"I'm A Scientist, Get Me Out Of Here" – a personal view

Guest post: Paula Salgado, a structural biologist in Steve Matthew’s lab at Imperial College London, describes her experience of the “I’m a Scientist, get me out of here!” event that concluded last Friday. As 3.30pm on Friday 25th June approached and I found myself in a workshop, away from my computer, I was anxiously waiting…

"I'm A Scientist, Get Me Out Of Here"

Guest post: Paula Salgado, a structural biologist in Steve Matthew’s lab at Imperial College London, describes her experience of the “I’m a Scientist, get me out of here!” event that concluded last Friday. As 3.30pm on Friday 25th June approached and I found myself in a workshop, away from my computer, I was anxiously waiting…

Film star

Last week I wondered about the stereotypical scientist with no dress sense, social skills or cultural awareness. It’s more accurate to say that non-scientists generally have no awareness of science (Brian Cox in the Guardian this week: “it’s still acceptable for people in this country to say, almost as an aside, while drinking their claret,…

Jan Klein and Big Science

I always have been against big science. I think it’s mostly a waste of money and all the history of science shows us that it never leads to the attempted goal. Jan Klein, the Czech-American immunologist, co-founded the modern science of immunogenetics. He is the author or co-author of over 560 scientific publications and of…

Who are you?

There was a rather strange column in Nature this week, discussing the work of the Science and Entertainment Exchange of the US National Academy of Sciences, an organization that exists, in brief, to help entertainment producers get it right. Strange, because the article by Daniel Sarewitz pours scorn on such a project. But what’s really…

Winner takes it all

By the tingling in my toes I note it’s the first of a brand new month. Which means it’s time to announce this month’s lucky Naturally Selected sweatshirt winner! I said I’d award a sweatshirt to the best comment this month. I also ran a picture competition, which nobody was able to get right! However,…

She wants revenge

The parlous state of science reporting in the main stream media is not news. The Daily Mail would have you believe that everything from age to zinc causes or cures cancer (and in some cases both) but even ‘quality’ papers more often than not over-sensationalize findings, or simply get them just plain wrong. In fact,…