Historical fiction: A forgotten corner of science communication?
January 26, 2018
I recently read a wonderful tale about a 10th-century Arab philosopher, theologian and mathematician, Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen). This wasn’t a biography (although I read that as well, afterwards); it was historical fiction – a historical novel. The tale was told by Bradley Steffens and entitled The Prisoner of Al-Hakim (2017). Immersed in the novel, I learned, …
Frankenstein is about us not STEM
January 19, 2018
I was reading my tweets the other day and came across this one: “I am reading the octopus book. My main hobby now is looking up from the octopus book in order to share octofacts.” This is popular science (communication) at its best.* It also made me think. If readers of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) had …
Science, art and pints
May 20, 2017
For the first time in my life I participated in ‘Pint of Science’ this year. This festival of science engagement takes place on three days in May in pubs all around the globe, including 26 cities in the UK, such as Nottingham. Over a drink, scientists present and discuss their latest research and findings and …
Making science public: The science march
March 10, 2017
The other day over coffee I was reading a blog post and an article. They made me think. The blog post on …and Then There’s Physics rattled once again the rotten foundations of the ivory tower stereotype of academia, while the article by Ed Yong in The Atlantic was about the March for Science that’ll …
Digging for the roots of the deficit model
February 25, 2017
According to my twitter feed, the deficit model (also known as the knowledge or information deficit model of science communication or of public understanding of science) has been discussed yet again, this time during the 2017 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in the midst of current soul searching about facts, …
Nano does Nottingham Does Comics
December 15, 2016
This is a guest post by Phil Moriarty. It continues the story of the graphic novel being created as part of a project trying to achieve 3D printing with atoms, which I have started to document here and here. *** Yesterday evening I spent a fun few hours at the Nottingham Writers’ Studio with my colleagues …
Antibiotic resistance, citizen science and Daleks
June 9, 2016
This morning I was having my first cup of coffee while listening to the Radio 4 Today programme. At 6.55 an item came on that made me laugh – and guess what: it was about antibiotic resistant bacteria! For a while now I have been worried that in order to raise public awareness about the …