Category: Uncategorized
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Dark energy in Westminster
This is a guest blog by Dr Clare Burrage who works at the Particle Theory Group within the School of Physics and Astronomy. It complements the post by Professor Philip Moriarty that I cross-posted recently. Here is Clare’s story about her experience of Westminster: When I told friends and colleagues that I was going to…
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Maybe, Minister: Can politics and science ever speak the same language?
This blog post by Professor Philip Moriarty (member of the MakingSciPub network of Honorary Associates) was first published in PhysicsFocus on 5 December, 2013. Phil and Dr Clare Burrage from Physics and Astronomy have been spending the week at Westminster. This is Phil’s story: Along with 35 other scientists (including my colleague Clare Burrage here…
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Is Ison (still) on?
Over the last weeks there has been much talk about a comet called Ison. As Wikipedia tells us “C/2012 S1, also known as Comet ISON or Comet Nevski–Novichonok, is a sungrazing comet discovered on 21 September 2012 by Vitali Nevski (Виталий Невский, Vitebsk, Belarus) and Artyom Novichonok (Артём Новичонок, Kondopoga, Russia). It attracted quite a…
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Responsive research: Roots and branches
My colleague Sujatha Raman recently opened up a conversation on Sciencewise about ‘responsive research’, which she defines as research responsive to public needs. The project invites people to respond to the project outline. This is what I’ll try to do in this post. I’ll first explore some semantic or conceptual issues, then try to find…
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From making to shaking: The new world of ‘4D’ printing
I haven’t written a blog about a novel scientific development for a while, so when I read about 4D printing in New Scientist at the weekend, I thought the time had come to get to work again. I had heard about this new way of ‘making’ objects before but had not really looked into the ins…
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Public engagement: What to learn and not to learn from the Prussians
This blog post was inspired by three events: a talk given by Helen Pallett at the Institute for Science and Society last week; an article published in Public Understanding of Science; and a brief twitter exchange with Pat Thomson about ‘Bildung’ (ah, and the proposed closure of the Snibston Discovery Museum). Prussian forestry Last week…
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Is Asda right about mental health?
This is a guest post by Greg Hollin, doctoral researcher at the Institute for Science and Society, University of Nottingham. The obvious answer to the question above is ‘no’; a finer example of Betteridge’s Law of Headlines is not easily found. The decision by Asda – who sold a ‘mental patient fancy dress costume’ complete with…
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Making science public: A question of colour
Yesterday I was staring at a poster of the periodic table hanging on our kitchen door, a remnant of my son’s school days. I began to muse; imagine it was just a black and white series of elements and numbers, as it was when it was first invented? Who decided to colour it in, and…
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The values of science as a cultural institution
In the context of discussions about a controversial essay by Steven Pinker, entitled ‘Science is not your enemy‘, I came across a blog post by Jon Brock which mentioned two blooklets that were new to me. They were written by the famous scientist and science communicator Jacob Bronowski. One was The Common Sense of Science…
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Perform or perish? Guilty confessions of a YouTube physicist
This post by Philip Moriarity was first published in physicsfocus on 9 August, 2013 and has been reposted here with the author’s permission. This week is YouTube’s Geek Week so it seems a particularly (in)opportune moment to come clean about some niggling doubts I’ve been having of late about physics education/edutainment on the web. Before…
Making Science Public 