Latest posts

Embedding the Gender Agenda

Posted on 10 June 2014 by Athene Donald

I feel as if I have been involved with gender issues forever, but this is just the bad habit one has of reimagining personal history. Probably acting wisely, in fact for most of my professional career I just got on with my physics trying not to focus on the fact that, as a woman, I was invariably in a small minority in any given room. Not infrequen Continue reading →

Posted in committees, Equality, minorities, Unconscious bias, Women in science | Comments Off on Embedding the Gender Agenda

More about Everest pioneer Griff Pugh

Posted on 10 June 2014 by Austin

I’ve got a piece out today over at The Conversation about Griffith Pugh, who I mentioned a couple of days ago. I won’t post it here in full, I think. There weren’t enough edits to make it worth posting a pre-edit version, and if you read it at their place there are some nice photos as well. Anyway, here’s the opening couple Continue reading →

Posted in History, Physiology | Comments Off on More about Everest pioneer Griff Pugh

Ring the bell for tea, Kitty!

Posted on 8 June 2014 by Steve Caplan

My family and I are big fans of Jane Austen. We particularly like the mid-1990s BBC version of Pride and Prejudice featuring Jennifer Ehle and a rather youthful-looking Colin Firth. Having seen the series a gazillion times, the hysterical voice of Mrs. Bennett (Alison Steadman) shrieking at her daughter “Ring the bell for tea, Kitty! Continue reading →

Posted in bell, bells, botanical gardens, carillon, chimes, Eijbouts, Jane Austen, Lauritzen, Music, omaha, Pride and Prejudice | Comments Off on Ring the bell for tea, Kitty!

Two more days to vote for the unsung hero of Everest

Posted on 8 June 2014 by Austin

 

A couple of days ago the June e-Newsletter from the Physiological Society dropped into my inbox. Among other stuff it contained this:

 

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Continue reading →
Posted in Blog-ology, History, Physiology, The Life Scientific | Comments Off on Two more days to vote for the unsung hero of Everest

Things I learned at a funding agency’s “community engagement” session this week

Posted on 7 June 2014 by Cath@VWXYNot?
  • “Your stupid new metrics are irrelevant to my field of research”
  • “It’s not fair that chemists get bigger awards, even though I acknowledge that their research is much more expensive than that of the other fields that fall under your agency’s mandate”
  • “You can’t make me change the way I format my CV! Continue reading →
Posted in career, grant wrangling, science | Comments Off on Things I learned at a funding agency’s “community engagement” session this week

The REF: what is the measure of success?

Posted on 5 June 2014 by Stephen

Science has been extraordinarily successful at taking the measure of the world, but paradoxically the world finds it extraordinarily difficult to take the measure of science — or any type of scholarship for that matter.

That is not for want of trying, as any researcher who has submitted a PhD thesis for examination or a manuscript for publication o Continue reading →

Posted in Assessment, impact factor, REF, Scientific Life | Comments Off on The REF: what is the measure of success?

Student Satisfaction Good, Student Learning Better

Posted on 4 June 2014 by Athene Donald

Reading the responses from students to one’s teaching is all too often painful. Even for a course that has gone reasonably well you will probably get as many panning you for making it too simple as complaining it was impossibly hard. Indeed, given a bunch of responses like that you can probably assume you got it about right, since it is likel Continue reading →

Posted in education, evaluations, lectures, Unconscious bias | Comments Off on Student Satisfaction Good, Student Learning Better

100 years of…. biochemistry!

Posted on 31 May 2014 by Steve Caplan

No, not 100 Years of Solitude – Biochemistry! Last week was a very special occasion in our department – the celebration of 100 years of existence of our department, the Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (BMB). 100 years is a considerable chunk of time; in fact, while I have inhabited this planet for half that time, only 11 of Continue reading →

Posted in 100 years, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, BMB, celebration, Nebraska, omaha, Research, science, UNMC | Comments Off on 100 years of…. biochemistry!

Mood Music

Posted on 30 May 2014 by Athene Donald

‘Are you dead or just revising?’ was a telling question I remember seeing as graffiti on a wall in Cambridge many years ago. This is the time of year when that question seems particularly pertinent. Signs abound in college courts and corridors reminding passers-by to reduce noise to a minimum and many areas are out of bounds to visitors Continue reading →

Posted in offices, revision, Science Culture, silence | Comments Off on Mood Music

Past Women in Science, Present Digital Age

Posted on 26 May 2014 by Athene Donald

Following on from my last post I’d like to discuss experiences of a very different interdisciplinary meeting which I went to after immediately after the STS one I described there (I suspect I will return to that theme another time). I should say at the outset this was a much more upbeat experience. Organised by WiSRNET (Women in Science Resea Continue reading →

Posted in Ada Lovelace, digitisation, heroines, History of Science, Revealing Lives, Trowelblazers, Women in science | Comments Off on Past Women in Science, Present Digital Age