I find it heartening that a thing like Uncaged Monkeys exists. While I doubt science based entertainment will ever reach the stadium busting state that stand-up comedy did a few years ago I hope the trend continues. The format worked well and was a lively cross between lecture and stand-up routine. Most of the comedy …
Fliss is fairly convinced I have a man crush on Brian Cox. If I have it’s because it is nice to have a telegenic scientist on our TV screens who is obviously so excited by the science he wants to share it with his audience. Last week’s Wonders left me a little cold as it …
Let me start by saying that I in no way want to minimise the horror the Japanese have been going through. By any standard the recent earthquake has a big one. Despite their advanced technology and modern 21st century infrastructure there isn’t a lot more they could have done to mitigate the effects of nature …
There wasn’t much to be achieved at the weekend although I did pick my parents up from their last minute skiing holiday. It did lead to some colourful language when I got tagged by the airports parking scam. I carefully timed the drive down to arrive as my parented landed. In fact they were slightly …
Continue reading ‘Holy exponential parking charges Batman!’ »
We went to an interesting lecture last night at Churchill College. There is a problem with the universe. It doesn’t quite behave as we would expect it to given the amount of mass we can see in it. To account for the difference in the observed universe and the what the gravitational models predict in …
As the nights draw in again it’s time to hit the lecture circuit. Cambridge is pretty well served with public lectures as well as a number of other organisations that organises talks in return for a small donation on the day or subscription. Last night I went to the IET’s “Christmas” lecture by author, producer …
A couple of stories recently have gotten me thinking about the process of doing science and how it may change in the coming years. The current approach is to spend time doing your research and once your happy you have a defensible theory you write a paper explaining what you did and submit it to …
I finally finished Bad Science last night, written by the excellent Guardian science reporter Ben Goldacre. It’s a tour-de-force of rage against the combined forces of exploitative quacks, big pharma and of course the media. Throughout the book he lays down the basics of the scientific method and how it related to epidemiological research while …