There’s a lot of talk about sexism in science these days – blogposts, op-eds and tweets roll out on a daily basis, and even Parliamentary committees get worked up about it. It’s no longer a minority of isolated people concerned about the problem: it’s entirely mainstream and legitimate.
Despite this awareness, there are stil Continue reading
At the beginning of his memoir Adolf Hitler: My Part In His Downfall, Spike Milligan wrote
After Puckoon I swore I’d never write another book. This is it.
I know, I know, I swore I wouldn’t, either. Continue reading
Readers of my blog will not need to be reminded that the numbers of women successfully climbing through the ranks to the top of the academic tree are small. The same is true of administrative staff: many women set out, few reach the pinnacles. In other words, just like in so many other parts of the workforce, universities are losing talent. Talent Continue reading
You might remember (either of you) that last summer I paid a visit to the old Norwich Fire Station, which was, back then, just about to be converted into the Sir Isaac Newton Sixth Form, a sixth-form college devoted to maths and science, run by the Inspiration Trust. When it’s full capacity, in a couple of years time, Sir Isaac will be teachi Continue reading
The placebo effect is truly fascinating – the top article of this pair describes how it can trigger the release of dopamine in people with Parkinson’s, or opioids in people expecting a painkiller. I hope we can find a way to exploit it that doesn’t involve ripping people off…
Britain is as soggy as a crumpet dunked in tea.
(No Brits I know actually dunk their crumpets in tea, but it sounds suitably British, doesn’t it?)
Even for a wet, rainy country used to wet, rainy winters, it’s been pretty darned wet here in the UK. Continue reading
A few weeks back I saw an OA paper published in PNAS that has over 37,000 authors. (Well, that’s one way to defray the costs of OA charges!). There are ten regular authors, plus “EteRNA Participants” and a link in the footnotes to the EteRNA author list delivered as a 2Mb supplementary CSV file (ht Greg Jordan).
Continue reading
Decisions, decisions. The job as a manuscript editor at Your Favourite Weekly Etcetera largely consists of making decisions – whether to consider a manuscript for publication, or to send it on its way elsewhere. Because we receive a very large number of manuscripts, we have to make such decisions quickly. Hesitate, and we’d soon be buri Continue reading
Over the past 8 months, I have watched with detached interest as the spectacle of the Snowden/NSA scandal unfolded and developed. As with many government-related
A whistleblower, recently.
scandals, who is ‘scandalized’ often depends on which side of the political spectrum one sides. Continue reading
“The Last Post, Confits-De-Canards, 1916″, by the Cromer Poultry Great War Re-Enactment Society.
