Looming budget cuts are set to wipe out whole research groups at the Natural History Museum, but a concerted effort from the community may yet save them. The ongoing financial crisis, and the determination of the new coalition Government to tackle it, undoubtedly signal hard times to come for science in Britain. Professor Brian Cox…

Hate NSF? Tell us A new forum for improving the National Science Foundation is up, and already attracting attention from high-profile bloggers, such as DrugMonkey. Specifically, the forum asks “What problems have you had with NSF?” and “What creative solutions have you come up with to these problems?”

Ever want to be the proud owner of petrified wood slab, a mummified Eqyptian cat, or a genuine replica Tyrannosaurus rex foot? Well, now’s your chance!

Researcher papers written by scientists in the United Kingdom are cited almost as highly as papers written by their American counterparts. So says a new analysis done by Thompson Reuters for Times Higher Education (THE). The survey ranks Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the United States on the average number of citations…

Only skin deep. The aptly named Max Gassmann from the University of Zurich has evaluated an interesting paper which points at mammalian skin playing an important role in systemic responses to environmental oxygen.

What do you get if you mix 108 bottles of Coke Zero and 648 Mentos mints?

According to a nicely executed bit of investigative reporting by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Tom Insel, director of the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH), helped secure a new job for a longtime colleague who had run afoul of conflict of interest disclosure rules for National Institutes of Health grantees at his home institution.

Conflicts at WHO?; Wisc. profs in hot water; Kavli Prize winners announced; melanoma milestone

Guest post by Morgan Giddings I lead dual lives. In one of them, decisions are made slowly and deliberately, if at all. Processes and procedures never change without great debate and discussion. Being in a hurry is not a favorable attribute. In fact, being in a hurry leads to a lot of pushback, because someone…

Last week I ran a competition on Twitter to try to reduce this pile of ‘My Life in Science’ books. And… the winner is Andrew Thaler, aka SFriedScientist. A copy of the good book will be winging its way to Andrew very shortly.