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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 …
The microbiome goes viral
May 12, 2017
In this post, I want to return to a topic that started to fascinate me in 2007, namely the microbiome. In 2009 I published an article (with Iina Hellsten) about the metaphors used to make the microbiome public, but then didn’t do any further research on the topic, apart from writing a blog post stimulated by Jon …
An iconography of truth
March 19, 2017
With all the talk about post-truth and post-facts swirling around me, I thought I had to write something about all this, about how utterly important it is to stand up for facts, truth, evidence, expertise, sincerity, honesty, dignity, integrity, fairness, justice…., however hard that might be in the political, economic, social, cultural, intellectual and academic …
3D printing with atoms: Laboratory life
March 6, 2017
There is a long tradition of social scientists observing and analysing laboratory life. The most seminal book that has emerged from this tradition is probably Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar’s 1979 Laboratory Life: The social construction of scientific facts (they changed the subtitle in 1986 to ‘the construction of scientific facts, as they became aware …
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, …
Something for nothing
February 17, 2017
This is a blog post about nothing in particular. It’s more a stream of thoughts and associations… But in the end I’ll be talking about Kepler and snowflakes and Pluto and its moon. Nix The other day I was talking to my sister. She asked in German whether I had an idea for my next …
Hybrids and chimeras: Mythology, history and science
February 3, 2017
Last week two papers were published about human and other chimeras, one in Cell on ‘Interspecies chimerism with mammalian pluripotent stem cells’ and one in Nature entitled ‘Interspecies organogenesis generates autologous functional islets’. The first one caused a bit of a stir in the newspapers. About 70 newspaper articles covered this potential scientific breakthrough in All …
The mystery of the missing Martians
January 13, 2017
When the present is depressing and the future uncertain, it is sometimes nice to retreat to the past, especially to past futures. I recently tried to distract myself from the present by staring at Venus, Moon and Mars illuminating the evening sky. I then led my eyes wander around the internet and I inadvertently came …
Science communication: Mary Somerville
December 30, 2016
Every so often, and yet again just before Christmas this year, little skirmishes erupt on the history of science scene when somebody says that the word ‘scientist’ was first coined for Mary Somerville. The claim is then rebuffed by pointing out that the term was first used in print in 1834 in a review of …
Making Science Public: 2016 blog round-up
December 19, 2016
This has been a weird and momentous year. For me personally and, even more so, for the world. In June this year we celebrated the almost end of the Making Science Public programme, which I directed between 2012 and 2016. At the end of September I retired, after working for more than 25 years at the University …