One of the toughest things about modern science is its all-consuming nature–it literally sucks up one’s time. And while I am unable to sit down and write a serious blog, I thought this photo nicely illustrates how scientists struggle-to-juggle their time.
Contemplating Birthdays on the Beach
This week, I reviewed Having a Birthday as part of Ant Cule’s project antcule.reviews, (Subtitle: An Extremely Subjective View of Being A Human).
For the uninitiated, Ant and I collaborated on this blog post about giving a talk, back when I was a PhD student, more than three years ago now. Continue reading
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 discuss the way forward.
The meeting, called Accelerating Science and Publication in Biology – ASAP Continue reading
What follows first appeared on the Times Higher Education blog platform on February 2nd 2016 (this is the unedited version). At the bottom I add a footnote about further developments since I first drafted this piece mainly regarding Cambridge admissions tests.
Cambridge is not the Villain, Mr Cameron
David Cameron is concerned about the opportuniti Continue reading
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 Brigitte Nerlich at Nottingham University and aims to take a critical look at the dilemmas of open science. Continue reading
I don’t usually recycle my posts, but the time seems ripe to repost this particular one appended below. I wrote it just over three years ago. It asks ‘Just how bad is it?’ referring to the issue of sexual harassment. The stories in Astronomy coming from the US currently make for sober reading. Continue reading
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 the latest paper from my lab to publication.
Why write about writing this post? Because maybe it will help others, and maybe it Continue reading
In my previous life, I pontificated on the etiquette of iPods and in particular the signals that earbuds send out. My central thesis was that if you were foolish enough to approach someone at the lab bench who was wearing both earbuds, then you deserved to be fed to the autoclave.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Continue readingIt’s a new year, and the academic term has kicked in with renewed vigor. I haven’t written here for a while because I simply didn’t have the mental capacity.
I collapsed into the Christmas holidays nearly flattened with exhaustion and stress, and demoralized by some bad news. Over the two week break, I finally managed to relax, ca Continue reading
Last week I went to talk at an event designed to encourage young girls to stick with science post-GCSE organised for local schools at Brighton College. I was paired up with the remarkable Stemettes Founder Anne-Marie Imafidon. She was Red Magazine’s ‘Woman to Watch’ in 2014 and has a host of other accolades to her name. Now – having quit her job at Continue reading
