Latest posts

Bragging Rights Central: new archive post

Posted on 18 March 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Keep ‘em coming, folks!

VWXYNot? Comment(s) of the Week:

Mar 04 2011: Mike for “Mrs F. Continue reading →

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Taking Flight (Pseudonymous or Not)

Posted on 18 March 2011 by Athene Donald

I have finally caught up with the debate at ScienceOnline2011 on ‘The Perils of Blogging as a Woman under a Real Name’ through watching the video of the session, recently put online. This was the debate that kick-started a lot of discussion on a variety of blogs (including from one of the panel members Kate Clancy) particularly around the combined Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Communicating Science, confidence, holding-back, Kate Clancy, Science Online 2011, Sunetra Gupta, Women in science | Comments Off on Taking Flight (Pseudonymous or Not)

In which we rev up again

Posted on 18 March 2011 by Jennifer Rohn

It’s been a long, cold winter. Science Is Vital has been in hibernation, but now we’re back.

After half a year since the government’s Autumn Spending Review, the implications of the science budget’s cash freeze are starting to kick in. Inspired by a recent Campaign for Science and Engineering blog, Stephen Curry proposed that we lend a hand to the Continue reading →

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Don’t submit. Submit.

Posted on 18 March 2011 by Stephen

We came. We chanted. We lobbied. We petitioned.

Continue reading →
Posted in funding, science, Science & Politics, Science Is Vital | Comments Off on Don’t submit. Submit.

Reading

Posted on 17 March 2011 by Henry Gee

A comment on Steve’s blog referring tangentially to one of my own effusions made me think of how many really great popular science books there are out there..

So, here’s an idea.

Why not post a few of your suggestions, and perhaps Richard could post an OT-wide page on the pop-science books that readers and contributors of OT really rat Continue reading →

Posted in eldritch, no coach parties, rpg couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag, Science Is Vital, sea mammal research unit, thinking about thinking, Writing & Reading | Comments Off on Reading

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SAINT PATTY’S DAY!

Posted on 17 March 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

(this is a re-hash of last year’s post. I’m gonna keep doing this until people stop calling it St Patty’s Day)

It’s Paddy. The diminutive form of the name Patrick (or Pádraig in the original Irish form) is Paddy. Therefore it’s Saint Paddy’s day. Continue reading →

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In which I go native

Posted on 16 March 2011 by Jennifer Rohn

We scientists are an itinerant bunch, wafting from job to job, city to city and – frequently – country to country, in search of that elusive permanent position. Because of that, our sense of ‘home’ – a place where we feel rooted – can be even harder to grasp.

I will never forget the first time I touched down in the UK in 1994, on an ultimately ill Continue reading →

Posted in Nostalgia, The profession of science | Comments Off on In which I go native

Parental Science Geeks, Beware!

Posted on 16 March 2011 by Steve Caplan

For many of us career scientists, our work–our profession–is really a way of life more than a job. So it is doubly so–perhaps exponentially so–when in a family both parents are science geeks scientists.

Scientists have long been portrayed as geeky and odd in the media. More recently, they have been portrayed on Occam’ Continue reading →

Posted in cartoon, comics, dinner, education, humor, losers-without-anything-else -to-talk-about, parental science geeks, pass the salt, Research, science, self-absorbed, Silliness | Comments Off on Parental Science Geeks, Beware!

Regular

Posted on 16 March 2011 by Henry Gee

Yesterday I was in the London Borough of Waltham Forest where, for the third year running, I was a judge at a science debate competition. Teams of youngsters from secondary schools across the borough pitted their oratory, rhetoric and critical thinking skills against one another on a scientific issue of the day. In previous years we’ve covere Continue reading →

Posted in a fool and his money are soon parted, bad science, big boots would have been better than crox, celebrity nutritionists, chthonic, eldritch, erumpent, harmful toxins, Laboratoires Des Girrafes, natural goodness, release of calcium from intracellular stores, Research, Science Is Vital, sex, Silliness, wild rabbit | Comments Off on Regular

Gonna go where the bright lights and the big city meet

Posted on 14 March 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

No red guitar (on fire*) in sight, though, just this:

Pretty soon everybody got one

Two questions:

1) Why does anything need to be taken beyond anyone’s desires? Let alone a toilet, of all things? Continue reading →

Posted in idiocy, rants, shopping, Silliness, Vancouver | Comments Off on Gonna go where the bright lights and the big city meet