Less than a week after the Royal Institution announced that it was contemplating the sale of its historic home in Albermarle Street, Nature published an editorial criticising the 200 year old organisation for having lost its science communication mojo in a world that had ‘moved on’. The journal went so far as to suggest that the RI should hand over its historical artefacts to the Science Museum and quit a field that is now over-run with

I may not know much about Chemistry but I know what I like. And I like carbon. In fact, I’ve decided that it’s my favourite element. I’ll tell you why in the short video below, which is part of the Royal Institution’s 2012 Advent Calendar.     Please take a little time to explore the rest of the calendar.

Scientists should do this. Journalists should do that. And eventually we will live in a world where the media reporting of science achieves perfection. At least that is the hypothesis. The hypothesis was put to the test at the Royal Institution last night in a discussion organised by Alok Jha and chaired by Alice Bell.

On a grey day back in October I made my way along Albemarle Street to the Royal Institution for the filming of DemoJam, a lively and light-hearted program of science produced by Jonathan Sanderson and the rest of the gang at StoryCog for the new RI channel.