Author Archives: Stephen

Meeting David Attenborough at the Royal Institution

Posted on March 5, 2016 by Stephen

On Wednesday of this past week I found myself in the presence of royalty and felt quite giddy. It happened at a Royal Institution shindig to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the first televised broadcast of their world-famous Christmas lectures. … Continue reading →

Posted in Science & Media | 3 Comments

Combining preprints and post-publication peer review: a new (big) deal?

Posted on February 6, 2016 by Stephen

Stimulated, I believe, by Ron Vale’s call to preprints last year, various luminaries from the world of science and science publishing will be gathering in Maryland at the headquarters of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) later this month to … Continue reading →

Posted in Academic publishing, Open Access | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Open access and public engagement: I need your help

Posted on February 1, 2016 by Stephen

Dear Reader, I would appreciate your help. I am working on a chapter for a book on openness within science (to be published by Manchester University Press). The book is part of the ‘Making Science Public’ program run by Prof … Continue reading →

Posted in Academic publishing, Science | 10 Comments

Anatomy of a blog post on the anatomy of a scientific discovery

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Stephen

At the risk of getting uber-meta, here is a blog post about writing my latest blog post at the Guardian. This was an account of a scientific discovery, albeit a minor one, that occurred during the process of shepherding the latest paper … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogging, Protein Crystallography, Science | Tagged , | Comments Off on Anatomy of a blog post on the anatomy of a scientific discovery

ORCIDs set to bloom in 2016

Posted on January 7, 2016 by Stephen

Have you got an ORCID identifier yet? You should. They’re on the rise – and for good reason. An ORCID iD is a number (mine is 0000-0002-0552-8870) that unambiguously and persistently identifies you in the digital world of academia. It ensures … Continue reading →

Posted in Academic publishing | 11 Comments

Henry Gee’s top ten reads of 2015

Posted on January 2, 2016 by Stephen

At the tail end of 2015 I reviewed the 23 books that had entertained and enlightened me over the course of the year. My friend Henry Gee, formerly of this parish, managed nearly twice that number. In a guest post full of his … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Review, Science & Art | 3 Comments

ICYMI No.1: Preprints for biologists

Posted on December 18, 2015 by Stephen

Since I have developed a habit of writing elsewhere, which necessarily takes time and words away from the blog here at Reciprocal Space, I thought I would try to make amends by developing the habit of linking to the pieces … Continue reading →

Posted in ICYMI, Open Access, Science | Tagged , , | Comments Off on ICYMI No.1: Preprints for biologists

Jolly good fellows: Royal Society publishes journal citation distributions

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Stephen

Full marks and a side order of brownie points for the Royal Society: they have started publishing the citation distributions for all their journals. This might seem like an unusual and rather technical move to celebrate but it matters. It … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Access, Science | 4 Comments

Structural Biology: a beginner’s guide?

Posted on October 17, 2015 by Stephen

I got impatient waiting for my latest review article to come out, so here it is. The scheduled publication date has slipped twice now without the publisher getting in touch to explain why. The latest I’ve heard, after querying the … Continue reading →

Posted in Protein Crystallography, Science | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Lunacy and sanity

Posted on September 29, 2015 by Stephen

It’s less than 24 hours, so this still counts as a timely post. I guess I had been primed because I had been thinking about it. But although I hadn’t set my alarm I found myself awake at 02:52 on … Continue reading →

Posted in Science | Comments Off on Lunacy and sanity

Ch-ch-ch-changes…

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Stephen

There’s a very real chance this could turn out to be an actual blogpost. In the original sense of the word: a web-log of what’s been happening. Posts have been rather sparse on Reciprocal Space of late. That’s not for … Continue reading →

Posted in Scientific Life | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Pre-prints: just do it?

Posted on July 17, 2015 by Stephen

There is momentum building behind the adoption of pre-print servers in the life sciences. Ron Vale, a professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology at UCSF and Lasker Award winner, has just added a further powerful impulse to this movement in … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Access, Science, Scientific Life | 16 Comments