Category Archives: Uncategorized

Everybody’s at it. Everybody seems to want to sex up the appeal of their career, to attract BYTs to come and do what they’re doing, even if it might be counter-productive. Scientists are as guilty as anyone else (and I … Continue reading →

In celebration of Friday, I’d like to draw your attention to this rather marvellous corner of the internet: and in particular the Venn diagrams. It should appeal to all you geeks out there, especially Bob. And it’s time to remind … Continue reading →

There was an interesting question posed on the Sceptical Chymist last week: is the cyclization reaction that makes the chromophore of green fluorescent protein a rare event or a common one; and how do we find out? In return for … Continue reading →

Congratulations to the new president of the United States!

I was doing a little noodling around last night (research for my own novel. Jenny and Henry don’t have a duopoly on this business, you know) and came across this rather bittersweet image: And then this morning I read a … Continue reading →

On the afternoon of the first Tuesday in November, something bizarre happens in Australia—more bizarre than usual. Instead of skiving off and having a beer, Australians dress up, skive off and have a beer (or wine or champagne or non-alcoholic … Continue reading →

I reviewed a book proposal last week. Nothing is remarkable about that, but there was a section in one of the sample chapters on ‘Knowing your audience’. One of the points it made was that people have a story, their … Continue reading →

Men’s health. Apparently it’s not talked about much. My own feeling is that health issues in general are not much talked about (with a couple of trendy exceptions): the comments when I talked about “depression”:http://network.nature.com/people/rpg/blog/2008/09/14/on-depression—a-personal-perspective and cancer research are probably … Continue reading →

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I’m about to go to bed, so don’t have time to do this justice (the entry I want to write has been lurking on my desk for about three weeks. Soon, I’ll nail it down). However, it strikes me that, … Continue reading →