The last king of England to lead an army on the battlefield was George II, at the Battle of Dettingen in Bavaria in 1743 during the War of the Austrian Succession.

“There have been times in the history of man when the earth seems suddenly to have grown warmer… I don’t put that forward as a scientific proposition, but the fact remains that three or four times in history man has … Continue reading →

It has been a beautifully clear and sunny day – perfect weather for a barbecue. We dined and chatted with our guests as the afternoon turned to dusk and then the stars began to wink in the night sky. After everyone had gone and the clearing up was mostly complete, Saturn had ascended above the houses across the street.

Writing about science. It’s important. And not just because you could win some dosh from the Wellcome Trust. I tried to explain why (and a little bit about how) in a guest post on Grrlscientist’s blog today.

I have been working my way around the solar system with my telescope. The moon was easy to spot. And Jupiter and Saturn were not so very difficult to find, though they proved to be beyond my photographic capabilities. Over the weeks and months, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and finally Uranus have succumbed to my searches. Of all the official objects in the solar system only Neptune has so far eluded my telescoped eye.

It just doesn’t add up: why do so many people, including scientists, get stuck on the maths problem? The subject is on my mind because it was raised at a departmental meeting last week where I tried to argue that A level mathematics (the qualification obtained at age 18 in the UK) should be an entry requirement for our degree programmes in biochemistry and biology.

What the hell is Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey about? I’m sure I don’t know. I’m really, really sure I don’t know.

A short film about flying. And about the wing on the plane that I was in. Yes – the wing. I flew this morning and enjoyed a little bit of engineering magic.

It cannot have escaped your attention this past weekend that the Earth was treated to a supermoon. The correct terminology for this felicitous event is a perigee syzygy, but the reasons for the interesting nomenclature need not detain us. The point is that Saturday night was clear in London and gave those of us who live there a magnificent view: Which, just like a lunar orbit, brings me to a place I’ve been before.

We came. We chanted. We lobbied. We petitioned. And in the end, thanks to the Science is Vital Campaign and the persuasive efforts of CaSE and the learned societies and captains of high-tech industry, the UK science budget was protected from deep cuts in the Governments Comprehensive Spending Review last autumn.