Author Archives: Stephen

The Royal Institution: not time to move on

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Stephen

Less than a week after the Royal Institution announced that it was contemplating the sale of its historic home in Albermarle Street, Nature published an editorial criticising the 200 year old organisation for having lost its science communication mojo in … Continue reading →

Posted in History of Science, Open Access | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Response to House of Commons Committee Call for Evidence on Open Access

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Stephen

This week it is the turn of the House of Commons to investigate the UK policy on open access. No-one seems to be quite sure if they are co-ordinating things with the House of Lords, which was looking into this … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Access | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Open Access: journey without end?

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Stephen

The Science and Technology Committee of the House of Lords, the second chamber in the UK parliament, met this week to hear evidence from various stakeholders on the implementation of government’s policy on open access. In three separate sessions, which … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Access, Science & Politics | Tagged , | 21 Comments

Response to House of Lords Science and Technology Committee Call for Evidence on Open Access

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Stephen

In the UK the parliamentary House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology is conducting an enquiry into the implementation of the government’s policy on open access. Last Tuesday they took oral evidence from Dame Janet Finch (which you … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Access | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Year

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Stephen

The Christmas holiday has unmoored me. End of year exhaustion segued into a bout of ‘flu that knocked me onto my back, where I lay and ached, semi-detached by illness and medication as around me my family made preparations for … Continue reading →

Posted in Libel Reform, Open Access, Science & Politics, Scientific Life | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without Carbon

Posted on December 12, 2012 by Stephen

I may not know much about Chemistry but I know what I like. And I like carbon. In fact, I’ve decided that it’s my favourite element. I’ll tell you why in the short video below, which is part of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Communication, Protein Crystallography | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without Carbon

We need to talk about open access

Posted on November 24, 2012 by Stephen

Last week I spoke on open access at the annual conference of Research Libraries UK (RLUK). I did so at the end of a session that also featured Dame Janet Finch, who had chaired the working group set up by … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Access | Tagged , , , , | 15 Comments

That was the open access week that was

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Stephen

 A round-up of some of the issues that got an airing during Open Access (OA) Week and in the days that followed, including more rumination on the implementation and implications of the RCUK OA policy, more bad (and some good) … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Access | Tagged , , , | 11 Comments

A television programme about the second law of thermodynamics

Posted on October 20, 2012 by Stephen

CP Snow must be doing cartwheels in his grave. The BBC has made a beautiful, intelligent film about the second law of thermodynamics. You only have until Tuesday 30th Oct* to catch it on iPlayer and you should. Presented by … Continue reading →

Posted in History of Science, Science & Media, TV review | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments

Imperial debate: light and heat on the RCUK open access policy

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Stephen

It is two weeks since the meeting organised by the Imperial College Science Communication Forum to discuss the new open access policy announced by Research Councils UK (RCUK) in the light of the Finch Report. Richard Van Norden of Nature chaired … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Access | Tagged | 16 Comments

What does the Higgs boson look like? (Audio Version)

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Stephen

As a little experiment I sat down and recorded an audio version of my Occam’s Corner post on the historical account of the difficulties that scientists had in accepting the reality of atoms. You can listen here:   And here … Continue reading →

Posted in Science | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Around Downe

Posted on September 23, 2012 by Stephen

Around Downe, Sept 2012, a set on Flickr. I visited Downe yesterday. Darwin’s home village is quite close to where I live and we like to avail ourselves from time to time of the local environs and the local (which … Continue reading →

Posted in Science | Tagged , , | 4 Comments