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Articles by Max Lacour
Development of lyophilized faecal inoculation capsules for use in koala rehabilitation and conservation
Abstract As a specialist herbivore, koalas rely on their gut microbiomes to help digest their toxic and fibrous diet of Eucalyptus leaves. Without these critical microbes, koalas may not be able to obtain the nutrients and energy they need to survive. As such, a large proportion of koalas that undergo rehabilitation for chlamydiosis develop gut dysbiosis from the antibiotic treatment and are either euthanized or die.
No, lockdowns were not inevitable
The Hallett inquiry has ignored the best arguments against shutdowns ‘Tis the season again, not to be merry, but to scream impotently into a pillow over the Hallett inquiry’s latest report into the UK’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Signal failure, a book review
This article is taken from the November 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Get five issues for just £25. The opening chapter of Sally Gimson’s new book, Off The Rails: The Inside Story of HS2, gives an account of what could have been: the first new railway built north of London since 1900, a rare exercise in long-termist “Cathedral thinking”, a country united and enriched by a gleaming high-speed railway line. Does that not sound dreamy?
The best-laid plans
A decade-old novel is worth reconsidering for how it addresses the questions of modernity Permit me a moment’s caricature: the high modern state’s post-war collapse, a certain story goes, has had wide-ranging and devastating consequences for the public psyche.
What nation, whose interests?
The struggle for “democratisation” might achieve the opposite of its apparent aims Some weeks ago, éminence grise-turned-éminence grise-for-hire Dominic Cummings stood behind a lectern in an overwarm Sheldonian theatre and delivered a lecture entitled “What Is To Be Done?” (see if you notice the subtle Lenin reference).
The costs of cost-benefit analysis
We have to be more sceptical about the use of data in governance When, in 1981, President Ronald Reagan signed Executive Order (EO) 12291, he placed what the legal scholar and policy guru Cass Sunstein calls “the cost-benefit principle” at the heart of American statecraft: “no action”, it goes, “may be taken unless its (prospective) benefits justify its costs.” In principle, this meant that all proposed policy and regulation was to be subject to some sort of formal (CBA).
A day in Scientopia
When we think in terms of science, do we lose our humanity? Daylight tickles open my eyes before my alarm rings — I need to fix that wonky blind. Still clumsy with sleep, I reach over to my phone, open the health and fitness app and, scrolling lazily, examine its neat little graphics and lines. You slept well, they assure me, two hours of REM, six hours of core sleep, and one hour of deep sleep.
No lessons learned from lockdown
“The state ceremonials of classical Bali,” wrote anthropologist Clifford Geertz, “were metaphysical theatre: theatre designed to express a view of the ultimate nature of reality and, at the same time, to shape the existing conditions of life to be consonant with that reality; that is, theatre to present an ontology and, by presenting it, to make it happen – make it actual.” Through its processions, royal cremations, and ritual extravaganzas, the 19th Century Balinese court both built and...
Lockdowns and the problem with science-based policy
Evidence in politics is great, but what evidence and to what ends? Appearing before the UK’s COVID-19 inquiry in November 2023, our ex-General Chief Scientific Adviser (GCSA) Patrick Vallance was invited to comment upon the Johnson administration’s — including the eponymous Johnson himself — scientific and statistical literacy.
Cancel culture is a culture
Asking someone like Helen Joyce, one-time executive editor for The Economist and current director of advocacy at Sex Matters, “who cancelled you?” doesn’t make much sense. Was it the trans-rights organisation who first condemned her writing on the topic? Was it the trans-identified debate opponent whose objection to Joyce’s use of “male” to describe trans-identified males led to the debate being buried? Was it the BBC researcher who lied about Joyce’s availability to prevent her from coming on?
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