Science in Public 2013 – Call for Panel Proposals
December 14, 2012
UPDATE: You can see the full Call For Papers including details of all the proposed panels at http://scienceinpublic.org/conference/ 8th Annual Science in Public Conference, 22-23 July 2013 on ‘Critical Perspectives on Making Science Public’ Call for Panel Proposals The University of Nottingham is proud to host the 8th Annual Science in Public Conference, 22-23 July 2013. …
Big Data: Challenges and opportunities
November 20, 2012
With increasing frequency one can read announcements welcoming us to the age of Big Data (put the phrase “welcome to the age of big data” into google and you’ll get over 488,000 results). Reading about two recent events in particular sharpened my awareness of this new era, namely a big data event at the British …
Images and visualisations: Technology, Truth and Trust
October 6, 2012
This is a GUEST blog by Andrew Balmer (University of Manchester): I recently co-chaired (with Brigitte Nerlich and Annamaria Carusi) an ESF conference on visualisation, hosted by the University of Linköping but actually held in Norrköping, Sweden. It went swimmingly, with a variety of interesting and instructive presentations and posters, from philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, nanoscientists, …
‘See through science’
August 25, 2012
I was recently reminiscing about Venice, where I have been many times, soaking up the sunshine, the colours and little miracles in glass (about which more later). So I started to think about science and glass, and the title of a famous 2005 booklet produced by James Wilsdon and Rebecca Willis popped into my head: …
Seeing like the Mars Curiosity Rover
August 8, 2012
In my last blog I talked about metaphor as ‘the mind’s eyes’, as metaphors make us see something as something else, which enables us to think about something in novel ways, extend our knowledge and in the process shape both science and society. In this sense metaphor can be said to be a mental technology …