Posts filed under 'General'
Please see comment below from mirshafie:
Looks like your site has been compromised? Chrome just told me that this site contains elements from a server with malware, and when I loaded this page I got redirected to a PDF, URL below (which seems to crash Acroread). I suggest NOT to open it with Acrobat Reader, if you want to take a look it might be a better idea to use a third party PDF viewer.
http://116.50.15.25/stats/getfile.php?f=vispdf
Thanks for pointing this out. I can’t replicate the problem, but I’ve hastily upgraded my Wordpress version. Unfortunately I can’t attack this issue as I’m off to London now to cover the launch of the BBC Darwin Season (more on that when I return). To make matters worse, my laptop has just died so I won’t be able to work on this problem until I return. I’ll be able to check my emails and comments though, so any helpful tips are gratefully received.
* EDIT: looks like the blame for this lay at the feet of my host, Powweb. They’ve built machine gun turrets on top of their servers and all our base belong to us once again. Happy days.
January 20th, 2009
I would say ‘probably not’, but that would imply the question isn’t completely stupid. Every year, around the last week of January, ‘news‘ outlets trot out the same tired story of how “experts” have pinpointed a certain day as being the most depressing of the year.
It all started in 2005 when a couple of Twix-eating Nathan Barleys at PR agency Porter Novelli sought a way to get the name of their client, Sky Travel, into every newspaper in the UK. So they invented a game where they would staple £20 notes to the outside of aircraft and encourage colleagues to try and retrieve the cash in mid-flight, most of whom were sucked into the jet engines and scattered like fishflakes into the Atlantic.
Sadly that’s not true; instead they wrote a press release on how some day in January was the most depressing, and trawled the academic centres of the UK until they found someone with a PhD who was willing to qualify the statement with some 4th grade algebra. That man was Dr Cliff Arnall of Cardiff University (or, as Cardiff University quickly pointed out, “a former part-time tutor at the university but left in February”).
It didn’t really matter that Dr Cliff Arnall’s formula, (supposedly taking account of factors such as pay, daylength, and temperature) didn’t even make mathematical sense, because none of the papers or websites that printed the story bothered to run it past a 12-year-old schoolchild to check. I can’t really hate on Porter Novelli – they did what they were paid to do. Dr Cliff Arnall, meanwhile, went on to a lucrative career in writing nonsense formulae for PR companies, for example pinning some day in June as the happiest, for which he picked up a cheque from Walls ice cream.
The strange part is this: the story has been running for 4 years now, but there’s no indication in its latest incarnation of who’s paying Cliff to release this nonsense. Is he simply running off a copy of 2005’s press release each year and hoping a cheque will land on his doormat? Does he actually believe this nonsense? Perhaps he thinks this is some kind of important scientific research taht demands publishing. I honestly don’t know. Whoring yourself out to a PR agency for a quick buck is inglorious; but doing it for free, that’s just depressing.
January 19th, 2009
Thanks to Steve Erenberg at the Radio Guy Museum for these fantastic images of vintage firefighters’ masks. Perfect for scaring children, re-enacting video games, and making Cory Doctorow jealous.
Lord Vader firefighter:
Cyber firefighter:
Steampunk firefighter:
Dr Who firefighter:
Kaiser firefighter:
January 16th, 2009
Once upon a time, there was a wonderful magazine delivered free to homes in the UK. It was called Innovations, a catalogue of wonderful things from people who didn’t let pragmatism or common sense stand in the way of their ingenuity. Why turn on your bedside lamp when you could have tiny headlights in the front of your slippers? (If you could find you slippers in the dark, that is.) In the unlikely event of 16 hours of unbroken British sunshine, you could take advantage with a sun lounger that swivels a full 180 degrees!
The spirit of Innovations lives on in cyberspace, as evidenced by Ecofont. Creators SPRANQ say:
The prints we make for our ‘daily use’ not only use paper, but also ink… your ink cartridges (or ink toner) could last longer. SPRANQ has therefore developed a new font: the Ecofont.
Their moment of genius arrived when they realised they could remove tiny spots from the inside of each letter, whilst maintaining legibility of the text, creating an ugly font that was difficult to render. Actually, I’d like to think the moment of genius was ignoring the fact that users could simply print less, print smaller, print lighter, or use the in-built ‘economy’ mode that most printers come with as standard. Truly, genius is 1% inspiration and 99% oblivion.
January 15th, 2009
Originally airing on BBC Radio 4 last Thursday, The Quest for Virgin Birth sees Dr Aarathi Prasad investigating the possibility of humans reproducing without sex. Learn how Flora, Chester Zoo’s resident Komodo dragon, laid eggs without ever meeting a male, why some women have a Y chromosome and what kind of tumour has eyes, teeth and hair.
If you liked that, you might also pop over to Dr Prasad’s article on the Guardian Science Blog where you can join in pillorying the editors for confusing Catholicism’s Immaculate Conception with Virgin Birth and generally rant about religion.
January 4th, 2009
I chanced across this rather amusing image over at the Terra Sigillata blog.
Don’t get it? Perhaps you should check out the awesome world of Wolbachia, one of the world’s most successful parasitic microbes. It has developed the ability to wreak havoc with the sex ratios of the insects and other invertebrates that it infects. As Wolbachia can only be passed down the female line, males of the species are considered useless and it removes them from the population with alarming efficiency.
