Blog: Not ranting—honestly
Austin is a vaguely sterotypical grumpy ageing white male academic – typical catchphrases are “Good Grief!” “Unbelievable!” and “Oh, FFS”. Austin works at the University of Manchester, where he has been a Lecturer in Physiology since the late 1980s, achieving the rare feat of never being promoted to Senior Lecturer. On the other hand, they haven’t sacked him either. He teaches physiology (and pharmacology, and a miscellany of other biomedical science-y stuff) to all kinds of students – science students, medical students, dentists, nurses, pharmacists – you get the idea. As a child Austin aspired to write comedy sketches, which probably explains the inability to shut up and the feeble jokes.
In his now fairly quiet research career, Austin is a cell physiologist working mostly on cardiac and epithelial cells, and specializing in calcium signalling. He admits to having worked out his h-index once, but refuses to say what it is.
Apart from his discipline teaching, Austin teaches writing and communication skills. mostly to postgrad students. He is the longtime editor of the Physiological Society’s members’ magazine Physiology News, and stuff from there will occasionally appear here too. He can also be found from time to time grumbling in the letters pages of the national press.
Austin started blogging a few years ago, inspired by Ben Goldacre’s legendary Bad Science blog and website, where he cut his online-ranting teeth as a commenter. Not Ranting – Honestly! is his blog for more science-facing stuff, though it has no particular theme. It will probably stray into dealing with pseudoscience on occasion, though more of that sort of thing can be found elsewhere. Austin is an Epic Procrastinator and this blog was almost re-titled “A trawl of unfinished ephemera”, so posting frequency may be something of a lottery.
Disclaimer: the views and opinions expressed on this blog and in the comments are personal ones, and do not reflect the official views of any organisation, or of any person except the one who wrote them.
Disclaimer #2: Austin is not a medical doctor. If this site writes about something medically-related, you should not – repeat, not – take it as medical advice. Seriously.
