Monthly Archives: October 2013

Puffed-up and partying

Posted on 23 October 2013 by Frank Norman

My ears were burning a month ago and my head was swollen. Fear not, I hadn’t caught an interesting disease, I was just being talked about and made prideful. At the end of the summer I learnt that I had … Continue reading →

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Science and society – Vancouver Change Camp 2013

Posted on 23 October 2013 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I have a new post up at Occam’s Corner on the Guardian website today, about how non-scientists can (try to) influence the course of scientific research. As I mentioned over there, the ideas in the post originated and evolved from … Continue reading →

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Old technology wins out

Posted on 21 October 2013 by Frank Norman

If there is  one thing I hate more than confusing new technology, it is confusing old technology. While it can sometimes be a bit confusing trying to get misbehaving PDFs to print, that’s nothing compared to doing battle with an … Continue reading →

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It’s ….. HERE!

Posted on 21 October 2013 by Henry Gee

It takes years of work to become an overnight sensation. The story is now legend of how J. K. Rowling overcame years of failure and mountains of rejections to score a hit with Harry Potter and the Fissure of Sylvius.

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Tea Parties

Posted on 20 October 2013 by Henry Gee

As time goes by and politics get more polarised I am increasingly aware that we British are separated from our colonial cousins by a common language. But this separation goes beyond mere phonemes, to plumb deeply held – and different … Continue reading →

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Noble/Nobel Validation

Posted on 19 October 2013 by Steve Caplan

For the past 10 years–my career as an independent investigator–I feel as though I have been swimming against the tide. The science that I was trained to do, the critical thinking and desire to understand the fundamental basis of how … Continue reading →

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Storage space

Posted on 19 October 2013 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I found myself waiting alone outside a meeting room at work the other day, while the people in there wrapped up and packed away and the person I was meeting with was fetching a laptop. Looking around me, I noticed … Continue reading →

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Jettisoning One’s Past

Posted on 19 October 2013 by Athene Donald

When you have been inhabiting any space for a substantial length of time it tends to be somewhat dispiriting and challenging to move out and move on.  Quite unconnected with any of the other moves I’ve written about recently (here … Continue reading →

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On Social Media

Posted on 17 October 2013 by rpg

We are social creatures. No doubt there are evolutionary reasons why this is so and why it persists, although I’m not qualified to do more than speculate. However, it seems self evident that there are advantages to acting as a … Continue reading →

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Teeth

Posted on 17 October 2013 by Henry Gee

When I was a child one of my favourite books was Busy, Busy World by the late Richard Scarry. Each double-page spread was a story set in a particular country, and the characters were all animals. The story I remember … Continue reading →

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