Oli Franklin-Wallis

Jun 28, 2024 | gq-magazine.co.uk | Oli Franklin-Wallis

Semen is a miraculous fluid. A single teaspoon can contain hundreds of millions of motile sperm, countless vitamins, citric acid, prostaglandins, proteins and yes – for anyone curious – up to 25 calories. But lately, scientists have been finding something troubling: plastics. In recent years, microplastics (defined as plastic particles smaller than 5mm, as opposed to nanoplastics, which can be as small as 1 nanometer) have been found infiltrating our bodies at an alarming rate.

Jun 24, 2024 | gq-magazine.co.uk | Oli Franklin-Wallis

It can be hard to recall in the midst of this, the Great Microbiome boom, that there was a time before everybody drank kombucha, and when kimchi was just an under-loved Korean side dish. “When I wrote my first book [2015’s The Diet Myth], nobody had heard of kefir,” says Tim Spector. That you now can’t pass a Pret without encountering probiotic soft drinks is largely thanks to him.

Jun 21, 2024 | gq-magazine.co.uk | Oli Franklin-Wallis

All products are independently selected by our editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission. My gateway drug was a moisturiser. It’s your typical midlife crisis story: one morning, struggling with early onset wrinkles (thirties, kids) and overdry skin (lizardlike genetics, suboptimal hydration), I asked my wife if she had anything that could make me look less like a Mad Max villain.

Jun 20, 2024 | gq-magazine.co.uk | Oli Franklin-Wallis

For decades, Seema Jilani has been responding to conflict and humanitarian crises wherever they arise. A paediatrician and humanitarian volunteer, her work has taken her to Afghanistan, Iraq, the Balkans, Sudan, Gaza, and the West Bank, among others; she has treated migrants on board rescue ships in the Mediterranean, and responded on the scene after the 2020 explosion in the Port of Beirut, Lebanon, in which her own daughter was injured.

Mar 19, 2024 | wired.com | Oli Franklin-Wallis

Concrete: upon this rock-like composite we have built our church – and our houses, roads, bridges, skyscrapers, and factories. As a species we consume more than 4.1 billion tonnes of the stuff every year, more than any other material except water. (You’re almost certainly sitting or standing on it right now.) That’s a problem, because concrete – and in particular cement, concrete’s key ingredient – is catastrophic for the environment.