Monthly Archives: September 2013

Back by popular demand: Hockey Pool 2013-2014

Posted on 28 September 2013 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I just sent out a Rando that may be of interest to some of you: Yup, it’s that time of year again, and Twitter is abuzz with talk of a new #VWXPool! We’re using the same pool as last time, … Continue reading →

Posted in hockey pool | Comments Off on Back by popular demand: Hockey Pool 2013-2014

Moving On to Pastures New

Posted on 27 September 2013 by Athene Donald

Every student, undergraduate or postgraduate, at the University of Cambridge has to be a member of one of the university’s 31 colleges.  To outsiders the college system may seem a little mysterious: how do they differ from Halls of Residence … Continue reading →

Posted in academia, Churchill College, Collegiate Cambridge, Girton College, Master, Robinson College | Comments Off on Moving On to Pastures New

Fishface

Posted on 26 September 2013 by Henry Gee

And now, a girrafe on a unicycle one of the most exciting areas in evolutionary biology at the moment – tracing the origins of gnathostomes, or jawed vertebrates. Before I start, I owe a debt of gratitude to our Latin-America … Continue reading →

Posted in acanthodian, chondrichthyan, entelognathus, evolution, Fish, gnathostome, missing link, ostracoderm, Research, shark | Comments Off on Fishface

Intelligent Design

Posted on 25 September 2013 by Henry Gee

When writers get together to chat, and when they’ve dispatched the introductory pleasantries of the inscrutability of agents and the availability of accountants, they’ll share war stories about their works, the sources of their inspiration, how to construct a novel, … Continue reading →

Posted in Darwin, evolution, Haeckel, intelligent design, Matt Avery, natural selection, The Accidental Species, university of chicago press, Writing & Reading | Comments Off on Intelligent Design

Next time you see Nelson’s Column, think of Dartmoor

Posted on 24 September 2013 by Philip Strange

Dartmoor is the largest and wildest area of open country in the south of England but despite the wildness, the human imprint is never far away. For many years, the moor has been exploited by industry which has shaped the … Continue reading →

Posted in birds, china clay, dartmoor, devon, flowers, granite, Guest posts, nelson's column, richard mabey, stephen spielberg, warhorse | Comments Off on Next time you see Nelson’s Column, think of Dartmoor

Vienna

Posted on 24 September 2013 by Henry Gee

I’m just back from the annual meeting of the European Society for the Study of Human Evolution (ESHE), which this year took place in Vienna. Regular readers with long memories might recall that I went to their meeting in Leipzig … Continue reading →

Posted in cake, museums, Penguins, vienna | Comments Off on Vienna

Mammon and the Inferiority of Women

Posted on 22 September 2013 by Athene Donald

I’ve been reading another of those random books I’ve acquired in lieu of payment for a book review, something I wrote about previously. This time I want to turn my attention to a book called ‘The Spectacle of Intimacy: a … Continue reading →

Posted in domestic hearth, Equality, History of Science, Sarah Stickney Ellis, Victorian, women's inferiority | Comments Off on Mammon and the Inferiority of Women

Will the real Edinburgh please stand up?

Posted on 21 September 2013 by Steve Caplan

In continuation of my recent blog about travels to Scandinavia, I will stay with the theme of northern Europe because I have recently listened to several audiobooks whose locale is firmly rooted in Edinburgh, Scotland. The books to which I … Continue reading →

Posted in authors, Books, Dalhousie, Edinburgh, McCall Smith, Rankin, Rebus, science, Scotland | Comments Off on Will the real Edinburgh please stand up?

The supporting cast

Posted on 15 September 2013 by Erika Cule

A PhD is, by definition, a lonely endeavour. My fellow students and I were taught the fundamentals of team work as part of our transferable skills training, only for one academic to comment that for a career in academia, they would … Continue reading →

Posted in 2013, Aren't friends ace, Fun, Happy life events, Life, PhD, PhD Comics, Support network | Comments Off on The supporting cast

Is Helping Women such a Bad Thing to Do?

Posted on 13 September 2013 by Athene Donald

I am not infrequently asked to give talks at other universities about gender issues, including the work we are doing in Cambridge. (Strangely, I find myself doing quite as many of these sorts of talks as physics ones.) I would … Continue reading →

Posted in Equality, Harvard Business School, intervention, positive action, Science Culture, Women in science | Comments Off on Is Helping Women such a Bad Thing to Do?