Author Archives: Stephen

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

A molecule of life and death

Posted on August 6, 2010 by Stephen

Walter Clement Noel was famous in the wrong circles for the wrong reasons. He died in Grenada in 1916 aged just 32. Over fifty years later, in the first decade of my life, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was far and … Continue reading →

Posted in History of Science, Protein Crystallography | 18 Comments

Attention: remarkable

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Stephen

I came across this today and found it quite remarkable. I’m not going to say anything more right now but, if you have a minute, test yourself with this short video. No questions just yet – just take a look. … Continue reading →

Posted in Science | 28 Comments

Reach for the Styles

Posted on July 21, 2010 by Stephen

I read an article by Matthew Reisz in Times Higher Education last week about the strained writing style of academic publications and it really got my goat. Don’t get me wrong — it’s a good piece and makes some valid … Continue reading →

Posted in Communication | 42 Comments

Warm words but cold, hard choices ahead

Posted on July 10, 2010 by Stephen

Yesterday morning I was at the Royal Institution to hear David Willetts, the UK Minister for Science, outline the new government’s policy on science. His speech comes at a time when the government is issuing all sorts of warnings about the parlous … Continue reading →

Posted in Science & Politics | Tagged | 4 Comments

Nerds and Words (about science)

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Stephen

Nerds Many of you will already have seen this because I have been promoting it shamelessly on twitter. But this is the video of the talk I mentioned in a post back in March that my daughter Eleanor gave on … Continue reading →

Posted in Fun, Science | 30 Comments

Urgent new priority for UK science

Posted on June 28, 2010 by Stephen

In a dramatic move today, the Government responded to an unprovoked attack on scientists from Guardian writer Simon Jenkins by announcing radical new priorities for UK science. Revealing the policy shift, science minister David Willetts said*, “We have to re-purpose … Continue reading →

Posted in Fun | 14 Comments