Latest posts

Informed consent?

The term “informed consent” implies that patients need to be aware of any possible benefits, risks and complications before agreeing to commence with a treatment. Most patients don’t have a medical or scientific background, so it is not practical for them to be fully informed of every aspect of the treatment; however, with respect to preventative t Continue reading

Posted in Consent, EBM, Guest posts, Health Psychology, Preventive Medicine, Public Health, Statins | Comments Off on Informed consent?

Genome Assembly – a primer for the Shakespeare fan

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
- The Life of King Henry the Fifth, Act III, Scene 1

When last we met, I tried to use Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to help explain genome sequencing. In particular, we looked at how to find differences by comparing the genomes of individual people, either to each other or to a “gold Continue reading

Posted in assembly, DNA, education, gratuitous photography, Guest posts, sequencing, Shakespeare | Comments Off on Genome Assembly – a primer for the Shakespeare fan

Same Procedure as EVERY Year

Just to let you know: I’m refraining from posting an end of year round-up.

This is partly because, since this blog only started in December 2009, nigh-on everything you will find in the archives listed on the right is from 2010. And since I already gave a potted round-up of my favourites in one of the just-post-move-to-OT posts, I won’t Continue reading

Posted in Humour, Procrastination | Comments Off on Same Procedure as EVERY Year

Ome sweet ome

It has been a rather exhausting December, for all kinds of reasons – one of them, though not the biggest, being the move of this blog into its new home at Occam’s Typewriter.

Consequently, since my last working day at The Bunker on the 23rd I have been feeling fairly well wiped out. And what with Christmas, and the ongoing war for prece Continue reading

Posted in Annoyances, Grumbling, Humour, The Life Scientific, Universities | Comments Off on Ome sweet ome

Goodwill to all men

Teaching and research are not the only areas of Imperial College’s activity affected by spending cuts. Earlier this autumn, Imperial Volunteer Centre announced that

due to reduced funding from a specific scheme administered by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Imperial Volunteer Centre has…been forced to review its a Continue reading

Posted in Fun, PhD, Volunteering | Comments Off on Goodwill to all men

PhDs around the world

Prompted by a couple of comments on my previous post, I started wondering about different PhD procedures around the world. Thanks in no small part to tez intech00bs, I have scientist friends in many countries, but most of the PhD students I am in touch with regularly are students here in England. In this country alone, procedures for obtaining the Continue reading

Posted in PhD | Comments Off on PhDs around the world

Milestones

I was given a handy sheet of paper when I started my PhD. Entitled Milestones – Cule, it sets out the dates by which I must complete a number of administrative steps. After agreeing on a supervisor, subsequent milestones included submitting a proposal. My examination in order to upgrade my initial registration as an MPhil student to PhD stude Continue reading

Posted in PhD | Comments Off on Milestones

London Calling

A big HELLO to everybody. I hope you enjoy your time at Occam’s Typewriter. It’s great to have you here, and all our bloggers are very keen and excited about our new venture.

Just a quick housekeeping note: do please visit our forums and shoot the breeze. Feel free to make suggestions and submit bug reports there. We know there are lots of niggles to be fixed, and Toby and myself will get round to them when we can.

Posted in Meta | Tagged , | Comments Off on London Calling

Trading places

I started blogging on Nature Network in August 2008 but this will be my last post here.
I am grateful to Nature Network for helping to get me started with blogging. I started as a reader and occasional commenter here, then started going to the regular Nature Network meetings in London and met some of the other bloggers and contributors to Natre Network, as well as the indefatigable M@ Brown. He first encouraged me to think about starting a blog but it wasn’t until I registered for the Science Blogging conference in September 2008 that I decided I had better start a blog of my own so as not to feel a bit of a fraud!
Nature Network is a good community of readers and bloggers, and I have made a number of online friends here. I am grateful for the support from M@, Lou and the rest of the NN team, and for all the other Nature editors who have contributed and commented here.
The time has come though for me to move on. From today the home of Trading Knowledge is at Occam’s Typewriter, where you can also find some other NN regulars.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Trading places

A New England

Welcome to Occam’s Typewriter, the sharpest blogging network in the box.

Enjoy yourselves!

Posted in Meta | 1 Comment