-
A Bright Picture
·
1–2 minutes·
No comments on A Bright PictureIt’s not often that I see a piece of science writing that concisely explains a difficult concept in an accessible way, but this article at Wired on a pill that could prevent hearing loss had some well-written passages. The reporter, Noah Shachtman, used a nice turn of phrase to describe how a buildup of free…
-
Dishonest science
BoingBoing linked to this interview about ‘brain technologies’ today which I think will inevitably give people a completely wrong impression about the field. The interviewee, David Pescovitz (a science writer, not a scientist) touches on all the popular stuff at the moment including the laughable ‘neuromarketing’: Volunteers in one study completed a survey about their…
-
Perfect Circle
One of the more annoying aspects of my PhD course at Oxford is that I have to go to these ‘Personal Development Course’ events every so often, which are about as bad as they sound. In fact, all new biology graduates have to go to them, perhaps fifty in total. The first one, held some…
-
The Rules of the Game
I’ve just finished reading John Gribbin’s Science: A History, which is by all accounts a very well-written and interesting book. Gribbin could have probably done with making some of his sentences a little shorter and more readable, but other than that it’s an excellent review of science and the people who discovered it, starting from…
-
Only a Matter of Time
“The location of the Greenwich Meridian, that was decided arbitrarily, right?” “I suppose. They put it there because our system of time or mapping or something like that was designed in Greenwich.” “But if it was designed in, say, America or Russia, the ‘zero time’ could have been there?” “I don’t see why not.” “So,…
-
Books
In what must be a record for me, I finished Robert Sawyer’s Hominids in around three hours this weekend; that’s about 30 seconds per page. I don’t normally read that quickly, but Hominids was a particularly easy read and had several sections on the science of DNA and quantum physics, both of which I am…
-
Planet Jemma
It’s a great idea – create a fictional online journal of a 19 year old English girl who’s interested in science (and boys, etc etc) to get other girls into science. And that’s what the British Council has done with Planet Jemma. Now, I don’t dare to presume that I have any special insight into…
-
On memory
My 4 year DPhil here at Oxford is funded by a studentship from the Wellcome Trust. This is a great thing because it means I have enough money to, for example, live, and it also means that any research groups I join will not have to pay for me. It’s even better than that, though,…
-
More neuroscience
The theme of today’s conference sessions was on attention, on which William James famously said, “Everyone knows what attention is.” (I never want to hear that phrase again. Ever. I heard it enough today) I wasn’t too enamoured with the first three talks today, which were arguably given by the big-hitters of the conference. I…
-
Neuroscience
So Bhisma has requested a few long posts on the cognitive neuroscience conference I’m currently attending in Oxford (that’s my life – one long, endless round of conferences…). The conference, properly named the Autumn School in Cognitive Neuroscience, began on Monday at the Department of Experimental Psychology. Some thoughts on the sessions: First talk was…
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
mssv 