On the run-12Feb10

Cancer Causes Cancer! Well, that was the headline we should have gone with. It is of course a hat tip to the Daily Mail, a tabloid publication that is desperate to tell the UK population that just about everything causes cancer. (I found that website by googling ‘cancer causes daily mail’, which is in itself…

Adrift in an ocean of trash talk

My lesson for today: Don’t argue with an oceanographer over our responsibility for cleaning up the Great Garbage Patch. Actually, don’t argue with an oceanographer over anything marine-based and also don’t call someone (the inspirational Annie Crawley) an oceanographer who isn’t. I made the mistake of saying that an article in Slate by Nina Shen…

On a new publishing model-update

Wow. I created a twitter storm yesterday, as people leapt on the #sci140 meme like kangaroos. Thanks to everyone who picked up on it, RTed and entered. Some of you made me laugh out loud. Below the fold you’ll find all the entries as at 10.24 UTC today (I’ve spent much of the morning stripping…

On a new publishing model

UPDATE: Entries so far Twitter, what is it good for? Hunh. There’s been rather an interesting couple of posts over at the Scholarly Kitchen, recently. What am I saying? They’re all interesting. Anyway, Kent Anderson says that blogs are for fogies and David Crotty talks about ‘talking’ vs ‘doing’. Elsewhere on Nature Network we’re re-visiting…

Worthless lie

I’m on record as defending PR in the scientific sphere (and featured in Nature’s From the Blogosphere, so it must have touched a nerve somewhere). I maintain that we will continue to require good public relations, perhaps even more so with the looming spectre of swingeing cuts in publicly-funded science. (I’m a little less enamoured…

On the run-04Feb10

What was that? I think it was the sound of a week flashing past. I keep saying things like “We’ve got a brand new website… but you can’t see it yet.” This must be quite frustrating. Truth is, the dev team are working very hard (and specs have changed and changed again—but let’s not go…

I'm a believer

I took my daughters round the new Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum last year. Because we happen to be friends, I managed to persuade the incomparable Karen James, of The Beagle Project fame, to show us behind the scenes. After that I took the girls into the ‘Cocoon‘, a huge butterfly egg-type structure…