I’m just going to come out and say this: Sally Hunt made me cry. Sally Hunt is General Secretary of the University and College Union (UCU) and the crying incident occurred during her speech at the NUS/ UCU anti-cuts demo a couple of weeks ago. I don’t normally stand in the street in the middle … Continue reading »
Posted in November 2010 …
Science and FOI
Adam Corner and I have a piece It’s on Freedom of Information and science in the Times Higher this week. In fact, we’re the cover story. You can read it online, though the THE’s art work for the piece is a treat, worth the price alone (and the layout in the THE always makes more … Continue reading »
Finding the lost women of science
You might have read Richard Holmes’ article in the Observer this weekend on the “lost” women of Victorian Science. As several people pointed out, these people weren’t “lost” to all of us. Anyone with an interest in Victorian popular science will have heard of at least some of these names already. But that doesn’t mean … Continue reading »
The plagiarism business
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently ran a piece by a man who makes his living writing ‘bespoke’ essays for university students: The Shadow Scholar. I’ve been keeping an eye on this business since I was flyered by one ‘Oxbridge Essays’ on campus about five years ago. At the time I was officially a PhD … Continue reading »
Does my brain look big in this?
According to an oft-cited paper by Marcel LaFollette, a 1926 magazine once introduced an eminent medical researcher as a woman whose mahogany furniture “gleams”. From the same study, but a 1950 magazine, a senior figure in the Atomic Energy Commission was praised for sewing her own clothes. Later, via Dorothy Nelkin, Maria Mayer (Nobel physics … Continue reading »
The nerds are on the march
A version of this post initially appeared on the Times’ Eureka blog The ballad of Simon Singh and his altercation with the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) has been told many times before (for example). What I want to focus on here is the way the case inspired scientists, skeptics and bloggers to become involved in … Continue reading »
Science, public engagement and ‘The Big Society’
Yesterday, Jack Stilgoe posted a piece about science and the Big Society on the Royal Society’s science policy blog. He starts by playing with the juxtaposition of the Big Society with the idea of “Big Science”: Scientific research is increasingly specialised, a trend accelerated by the emergence of Big Science – an expensive, equipment-heavy team … Continue reading »
