration's ongoing assault on scientific research. The seven stories included are all examples of "pure", curiosity-driven research that led to transformational developments in society. Things like Ozempic (impossible if it hadn't been for people studying weird lizards in the western deserts) and flat-screen TVs (which can be traced back to a guy in the late 1800s studying the chemicals in carrot roots). Americans: tell your Republican congresspeople these stories and persuade them to vote against the cuts to the research budget.
Life happened fast
I wrote for a lot of new outlets in 2025, it turns out: this was my debut for Aeon. The piece explains a quiet revolution in science, which has taken place over the last 25 years. Slowly but surely, researchers have realised that Earth was habitable very early on, rather than going through an extended hellscape phase, and that life probably emerged within a few hundred million years of the planet's formation. Or in other words, Mike was back on his origins-of-life obsession yet again. If you like this, maybe buy The Genesis Quest, which is very good and yet not enough people have read it to properly validate me.
The remarkable tale of how humans nearly didn't conquer the world
A brilliant idea by editor Alison George, which I did my best to execute. Ali had been struck by a detail that emerged from studies of ancient DNA: that there were entire populations of Homo sapiens living in Europe tens of thousands of years ago, who were widespread (England to Poland) but who seem to have left no descendants. Who were these lost peoples? What were they like? And what happened to them? The truth is there seem to have been lots of groups like this, who took wrong turns and didn't make it. Yes, this is all eerie as hell.
Where EV batteries go to die - and be reborn
Sometimes I leave the house and go do real-world reporting. In this case I drove to Tavistock to visit Altilium, a company that is developing a method to recycle the materials from the batteries in electric vehicles, for BBC Future. Recycling is obviously a good thing, but in this case it's a particularly good idea because of all the issues around the supply of rare earth metals and the pollution caused by mining. In short, we need to go green: let's be green about it.
Don't ban kids from social media: Create a site that works for them
I don't write many opinion pieces, because I think most people don't have many original thoughts (which is why a lot of opinion writing is either utterly predictable or, more often, just plain bad). Social media is filled with unsolicited opinions, so what's the value of one more? But occasionally I do have a thought that seems novel, and here is one.
Everything we know about long covid - including how to reduce the risk
In January, New Scientist ran a series of articles marking five years since the emergence of covid-19 (remember that?). My contribution was this feature about long covid, which tried to bring together everything we knew about the condition five years on. A key thing that emerged was the need for new kinds of clinical trials, because multiple mechanisms can contribute to long covid, so there's no one-size-fits-all treatment.
Who were the ancient Denisovans? Fossils reveal secrets about the mysterious humans
2025 marked 15 years since the first description of the Denisovans: a group of hominins who lived in east Asia tens of thousands of years ago. They were the first hominins to be identified based on ancient DNA, instead of from preserved skeletons. This feature for Nature explained how, after years of searching, palaeoanthropologists have finally started to find more Denisovan remains - so we are getting a sense of what they looked like and who they were.
A whole new world of tiny beings challenges fundamental ideas of life
And finally: this wasn't an exclusive, exactly, but it does seem to be a story that has gone wildly underacknowledged. In 1971, researchers discovered a "living" (definition TBC) organism even smaller than a virus, which they called a viroid. Now, thanks to metagenomics, it turns out that there are enormous numbers of viroids and viroid-like entities, with wild names like obelisks and satellites. They are everywhere and we have no idea what they're doing. Not to oversell this, but it's a new frontier in biology.
In terms of sheer numbers, I'm definitely less productive than some. The great tech writer Chris Stokel-Walker posted on LinkedIn that in 2025 he "published 563 stories across 52 different outlets... even while successfully defending my PhD". Chris did add that he is now "getting close to capacity", but even so: holy shit, dude.
I looked through my Authory portfolio and found 81 items published in 2025, an average of just under 7 per month. Now, it's actually more than that, because my Authory portfolio doesn't include the anonymous Feedback column that I write for New Scientist every week: add another 50 or so for that. Also, one of the items is The Future of Glaucoma, which was actually a collection of articles: add another 7. On top of that, there are some bits and pieces I wrote or edited for corporate clients, which are necessarily un-acknowledged. So, maybe I did 150 pieces last year? Something like that.
Out of those 150ish stories, here are my ten favourites, in no particular order. Many of these are paywalled: I make no apology for that, because it pays my bills and allows me to spend a lot of time doing thorough work.
