Henry started it by banging on about his iPad. Somehow the subject of blogging came up and I mentioned the BlogPress app, so here I am testing it out. I used it once on MT4 but this is my first go on WordPress. Seems OK so far… Second, what exactly is this thing called Quora? I came across it on Twitter earlier in the week and, like a social media addict, signed up straight away. Quite a few other people seem to have done the same thing.
This amused me. It might amuse you too. The other night Ed Yong asked on Twitter if anyone could remember mention in a recent blogpost of the fact that salts of arsenic often contain phosphate.
Nerds Many of you will already have seen this because I have been promoting it shamelessly on twitter. But this is the video of the talk I mentioned in a post back in March that my daughter Eleanor gave on a topic she feels passionately about: corduroy. I thought it might amuse some of you.
In a dramatic move today, the Government responded to an unprovoked attack on scientists from Guardian writer Simon Jenkins by announcing radical new priorities for UK science.
I saw this and thought of you… …Steffi.
Ha, this’ll make you laugh. Having spent my last blogpost in wistful reflection on the endless judgements that I find myself subjected to as a working scientist, I have just signed up–quite voluntarily, of my own free will and with my eyes wide open–for a whole lot more. However, this time it should be fun. Though I confess to being a little bit terrified. I am going to take part in the upcoming round of I’m a scientist, get me out of here!
For three days last week I was at the EMBL in Heidelberg taking a fantastic course on data visualisation. As is often the way with scientific training, the course was intense: lectures and practicals from 9 in the morning till 10 at night. This particular course was perhaps unusual in being divided into three modules even though each student focused on just one of them.
After a slight delay, I had an idea for a blog post and I’m going to run with it. Hope you can keep up. I have started to run. I have known for a long time that I needed to do this but it took a build-up of pressure to get me moving. It is for my own good. I am feeling the pain but also, still somewhat to my surprise, the benefit. So far I am managing to go running about three times a week.
The germ of this post started with a remark by Kristi, who was struck on a recent visit to the UK by the number of people reading on public transport. I was reading a piece from this week’s Nature as I rode the underground last Friday night on my way to a recording of the TV show QI, and the name Archibald Vivien Hill suddenly leapt off the page.