Category Archives: Uncategorized

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but on this occasion it is not an entirely welcome one. It’s the time of year for this sort of reflection. The institute is in the process of awakening from … Continue reading →

I must say I’m starting to get excited about the prospect of being trapped on the Roof with the likes of you. Resistance is futile, but at least there will be Beer. As always, a stonking big thanks to Mendeley … Continue reading →

All scientists probably remember their first day in a real lab. Not the pretend lab of a high school or university, with its staged classroom practicals and fait accompli outcomes presided over by harried teaching assistants – but a living, … Continue reading →

Last week the BBC asked me to go along to a press screening of the film Splice to give my opinions on the science. It was great fun to be sitting amongst all the other journalists in the small Soho … Continue reading →

A little over ten years ago, I left academia to work in a small start-up biotech company on a rural industrial park in the Netherlands. I can hardly believe so much time has passed: memories of my first day are … Continue reading →

As a mammalian cell biologist adrift in a Drosophila genetics lab, my contact with flies is fairly minimal. Through the thin wall separating my desk from the fly room, I can hear the loud repetitive thumping that accompanies the transfer … Continue reading →

They’re at it again. It isn’t enough that scientists imperilled our very economic existence by pointing out that a variant of flu remarkably similar to one that slaughtered a hundred million people in 1918 was spreading around the globe like … Continue reading →

(Scroll to bottom for Official SpoofJenks blog aggregate!) Those of you not immersed in the UK science media scene are missing out on a national treasure. I mean, of course, none other than the Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins who, although … Continue reading →

The other day I was part of a rapt audience, listening to the seminar of Dr Big Shot. As Big Shots go, this man was immensely likeable: coherent, humorous, persuasive but – above all – modest. The way he introduced … Continue reading →

Sometimes you can be so involved in your own obsession that it starts to seem vastly more important and all-encompassing than it truly is. Like a cave-dwelling beast stepping out into the light of the greater world for the first … Continue reading →