Roger Highfield

Here are a few of my latest articles. There are more in my archive.

Nov

Why are we so proud of being rubbish at maths?

Eight million adults can’t do sums a nine-year-old can. At the Science Museum today, Lord Agnew explained how his committee wants to change that.

Nov

Rise of the rockstar (science) chef

Behind the BBC’s riveting Rise of the Rockstar Chef lies a cerebral story: Heston Blumenthal took on two of the most combustible egos in cooking, and won, by thinking like a scientist.

Nov

Battle for Reality: Mistrust and Medicine

Public health information needs more than the facts uncovered by science: it has to show how science works.

Nov

Science is culture. Why is that still news?

A yellowing 1990 Telegraph feature about a soap opera scientist reminded me how long Sir Phil Redmond and I have been making the same, bleedin’ obvious point.

Nov

Marta Shahbazi, who watched human life begin

The Cambridge embryologist was killed in Spain’s rail disaster while travelling to collect an award for her work on the earliest stages of human development

Oct

How Science Works: Can AI Admit When It’s Uncertain?

AI can't tell you how wrong it might be. A new method marks a step towards changing that.

Oct

The car mechanic who eased childbirth

Forceps left their mark on my vision the day I was born. Now an alternative, dreamed up by an Argentinian car mechanic, has been named one of TIME's Best Inventions of 2026

Oct

Heat and Fire of Climate Change Put Bordeaux's 1936 Rulebook to The Test

At Château Pichon Baron this year's harvest ended on the day it began in 2009. Heat, drought and fire are pushing a region that's lived by the same rules since 1936 to rethink some of them.

Oct

How Science Works: a Nightclub Killer that Borrowed its Genes

When 21 young people fell desperately ill after a weekend at a Canterbury nightclub, a paediatrician sat at her kitchen table in Ealing to analyse the culprit’s code

Oct

A Minute With Adrian Owen: Reading Minds, Rethinking Consciousness

I caught up with neuroscientist Adrian Owen, who has a new book out and has co-authored a stinging critique of grand theories of consciousness.

Read more articles in my archive.

Roger Highfield was born in Wales, raised in North London and became the first person to bounce a neutron off a soap bubble. He was the Science Editor of The Daily Telegraph for two decades and the Editor of New Scientist between 2008 and 2011. Today, he is the Director of External Affairs at the Science Museum Group. Roger has written seven books and had thousands of articles published in newspapers and magazines. This is his personal website.