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Blog: Reciprocal Space Topics:science, arts, life -
Author Archives: Stephen
First Anniversary
A year ago today Occam’s Typewriter made its debut on the blogosphere and I published my first post at the new home of Reciprocal Space. It’s been a good twelve months. OT has established itself as a home thoughtful and … Continue reading
Real and False Economy
Last week I went to Germany to talk to a pharmaceutical company about my work on the blood protein, human serum albumin. It set me thinking. But first I need to tell you about albumin. Albumin is a surprisingly abundant … Continue reading
Posted in Protein Crystallography, Science, Scientific Life
Tagged impact, Science Policy
18 Comments
Incoming
I gave a talk a couple of weeks ago at a Biochemical Society meeting on the subject of the Research Excellence Framework, the process that will assess UK academic research quality for the purpose of determining how a large tranche … Continue reading
Alive to the prospects for libel reform
The campaign for libel reform has been grinding away for several years now but there was still a buzz of expectation as we gathered in Committee Room 10 in the House of Commons last Wednesday evening. By 6 pm the … Continue reading
Let’s democratise the bejesus out of libel reform
This week the Guardian made the astonishing revelation that a man who is heir to the throne by an accident of birth and who is the representative on Earth of precisely no-one has been enjoying the right of veto over … Continue reading
Posted in Libel Reform, Science & Politics
Tagged defamation, democracy, Libel reform, Parliament
32 Comments
Libel Reform: steps forward
Today sees the publication of a very important report on libel reform. The report is from the Parliamentary Joint Scrutiny Committee, which has been considering the government’s draft defamation bill in the light of oral and written evidence from interested … Continue reading
Posted in Libel Reform, Science & Politics
Tagged goldacre, Libel reform, Sense about Science, singh, wilmshurst
5 Comments
The past, The future and The Guardian
This week I got to visit a part of London that is for me a hallowed place – the offices of The Guardian newspaper. I was participating in a workshop for the people who had been short-listed for the Wellcome … Continue reading
Posted in Communication, Science & Media
Tagged Guardian, Journalism, Publishing, science communication
31 Comments
Careering out of control
As Jenny mentioned this morning, I have a post on the Science is Vital campaign on science careers on the Times Eureka blog today. For those of you without a subscription, the text is reproduced here: The business of science … Continue reading
Posted in Science, Science & Politics
Tagged scicareers, scienceisvital
Comments Off on Careering out of control
Meet me on a Monday
This is shameless, shameless self-promotion but I was interviewed back in May by Carl Carruthers for his Meet a Scientist Monday podcast, which has gone live today. The interview was long enough ago for me — being of advanced years … Continue reading
Perusing the Papers
Last night, having rounded off a busy week with a day of manual labour helping to repair my mother-in-law’s kitchen floor, I retired to bed early with the newspaper. Saturday’s Guardian, if you want to know. It was delightful. I … Continue reading
I’m a Scientist – making the film
Today sees the release of my new film: I’m a Scientist. It’s about scientists. Please take a look either here, or on the web-site that I have created specially for it*. The film was a long time coming. I had … Continue reading
Posted in Communication, Fun, Science, Science & Media, Scientific Life
Tagged film, Science, scientists
45 Comments
Is Massively Collaborative Scientific Publishing Possible?
The job of a newspaper columnist is to agitate and George Monbiot did exactly that last week with a furious rant in The Guardian about academic publishers. It may have been an odd choice for most of his readers but … Continue reading
Posted in Communication, Open Access, Science, Scientific Life
Tagged peer review, science publishing
113 Comments