Wolbachia can remove males from a population by killing them outright, or feminising them so that they become pseudo-females. The parasite is suspected of turning entire species female-only (parthenogenic). Other tricks Wolbachia has up its sleeve include creating ‘cytoplasmic incompatibility’ – where males infected with the parasite can only fertilise females infected with the same strain. This means that uninfected females have a harder time finding a mate and consequently are squeezed out of the population.
It’s estimated that up to 70% of all insect species can be infected by Wolbachia. Truly an awesome parasite!
January 3rd, 2009
As I am a Beaver and Steve Hsu is a Duck, we are sworn enemies. However, I can put the hostilities aside long enough to celebrate this rather spiffing map of science that he posted. It was created by eigenfactor.org who analysed which scientific papers link to eachother, showing how applied fields are dependent upon advances in basic sciences such as physics and medicine.
Hat tip to Endless Psych!
December 20th, 2008
It’s a very good question. Here is my answer.
Whyscience.co.uk is the brainchild of TV producer and film-maker Alom Shaha, and allows scientists, science commentators and regular people to leave their thoughts on why science is important. Luminaries such as Simon Singh (author, broadcaster), Jim Al-Khalili (physicist, author, broadcaster) and Roger Highfield (editor, New Scientist) have already had their say. Perhaps you should, too.
December 16th, 2008
My new article on the future of science TV is up at the Guardian Science Blog. It’s really rather good. You should all go there and leave plenty of comments, so that the Guardian thinks I’m wonderful and gives me loads more articles.
December 12th, 2008
I noticed this in the Guardian the other day. Can anyone spot what’s wrong?
December 11th, 2008
The Wellcome Trust have a neat-looking exhibition on at the moment entitled “War and Medicine”. From the press blurb:
Central to the exhibition is the uncomfortable and sometimes paradoxical relationship between war and medicine and the question of their influence upon each other. ‘War and Medicine’ will show how humankind’s desire to repair and heal is perpetually striving to keep pace with our capacity to maim and kill.
Given the rather brilliant exhibitions curated previously (and here I’m thinking specifically of Sleeping and Dreaming, Skeletons, and the much-overlooked From Atoms to Patterns) I’ll look forward to visiting this when I’m next in London. In the meantime though I can whet my appetite with the splendid looking book:
The exhibition is open until the 15th of February (full details).
December 8th, 2008
Last week SciencePunk travelled to the Hilton Metropole in Florence, Italy, where I attended the 2008 World Congress of Science and Factual Producers. The Congress brings together science and history film producers and commissioners from all around the world to meet, socialise, exchange ideas and pitch films. I found myself there, all-expenses-paid, courtesy of the Wellcome Trust mentorship programme for emerging talent: myself and seven other promising younglings were sent to learn all we can about the science broadcast industry. You see kids: science does have a glamorous side. Just look at the view from my hotel room:
The Congress is membership-run, with additional funding provided from luminaries such as Discovery and Italian broadcaster Rai. During the day there were lectures and presentations (such as “Faith, Science and the Vatican”), and the evenings are built on social events arranged at some incredible venues throughout the city. Many people come here hoping to secure the funding needed to turn their ideas into film, but the emphasis is more social than business: a chance to catch up with old friends and make new ones (for me, entirely the latter).
In a future post I’ll also be able to reveal a senior producer’s view of the future of science programming (it isn’t good news), discuss what happened when the Vatican representatives met the scientists, and reveal what lies inside a secret tunnel running through Florence.
On reflection, being unemployed is working out quite well for me. Is it any wonder 2 million people in the UK swear by it?
*** EDIT: I’ve been reminded that due to confidentiality clauses, I won’t actually be able to reveal any of those things. Even the Vasari Corridor was off-limits to photography.
December 7th, 2008
Some time ago an upgrade to the latest version of Wordpress crippled the comment boxes throughout SciencePunk – I’ve fixed this issue now so if you had a burning point to make on detox patches or honey and cinnamon, feel free to add your two cents.
Although, given the level of stupidity that’s filtering into the honey and cinnamon article, perhaps it was better off closed to comments.
November 21st, 2008
Now that we’ve established how long you could survive the vast emptiness of space, how long do you think you could survive chained to bunk bed with a velociraptor?
Admittedly, the scientific basis of this tool is highly suspect. However, the amusement factor is rock solid. Post your times below.
November 18th, 2008
Currently I’m residing in Devon, the jewel in the crown of British quackery, and it’s already making itself apparent. I guess the abundance of ageing citizens with chronic conditions and deep pockets lends itself well to all sorts of dodgy “healers” – the neraby town of Totnes has the highest concentration of CAM practitioners anywhere in the country.
Last night the local edition of BBC’s Inside Out programme investigated the College of Natural Nutrition. You may remember this as the alma mater of one Barbara Nash, an Oxford-based nutritional therapist who was forced to pay out £800,000 to a client left brain-damaged by her advice.
Inside Out sent qualified dietician Catherine Collins (who is, by the way, very awesome) on the course, where she discovered lecturer Barbara Wren claiming to have treated thyroid cancer with an external compress of urine and castor oil. Wait, what?!
The show’s producers tried to get in contact with Barbara Wren to ask her about these bizarre claims but she has exercised the height of scientific practice by refusing to engage with any criticisms.
It’s shocking that in this day and age, unqualified quacks are allowed to preach dangerous nonsense under the guise of a school, and their students (well-meaning or otherwise) are able to go on to harm members of the public with this foolishness. Remind me again why this is legal?
You can watch the video report here – thanks, Dr*T!
November 13th, 2008
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