From the category archives:

Engagement

UK House of Lords scrutinizes nanotechnology and food

January 7, 2010

Back in February of 2009, the UK House of Lords Science and Technology Committee launched an inquiry into the use of nanotechnology in food products and the food industry.  Chaired by Lord Krebs (the son of Hans Adolf Krebs – best known for describing the mechanisms of energy uptake and release in cells), a small [...]

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Scientist just wants to have fun – a compendium of mindless games for the holiday season!

December 22, 2009

Brain-candy for the intellectually incapacitated.
To help the brain cells recuperate from over-exertion (and quite possibly over-indulgence) this Holiday season, here’s a short compendium of mindless games – the sort of things scientists and others indulge in when they think no-one’s looking!

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Biopolitics for the 21st Century

December 14, 2009

By Marcy Darnovsky, PhD, Associate Executive Director of the Center for Genetics and Society
A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series
Much appreciation is due to Andrew for his courage in soliciting “alternative perspectives” on technology innovation and life in the 21st century.  I can’t help but observe that his nervousness about doing [...]

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Science: So what? – So what?

November 27, 2009

I sat down this morning to write a light-hearted blog about the UK government’s “Science: So what? So everything” campaign.  The angle was going to be:
Why write about this when people want to read about this?
But the more I dug around, the more apparent it became that this is an initiative that seems to have [...]

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From the Summit on the Global Agenda: Technology innovation as an enabler of social innovation

November 20, 2009

It’s the end of day one at the World Economic Forum Summit on the Global Agenda, and I’m sitting in my rather comfortable hotel room overlooking Palm Island, trying to pull my thoughts together. It was a day for meeting old friends, making new acquaintances, listening to stirring speeches and exploring new challenges.  As you [...]

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Speaking power to truth – the unfortunate case of David Nutt

November 1, 2009

Sitting 3000 miles away from London in Washington DC, I’ve been following the dismissal of Professor David Nutt as the UK government’s senior scientific advisor on the misuse of drugs, with interest.  Not being steeped in British drugs politics, I was only vaguely aware of the tensions between the Advisory Council on the Misuse of [...]

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Riding the wave: Rethinking science & technology policy

October 15, 2009

Part 8 of a series on rethinking science and technology for the 21st century
Much to my embarrassment, I’ve just realized that it was over four months ago that I wrote the previous blog in this series – a series that was supposed to evolve over just a few weeks!  Most inconveniently, other priorities ended up [...]

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Hooked on science – ten things that inspired me to become a scientist

September 3, 2009

How exactly did I get hooked on science?  It’s not something I’ve thought about too much before. But an invitation to discuss how to inspire the next generation of scientists, technologists and engineers next week has got me thinking…

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TED talks future-tech

August 20, 2009

I‘ve just posted a series of five attention-grabbing talks on future technologies from TED (the Technology, Entertainment, Design conferences) over at Mashable, where I contribute the occasional guest blog.  If you are more interested in the transformative power of technology than the latest gizmo from Apple, you might want to check them out.  Speakers include [...]

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Experiments in science engagement – the exquisite corpse!

July 14, 2009

Tim Jones has just posted a video of a new science engagement technique he’s working on over at his blog Zoonomian.  I was so impressed with the result that I asked his permission to post it here also.
Before explaining what this is, take a look at the video – it’s ten minutes long, but well [...]

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Questions

July 12, 2009

When I was a kid, I was told by my physics teacher that there’s no such thing as a stupid question.  Clearly, he hadn’t been to enough scientific meetings!
Actually, it’s a philosophy I’ve adhered to pretty closely over the past thirty years.  If someone wants to expand their knowledge or understanding, the fewer barriers that [...]

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Engaging the public on nanotechnology

July 7, 2009

Following up on my last post – Geoengineering the planet with nanotechnology ice-cream? – here’s a short video Zoe Papadopoulou and colleagues put together on The Cloud Project from my visit in June:

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Geoengineering the planet with nanotechnology ice-cream?

July 5, 2009

Scientists and engineers have their moments. But it they are hard pressed to beat art students when it comes to sheer audacious creativity.
Earlier this year I received an email so intriguing I couldn’t help but follow up on it. The email was from Zoe Papadopoulou, an MA student at the Royal College of [...]

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Science influence on Twitter – June update

June 23, 2009

Back in April I posted data on three indicators of “influence” for ~400 science-focused Twitter users – based on David Bradley’s list of “Scientific Twitter Friends.” Intrigued to see how these Tweeps’ influence evolves over time, I will be updating these data periodically.
In this first update (aided and abetted by @ruthseeley – thanks Ruth!), the [...]

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Time to vote for your favorite science blogs

May 26, 2009

Science bloggers sometimes have a tough time being heard through the incessant chatter and endless distractions endemic to the web. Which is a shame, as there is a wealth of top-knotch writing out there to be digested and enjoyed, if only more people knew about it.  The good news is that a new award from [...]

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