For the past 70 years, scientists in Britain have been studying thousands of children through their lives to find out why some end up happy and healthy while others struggle. It’s the longest-running study of human development in the world, and it’s produced some of the best-studied people on the planet while changing the way we live, learn and parent. Reviewing this remarkable research, science journalist Helen Pearson shares some important findings and simple truths about life and good parenting.

Pearson is a science journalist and editor for the international science journal Nature. She has been writing for Nature since 2001 and her stories have won accolades including the 2010 Wistar Institute Science Journalism Award and two best feature awards from the Association of British Science Writers. Based in London, she has a PhD in genetics and spent eight years with Nature in New York. Her first book, The Life Project: The Extraordinary Story of 70,000 Ordinary Lives, tells the extraordinary story of the longest-running study of human development in the world. It was published by Soft Skull Press (2016) and highly commended at the British Medical Association Book Awards in 2017

Here is a direct link to Helen Pearson’s brilliant presentation.

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