Author Archives: Stephen

Review: Heart of the Original

Posted on 29 March 2016 by Stephen

Steve Aylett’s short book on originality, creativity and individuality may conform externally to the rectilinear format of most other books but is otherwise highly elliptical. I found it maddening. Heart of the Original – Alan Moore loved it. 

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Review: The Many Worlds of Albie Bright

Posted on 19 March 2016 by Stephen

After publishing my round-up of the books I’d read in 2015, the author Christopher Edge got in touch via twitter to offer a review copy of his new book, The Many Worlds of Albie Bright. It’s a short novel for … Continue reading →

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ICYMI No. 2: Time for positive action on negative results

Posted on 7 March 2016 by Stephen

Today I had a short opinion piece in Chemical and Engineering News on publishing negative results, a topic that I covered about this time last year in the Guardian on the occasion of the publication my lab’s first paper on an … Continue reading →

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Meeting David Attenborough at the Royal Institution

Posted on 5 March 2016 by Stephen

On Wednesday of this past week I found myself in the presence of royalty and felt quite giddy. It happened at a Royal Institution shindig to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the first televised broadcast of their world-famous Christmas lectures. … Continue reading →

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Combining pre-prints and post-publication peer review: a new (big) deal?

Posted on 6 February 2016 by Stephen

Stimulated, I believe, by Ron Vale’s call to preprints last year, various luminaries from the world of science and science publishing will be gathering in Maryland at the headquarters of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) later this month to … Continue reading →

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Open access and public engagement: I need your help

Posted on 1 February 2016 by Stephen

Dear Reader, I would appreciate your help. I am working on a chapter for a book on openness within science (to be published by Manchester University Press). The book is part of the ‘Making Science Public’ program run by Prof … Continue reading →

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Anatomy of a blog post on the anatomy of a scientific discovery

Posted on 26 January 2016 by Stephen

At the risk of getting uber-meta, here is a blog post about writing my latest blog post at the Guardian, which was an account of a scientific discovery – albeit a minor one – that occurred during the process of shepherding … Continue reading →

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ORCIDs set to bloom in 2016

Posted on 7 January 2016 by Stephen

Have you got an ORCID identifier yet? You should. They’re on the rise – and for good reason. An ORCID iD is a number (mine is 0000-0002-0552-8870) that unambiguously and persistently identifies you in the digital world of academia.

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Henry Gee’s top ten reads of 2015

Posted on 2 January 2016 by Stephen

At the tail end of 2015 I reviewed the 23 books that had entertained and enlightened me over the course of the year. My friend Henry Gee, formerly of this parish, managed nearly twice that number. In a guest post full of his … Continue reading →

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ICYMI No.1: Preprints for biologists

Posted on 18 December 2015 by Stephen

Since I have developed a habit of writing elsewhere, which necessarily takes time and words away from the blog here at Reciprocal Space, I thought I would try to make amends by developing the habit of linking to the pieces … Continue reading →

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