Ripples of rumour and ripples in space: LIGO and gravitational waves
February 11, 2016
For some days now I have been seeing announcements on twitter that the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) would make an announcement about the detection of gravitational waves today. (The best description of these self-referential announcements can be found on Mark Hannam’s blog!) In 2014 I got a bit excited about an announcement that gravitational …
Precision metaphors in a messy biological world
February 5, 2016
The promises of nanoscience and nanotechnology have been framed by a variety of future oriented metaphors, such as the those of the fantastic voyage or the master builder. The former metaphor has been especially prominent in early reports on the promises of nanomedicine, but it is still in use today. What happens when real breakthroughs …
‘Pathways’ in science and society
January 29, 2016
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood; And sorry I could not travel both; And be one traveler, Long I stood, And looked down one as far as I could, To where it bent in the undergrowth.” (Robert Frost, 1916) I have walked along many paths, even pathways, on my journey through life. Recently, I …
Antibiotic resistant infections in the news
January 22, 2016
In 2015 issues relating to antibiotic resistance and antimicrobial resistance have been widely discussed in the media, by medical experts and policy makers. 2015 ended with reports that antibiotic resistant gonorrhoea is becoming increasingly difficult to treat and that scientists in China discovered a gene in E. coli that makes it resistant to a class of …
Ash dieback (Chalara), science, and plant biosecurity
January 11, 2016
Much has changed since the trade-related arrival of ash dieback (Chalara) at a nursery in Buckinghamshire, England, in February 2012. On the negative side, 652 sites across England, Scotland and Wales are now known to contain trees infected with the potentially fatal disease. Also, it is now accepted that the spread of the disease cannot …
On books, circuits and life
January 7, 2016
I have recently been trying to understand CRISPR, gene editing and genome editing. While reading about these new developments in genomics, I noticed that in the avalanche of news reports reference is only rarely made to synthetic biology (on 5 January there were 188 articles on CRISPR in Major World Newspapers on the LexisNexis news …
Flooding and ‘the Dutch solution’
December 29, 2015
Some years ago, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, US news media featured Dutch-style flood management as one of the engineering solutions that may prevent future devastating flooding in the regions affected. The same happened after the winter floods in the south of UK at the beginning of 2014 and similar references are …
Seduced by the Dark Side? Embracing Impact
December 24, 2015
This is a guest post by Philip Moriarty, PI on a project, just funded by the EPSRC, entitled Mechanochemistry at the single bond limit: Towards deterministic epitaxy. We both hope to bring you more news about work on this project in the future. Some of you who have been reading the Making Science Public blog …
On the metaphorical origins of gene drives
This morning I woke up to a bit of chat about ‘gene drive‘ – this year’s science breakthrough of the year –, first on twitter, then on the radio. This made me think about the use of terms like gene drive, gene driver, gene driving and where they come from. It also made me think …
El Niño – the Christ Child
December 22, 2015
I had an odd exchange of photos with my sister in America this week. I sent her daffodils from Nottingham; she sent me arctic conditions from New Mexico. Both photos can be linked to ‘El Niño’, I believe, a weather phenomenon “named after the birth of Christ because it traditionally occurs in Latin America around …
MSP bookmarks
- Twitter May 8, 2017
- Social innovations in Europe #RRI November 3, 2015
- Harvey Graff, the undisciplinarian September 20, 2015
- Replacing Pesticides With Genetics August 31, 2015
- Addressing hazardous chemicals in the circular economy August 25, 2015
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