From February to October 2024, I competed in the international Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition—where competitors developed engineered biological solutions for a variety of problem spaces.

I was a member of the 2024 University of Warwick team, BEACON, working together to engineer bacteria with the abilities to scavenge for rare earth metals, then to transport them to a singular point for collection to be recycled. We were one of 210 teams¹ to be awarded a gold medal at the Paris Jamboree.

TLDR: LinkedIn has randomly disabled my account, having prevented me from logging in due to a broken login system, then demanded my passport/driving licence to reinstate my account, before then blocking me from even giving that to them anyway.

Greetings all, and welcome to the first post¹ on this website—a website born not of love, but of hate, vice, and spite.

Which is not to say that I haven’t taken care in creating this site. Quite the opposite, I intend to populate it with quality writings.

For the past 10 years or so, I have been suffering from moderate eczema. As anyone with eczema would know, this is incredibly irritating to deal with, and practically impossible to treat.

But we can try. So with the topical corticosteroids prescribed by my doctor only serving to temporarily quell the condition, with a risk of withdrawal syndrome, I elected to look for other solutions.

Helge Bjørnå and Birger Kaada (1987) describe an experimental treatment by transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS). These are available to consumers as a TENS unit, which is a little box with dials that can control the strength and frequency of electrical pulses sent to pads attached to your skin. This was intended to improve circulation in the skin and thus promote healing and relief of itching. After 2 years, they observed significant improvement in both, though this was only tested in a singular patient.