Science

Inspiring teachers – a blast from the past

by Andrew Maynard October 7, 2011

Two years ago, I wrote a piece about ten things that inspired me to become a scientist. One of those was my high school teacher.  We never kept in touch, but through the miracle of the web, that post eventually came to his attention, and we connected again. The other day he unearthed a photo [...]

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Asking smart people dumb questions – the new role of challengers at Davos

by Andrew Maynard January 27, 2011

Cross-posted at ForumBlog.org – the World Economic Forum blog My high school physics teacher used to tell me there’s no such think as a dumb question.  It’s a lesson I’ve carried with me through my professional career as a scientist.  But it’s a philosophy that might be just about to come back and bite me. [...]

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Basic research and personal responsibility

by Andrew Maynard November 11, 2010

Dan Sarewitz has a rather provocative commentary in Nature this morning, where he suggests that proposals to increase basic research may be good politics, but questionable policy. The headline alone is probably enough to get some science-advocates’ blood boiling, whether they go on to read the piece or not: “Double trouble? To throw cash at [...]

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Scientist listen to the public? Surely you’re joking Mr. Mooney!

by Andrew Maynard July 4, 2010

With apologies to Chris Mooney, and all the many scientists that really do get the need to listen to people.  And also with a rather large tongue in my cheek: Dear Mr Mooney, I’ve been way too busy this week doing important sciency stuff to engage with the trivialities of the popular press.  But this [...]

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Welcome to real science!

by Andrew Maynard June 19, 2010

The way science is taught, the way it’s portrayed on TV and in the press, he way it’s promoted by science-advocates and science bloggers, often seems to adhere to a rather pompous and hubristic view of science as the ultimate bastion of truth and certainty.  So it’s been rather refreshing this week to see a [...]

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The secrets of engaging teens with science

by Sophia Collins April 13, 2010

A guest blog by Sophia Collins, producer of the on-line teen science event “I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here!” “itz hometime but we want to stay and ask questions” These are the words of a 14 year old student, at a school in inner-city London. The school has some of the poorest academic [...]

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“I’m a Scientist…” – Seriously addictive science engagement!

by Andrew Maynard March 24, 2010

The website “I’m a Scientist – Get me out of here” should come with a government warning – something along the lines of “Visiting this site could seriously disrupt your professional, social and personal live while altering your perceptions on getting kids hooked on science – proceed with extreme caution.”  In fact I would probably [...]

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Sex, sexuality and science – a novice’s guide

by Andrew Maynard March 22, 2010

A year or so ago, there was a challenge circling round the blogging community to write on a subject you know nothing about.  It’s a little late, but I think this blog quite possibly qualifies as my contribution. Earlier this year I rather foolishly agreed to rise to a challenge set me on the 2020 [...]

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British Science in the 21st century: The Royal Society on securing Britain’s future prosperity

by Andrew Maynard March 8, 2010

It’s a week for significant science reports.  Following hot on the heels of the UK Expert Group on Science and Trust’s report on Monday comes what could well be a seminal work on science in 21st century Britain from the Royal Society.  In “The scientific century: securing our future prosperity” a distinguished panel of experts [...]

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

by Andrew Maynard 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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Researchers are real people too – thoughts on interviewing scientists

by Andrew Maynard November 29, 2009

Andréia Azevedo Soares has just posted an excellent blog on how to interview scientists over at YS Journal – an on-line journal written, edited and published by students.  The piece is aimed specifically at students from 12 to 20 years old who are engaged with the Young Scientists Journal project from around the world, and [...]

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Science: So what? – So what?

by Andrew Maynard 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 [...]

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Do peer review journals need a media code of conduct?

by Andrew Maynard October 14, 2009

Since when did peer review journals start to put press hits before published data? Scientific peer review journals are a cornerstone of modern science – providing an authoritative repository of scientific discovery that researchers and others can examine, test and build upon.  Publication in peer review journals is the primary route by which new science [...]

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

by Andrew Maynard 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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Graphically comparing 523 scientwists’ Twitter stats

by Andrew Maynard August 24, 2009

Following on from yesterday’s update on my quest to track science influence on Twitter, I’ve posted a bubble-chart of the August “influence stats” for all 523 scientwists in David Bradley’s list over at Many Eyes. Using the chart, you can quickly explore the number of followers, secondary followers, social capital and a handful of other [...]

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Science influence on Twitter – August update

by Andrew Maynard August 23, 2009

It’s the middle of August, and time for my regular two-monthly update on science tweep influence on Twitter. 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.” This is the third update of the indicators – the second [...]

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TED talks science – 5 classic science talks, plus a couple of bonuses

by Andrew Maynard July 22, 2009

The internet is littered with videos of science lectures and science talks – witness the recently posted “100 Incredible Lectures from the World’s Top Scientists” for instance.  But it’s not easy to sift through the tedious, the impenetrable and the down right boring, to arrive at a core of science talks that really are worth [...]

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