Author Archives: Stephen

Science is Vital – Lobby of Parliament

Posted on October 13, 2010 by Stephen

After the amazing success of the Science is Vital Rally on Saturday (see here for video and Jenny’s report and here for another first-hand account by Prateek Buch), it was off to the House of Commons today. Not quite in … Continue reading →

Posted in Science & Politics | 2 Comments

Rally to the Cause of Science

Posted on October 7, 2010 by Stephen

The Science is Vital Campaign has caught the grim mood of the scientific community and focused the energy of opposition to light a fire of protest. The campaign petition was gathering about 1,000 signatures a day just after the launch … Continue reading →

Posted in Science & Politics | 7 Comments

Science is Vital – The Case for Support

Posted on September 29, 2010 by Stephen

A quick note here for those interested in the details of the case for support behind the Science is Vital Campaign that is fighting against cuts in the UK’s public spending on R&D. The campaign has posted key points and … Continue reading →

Posted in Science & Politics | Comments Off on Science is Vital – The Case for Support

Patrick Blackett’s Science was Vital

Posted on September 25, 2010 by Stephen

Please be patient while I experiment with audio to drum up support for the “Science is Vital campaign”:http://scienceisvital.org.uk/. It will only take two minutes and forty-nine seconds. Listen! Listen! Thank you for listening. Update (Sun 26th Sept): For those of … Continue reading →

Posted in History of Science, Science & Politics | 14 Comments

The Lady in the Room

Posted on September 21, 2010 by Stephen

She’s here. She’s in the room. I’ve not noticed her before — not in previous years — but every now and then her presence is unmistakable. I am sitting in a lecture theatre in St Andrews University in Scotland, attending … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Review, Scientific Life | 18 Comments

Monsters in the details

Posted on September 17, 2010 by Stephen

I promise I won’t make a habit of just posting links to stuff on other sites but I am childishly proud of having a piece about macromolecular crystallography in the Guardian Science Blog.

Posted in Protein Crystallography | Tagged | 4 Comments

Three Things

Posted on September 10, 2010 by Stephen

Three unrelated things. The first is to alert you to a little update of my last post on the Sense about Science demonstration outside the Department of Health to raise awareness about their lax proposals for the regulation of traditional … Continue reading →

Posted in Communication, Scientific Life | 8 Comments

Traditional Medicine: Inhibition of the Clinician Ambition

Posted on September 5, 2010 by Stephen

I was only able to attend the second day of Science Online London 2010 but was glad to be able to hear Dr Evan Harris’s keynote talk on “Turning online science into real world policy change” and the follow-up break-out … Continue reading →

Posted in AltMed | 7 Comments

Guardian of Science

Posted on September 5, 2010 by Stephen

Some of you may not have heard of last week’s launch of a new science blogging site by the Guardian newspaper. They have a core group of regular bloggers — Jon Butterworth, Dr Evan Harris, Martin Robbins and NN’s own Grrlscientist … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy | Comments Off on Guardian of Science

The Crowded Cell

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Stephen

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe,” the dying replicant Roy says of his off-world experiences in one of the final scenes of BladeRunner. As a structural biologist I often feel I could say the same thing, all the more … Continue reading →

Posted in Science | 9 Comments

Light work of a heavy matter

Posted on August 23, 2010 by Stephen

Ian Sample’s _Massive – The Hunt for the God Particle_ is a fast-paced account of the quest for the Higgs boson, an elusive particle that is purported to solve the mystery of mass. If you were unaware that the question … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Review | Tagged | 7 Comments

The Seriously Funny Fringe

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Stephen

When Simon Jenkins wrote in The Guardian a couple of months back about science being a new religion we all scoffed. Oh, how we scoffed. Scoff, scoff, scoff, scoff, scoff. Scoff. But having been at the Edinburgh Fringe for a … Continue reading →

Posted in Science & Media, Scientific Life | Tagged | 12 Comments