How these strange cells may explain the origin of complex life
My first feature for Science News, this story pulls together the first 10 years of research into the Asgard archaea: a mysterious group of microorganisms that, as the title says, may hold the key to the emergence of complex life. This is smack bang in the middle of my interests: I also think it's one of the best bits of narration I've managed this year.
What is really driving skyrocketing diagnoses of ADHD and autism?
Another debut, this time for doctors.net.uk - which is a site for UK medical professionals, and which is now being run by my colleague Tiffany O'Callaghan. Amid all the chatter about supposed overdiagnosis of ADHD and autism (an idea being exploited by populist right-wing politicians), I did the simple thing of asking about the actual numbers. It turns out that both conditions remain underdiagnosed, compared to their estimated prevalence, especially in older age groups. If there is overdiagnosis, it's probably isolated and limited, and does not account for the rising numbers, which are largely due to growing awareness.
7 basic science discoveries that changed the world
While we're on political hot potatoes, this story was commissioned for one simple reason: to highlight the impacts of the Trump administration's ongoing assault on scientific research. The seven stories included are all examples of "pure", curiosity-driven research that led to transformational developments in society. Things like Ozempic (impossible if it hadn't been for people studying weird lizards in the western deserts) and flat-screen TVs (which can be traced back to a guy in the late 1800s studying the chemicals in carrot roots). Americans: tell your Republican congresspeople these stories and persuade them to vote against the cuts to the research budget.
Life happened fast
I wrote for a lot of new outlets in 2025, it turns out: this was my debut for Aeon. The piece explains a quiet revolution in science, which has taken place over the last 25 years. Slowly but surely, researchers have realised that Earth was habitable very early on, rather than going through an extended hellscape phase, and that life probably emerged within a few hundred million years of the planet's formation. Or in other words, Mike was back on his origins-of-life obsession yet again. If you like this, maybe buy The Genesis Quest, which is very good and yet not enough people have read it to properly validate me.
The remarkable tale of how humans nearly didn't conquer the world
A brilliant idea by editor Alison George, which I did my best to execute. Ali had been struck by a detail that emerged from studies of ancient DNA: that there were entire populations of Homo sapiens living in Europe tens of thousands of years ago, who were widespread (England to Poland) but who seem to have left no descendants. Who were these lost peoples? What were they like? And what happened to them? The truth is there seem to have been lots of groups like this, who took wrong turns and didn't make it. Yes, this is all eerie as hell.
Where EV batteries go to die - and be reborn
Sometimes I leave the house and go do real-world reporting. In this case I drove to Tavistock to visit Altilium, a company that is developing a method to recycle the materials from the batteries in electric vehicles, for BBC Future. Recycling is obviously a good thing, but in this case it's a particularly good idea because of all the issues around the supply of rare earth metals and the pollution caused by mining. In short, we need to go green: let's be green about it.
Don't ban kids from social media: Create a site that works for them
I don't write many opinion pieces, because I think most people don't have many original thoughts (which is why a lot of opinion writing is either utterly predictable or, more often, just plain bad). Social media is filled with unsolicited opinions, so what's the value of one more? But occasionally I do have a thought that seems novel, and here is one.
Everything we know about long covid - including how to reduce the risk
In January, New Scientist ran a series of articles marking five years since the emergence of covid-19 (remember that?). My contribution was this feature about long covid, which tried to bring together everything we knew about the condition five years on. A key thing that emerged was the need for new kinds of clinical trials, because multiple mechanisms can contribute to long covid, so there's no one-size-fits-all treatment.
Who were the ancient Denisovans? Fossils reveal secrets about the mysterious humans
2025 marked 15 years since the first description of the Denisovans: a group of hominins who lived in east Asia tens of thousands of years ago. They were the first hominins to be identified based on ancient DNA, instead of from preserved skeletons. This feature for Nature explained how, after years of searching, palaeoanthropologists have finally started to find more Denisovan remains - so we are getting a sense of what they looked like and who they were.
A whole new world of tiny beings challenges fundamental ideas of life
And finally: this wasn't an exclusive, exactly, but it does seem to be a story that has gone wildly underacknowledged. In 1971, researchers discovered a "living" (definition TBC) organism even smaller than a virus, which they called a viroid. Now, thanks to metagenomics, it turns out that there are enormous numbers of viroids and viroid-like entities, with wild names like obelisks and satellites. They are everywhere and we have no idea what they're doing. Not to oversell this, but it's a new frontier in biology.
RSS Feed