Wed - October 12, 2005

Nobel Intent 



Work is going well, the wedding nears. There's just enough of a chill in the morning and evening air. And Science.Ars has moved to a new home. Instead of a weekly column it's now daily entries, by me and one or two others. I present Nobel Intent.  

Posted at 04:27 pm    

Mon - September 19, 2005

So you want to be a scientist? 



Maybe not, but if you've wondered what we get up to all day, now's the time to find out. Science.Ars has the first of a two-parter I've written about being a scientist in academia.

In other news, if you want to mess about with lego but don't feel like cleaning up the mess, you can do it digitally! The best news is that there's a mac client too, so for once we don't get left out.  

Posted at 01:35 pm    

Mon - May 16, 2005

In Brief



New science.ars column this week on the new guidelines emerging in the US for stem cell research.

Interesting article in the Nation that I hope gets a lot more exposure. A local Doctor is a big name in the evangelical attack on abortion, contraception and sex, and sits on an FDA advisory panel. This charming piece of work also repeatedly raped his ex wife. What scum.

Posted at 10:00 am    

Thu - April 28, 2005

ATVB 2006



Hello from the Grand Hyatt in Washington DC. I'm typing this from a rather comfy Aeron chair, using the fairly expensive wifi the hotel feels it must charge for, taking a break from the wonderful field of vascular biology for an hour or two. My poster is tonight, and I must say I'm looking forward to it.

Posted at 03:22 pm    

Fri - March 25, 2005

Terri Schaivo



Yes, it's another cross post, but I've written a round up of the Terri Schaivo case for the Ars Technica frontpage. For those of you not au fait with the details it should give you a good background in just what's going on here.

If anyone wants to know, in the event I'm turned into a vegetable, pull the plug.

Posted at 07:43 pm    

Fri - February 18, 2005

Friday afternoon.



Well, it's friday afternoon, the PCR machine is whirring away behind me, this week's Science.Ars is written already and I'm feeling good. I won't be revealing too much if I tell you that amongst other topics, I delve into the world of cybermonkeys.

But you'll have to wait until Sunday to find out.

Posted at 04:28 pm    

Mon - February 14, 2005

Interview with Dr Stainforth, author of Climate Change study



A little bit of a coup for this week's Science.Ars - an interview with Dr Dave Stainforth at the University of Oxford, author of the climateprediction.net study I covered a couple of weeks ago.

Unlike that column, which was a mite inflammatory, this one has almost 300 views and not a single comment.

Read it for yourself at the link above.

And Happy Valentine's Day, darling. I love you more and more each day.

Posted at 10:25 am    

Thu - January 27, 2005

Science.Ars



I'm in the midst of composing my column for Science.Ars, and playing around with Apple's new word processor, Pages, to do it. It's a nice little app - the lack of Endnote support limits it's use for work, but it imports and exports .doc just fine, and even at full retail price ($79) is a hell of a lot cheaper than Office.

This week's column should set the right wingers off a bit - with new developments in climate change, evolution and embryonic stem cells, they'll be frothing at the mouth. Still, it's not my fault luddites and cultural warriors are making the pursuit of knowledge so politically charged in the US.

Posted at 05:09 pm    

Fri - December 10, 2004

Google Scholar



If, like me, you're a scientist, then you probably know all about Pubmed. Well, it seems those cunning folks at Google have a new feature in beta right now - Google Scholar. I've been playing about with it and it's good, although it has its limitations.

Posted at 02:12 pm    

Mon - November 1, 2004

Election fever



But not that election. I know know how either Kerry, or, hopefully, Bush, will be feeling on the 3rd. Or later if it goes as badly as I think.

Whilst setting up a real time PCR assay, my phone rang, with the news that alas, I was not one of the 6 people elected to the board of the National Postdoctoral Association. I won't lie and say I'm not disappointed, but I will say I wasn't entirely surprised. There were eight of us on the ballot, and six had a * by their name as recommendations of the existing board. Yours truly wasn't one of them.

So to wednesday's loser, sorry, it sucks to be us.

Posted at 01:15 pm    

Fri - October 29, 2004

Busy busy



Sorry for not having put anything up here, the last week has been fairly busy at work.

New Science.Ars column should be up on Sunday.

Posted at 09:31 am    

Sun - October 17, 2004

A new outlet for my scribbling



Ars Technica has a new science columnist. Starting this weekend, I shall be reporting interesting developments in science along with zAmboni, the original Science.Ars writer.

You can see what I found interesting this week here. More of the writing you've come to love, but slightly more... focused.

Posted at 08:47 pm    

Fri - July 16, 2004

Drained Brains



A paper published in Nature yesterday confirms what Michael has been saying for while - per unit of GDP, the UK does the best science in the world. Yay us. Of course, I say that as part of the brain-drain across the Atlantic, because whilst we do great science on a shoestring budget, the fact remains that the US simply has more opportunities for research - would I have access to a gene chip core facility had I remained at a UK university? The government back home might still be banging the knowledge economy drum, yet they still do little to stem the rising anti-intellectual tide one often encounters, and Bonny Prince Charlie is still banging his ill-informed drum about whatever new development in science he misunderstands this week. If you're reading this from somewhere with no Nature subcription, this link might help.



Posted at 12:16 pm    

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