Francis Willughby and me
November 26, 2021
You have probably all heard of Newton or Halley or Hooke or Pepys … But have you heard of Willughby? I had, vaguely, but I did not look hard enough. They were all early members of the Royal Society (founded in 1660) and involved in a little scandal to which I’ll come later. But first …
Juno, Jupiter and the art of citizen science
June 2, 2017
With political and moral life here on earth being in utter turmoil, images of/from Jupiter beamed down to our little planet by the Juno space probe have recently kept me sane (as far as that’s possible). They brought with them glimpses of beauty and moments of wistfulness. A year or so ago, I wrote a blog post …
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 …
Citizen science
January 9, 2015
I recently wrote a post about ‘scientific citizenship’. Today I want to home in on a related concept: ‘citizen science’. First I’ll show you how the Oxford English Dictionary has defined the phrase; then I’ll examine how the concept was used in the news and who employed the concept first; and finally I’ll briefly reflect …