Monthly Archives: January 2011

Peer-to-Peer Review

Posted on January 30, 2011 by

Forgive me. I just can’t stop thinking about the Horizon programme Science under Attack and the comments of the blogger James Delingpole. I was stunned by his comment about consensus the other day. But the other remark he made was … Continue reading →

Posted in public science | 1 Comment

James Delingpole and the Scientific Consensus

Posted on January 26, 2011 by

I’ve just watched the latest edition of the BBC’s Horizon programme, Science under Attack, in which Paul Nurse, the current head of the UK’s Royal Society goes out to try to understand why there is so little trust in science … Continue reading →

Posted in bad science, climate change, public science | 35 Comments

William Ramsay – A Blue Plaque – 9 February 2011

Posted on January 22, 2011 by

Way back in 2003, the year before the centenary of William Ramsay’s Nobel Prize (he and Lord Rayleigh tracked down argon and then Ramsay found Helium and the rest of the noble gases), my colleague Alwyn Davies and I tossed … Continue reading →

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Töpler’s pump

Posted on January 13, 2011 by

This is a bit late, but the latest Classic Kit is about Töpler’s pump, a piece of kit I first came across in Bob Morris’ lab in Toronto when I first started doing research back in the Jurassic age. It’s … Continue reading →

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Is David Nichols just a wee bit disingenuous?

Posted on January 12, 2011 by

I mentioned in my last post that I had been invited onto Radio 4′s Material World last week to celebrate the start of the International Year of Chemistry. But the intention was also to take a look at an opinion … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

Sticking my neck out

Posted on January 6, 2011 by

I was invited to join my friend Quentin Cooper on Material World to talk about the International Year of Chemistry with Martin Poliakoff from Nottingham. The programme also covered the recent opinion piece by David Nichols in Nature on the … Continue reading →

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Review of the Year (Home Energy)

Posted on January 4, 2011 by

It’s time to look over the spreadsheet and see what our energy consumption looks like for the year 2010. As both the end of last winter and the start of this one were very cold I guess one would expect … Continue reading →

Posted in carbon footprint, energy | Leave a comment