Monthly Archives: April 2014

Therianthropic

Posted on 9 April 2014 by Henry Gee

Set somewhere in the north of England where ancient shadows hover just beyond glimpsing, teen novel Bone Jack by Sara Crowe shows that fiction for young readers needn’t stint on horror and darkness – and can cleave to much more … Continue reading →

Posted in Alan garner, bone jack, dark fantasy, Jonathan strange and me Norell, Sara crowe, The Hunger Games, Writing & Reading, young adult fiction | Comments Off on Therianthropic

Science and Nerves at the BBC

Posted on 6 April 2014 by Athene Donald

Last week you would have found three professors gathered nervously together in the depths of (Old) Broadcasting House waiting for the studio to be ready to air the week’s broadcast of In Our Time. Three professors who had never met … Continue reading →

Posted in Andrea Sella, BBC, Communicating Science, education, In Our Time, Justin Wark, Melvyn Bragg | Comments Off on Science and Nerves at the BBC

Volcanoes

Posted on 5 April 2014 by Steve Caplan

Many geologists and climatologists believe that global warming aside, the next major global climate issues are most likely to come from the explosion of a super-volcano; after all, just look at what an isolated Icelandic volcano did to air traffic … Continue reading →

Posted in Arena, Costa Rica, eruption, La Fortuna, science, supervolcano, Tabicon, tragedy, volcano | Comments Off on Volcanoes

Adiabatic

Posted on 3 April 2014 by Henry Gee

Britain is presently swaddled under a thick cloud of pollution. This, we are told, has been caused by a mixture of regular industrial and motor exhaust, spiked with a lot of sand from the Sahara Desert. Yesterday Cromer laboured under … Continue reading →

Posted in climate, Cromer East Beach, Domesticrox, sand, weather | Comments Off on Adiabatic

Open Access – reasons to be cheerful: a reply to Agrawal

Posted on 2 April 2014 by Stephen

A opinion piece by Anurag Agrawal that was rather skeptical about some aspects of moves toward open access was published in the March issue of Trends in Plant Sciences. I felt several of the arguments advanced by Agrawal were rather … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Access, trends in plant sciences | Comments Off on Open Access – reasons to be cheerful: a reply to Agrawal

On Saying No

Posted on 1 April 2014 by Athene Donald

The comments on my last post have prompted me finally to write this one, one that I have had in mind for a few weeks. In fact, ever since I gave a talk at Merton College, Oxford, when an audience … Continue reading →

Posted in CV, opportunity, Research, Science Culture, Women in science, workload | Comments Off on On Saying No

Anneliditely

Posted on 1 April 2014 by Henry Gee

You probably won’t believe this, it being 1 April and all, but I have literally just taken delivery of 250 live worms. Mrs Crox ordered them to replenish our wormery, which was looking a bit tired, many of its inhabitants … Continue reading →

Posted in annelids, compost, Domesticrox, recycling, Silliness, we must come to terms with worms, wormery | Comments Off on Anneliditely