constructive skirmishes with science and the world
One of the great advantages of blogs is the opportunity they offer to react quickly to developments in science, the news, the courts, and so on. Considering I’m discussing the way a science paper was covered in the news three weeks ago, this blogpost misses that ideal of topicality by some distance – but I think it’s an interesting little example so I’m posting it anyway. A little while ago, the auditory cortex was in the news. For an auditory [read on...]
While standing outside a party the other night, basking in the eerie glow of a moon halo, a good friend of mine who has a penchant for skepticism of science turned to me and said, “You realize that science works on an honour system, right? If a scientist makes some stuff up, more often than not, no one’s ever going to find out.” Usually comments like this from him are my cue to stand up and be the champion to [read on...]
I fear I have turned into a naïve idealist. I’m concerned about the increasingly blurred line between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ actions of big corporations, and saddened that science lies at the heart of it. [A disclaimer: I am aware that there are a plethora of companies who strive for success strictly through ethical practices, and I am not anti-business]. An obvious example is the science of killing people. I might say I think we’re spending an insane amount of public [read on...]
These are time lapse sequences taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station during August and October. The combination of city lights, aurora and thunderstorms from space are simply mesmerizing. A super fun game is to try and guess the location of each sequence from the visible land masses. I’ll post them below the vid. For full trippyness you may want to click through to watch it in HD on the vimeo site. 1. Aurora Borealis Pass over the United [read on...]
We’ve all suffered that terrifying moment during our research when we’ve been asked what it is we’re actually doing. There’s that slight awkward pause, the sucking-in of breath through the teeth, and then… we bust out the moves and interpretive dance our way to an explanation. Right? Well, maybe not. But that’s the premise of Gonzolabs‘ annual Dance Your PhD contest. The objective – as if it needs clarifying – is to get PhD students to translate their thesis into [read on...]
Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for others… there is no reason to go on being foolish forever. – Bertrand Russell There is a pervasive belief in science that unless you’re an obsessive workaholic you can’t be successful — there is overwork for some and scientific starvation for the rest. Further, there is a glorification of the singleminded pursuit of [read on...]
Labelling tiny plastic tubes and doing a lot of washing up – that’s how I summed up the daily grind of the lab bioscientist in my last post. Now that I’m back in a lab coat and safety glasses on a daily basis, let’s see how accurate my memory of the lab was with an account of what I got up to at work today. Today, started slowly. In general, I’m very much a morning person. I work best in the [read on...]
There’s been a bit of a hiatus here at Team Nerd, but rest assured it is temporary! There is another podcast in the pipes, and the flow of wallpapers and blogposts will resume before you can say “Where the hell is the octopus?” In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this spectacular, informative little video from Science Friday. Impressive stuff.
It seems that us Nerds are becoming a rather nostalgic bunch. Change is very much in the air. Adding to those changes, I have recently left the never-ending pursuit of knowledge that is academic science for the never-ending pile of submitted manuscripts that is academic publishing. It’s a bit too early for me to ramble on about the new world I’ve come to inhabit – I’m still getting used to the presence of windows – so I’ll leave my thoughts [read on...]
I recently took a 60 minute, multiple-choice problem-solving test, in which, realistically, once you have completed all the background reading and scanned over the provided tables and charts, you have about 1.5 minutes per question. It appears there is an assumption that problem-solving is ingrained in the very DNA of scientists and engineers. Perhaps mine is faulty, or missing, for, when confronted with the problem of finding “the difference, in percentage points, between the December profit margin and the average [read on...]
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