She’s here. She’s in the room. I’ve not noticed her before — not in previous years — but every now and then her presence is unmistakable. I am sitting in a lecture theatre in St Andrews University in Scotland, attending the 16th Meeting of the European Study Group on the Molecular Biology of Picornaviruses, or Europic, as it is more conveniently known.
Three unrelated things.
When Simon Jenkins wrote in The Guardian a couple of months back about science being a new religion we all scoffed. Oh, how we scoffed. Scoff, scoff, scoff, scoff, scoff. Scoff. But having been at the Edinburgh Fringe for a few days now, I’m wondering if he might have had a point.
It is the day after the day after the fortnight before. I had hoped to write sooner about the relentless work and tremendous fun I had participating in I’m a Scientist, Get me Out of Here over the past two weeks. But such was the nervous energy expended in the last week that it has taken me till now to recover my bearings.
Week two of “I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here!” is now upon me. This week the evictions start, so the competition is hotting up. I had meant to get around to writing a blog-post about week one, but I have been preoccupied with more pressing matters – like getting ready for week two. I hope to serve up a digest of my experiences of this public engagement once the hurly burly of the week is over.
This is, to my mind, a quite astonishing report about Nature Publishing Group (NPG) hiking its proposed 2011 journal subscription charges to the University of California (UC) by 400%. (NPG is the company that runs the Nature Network blogging platform). That’s right: 400%. I know nothing about the ins and outs of this deal.
This is a quick one. The internet’s not working terribly reliably at home so, in case you missed it on Twitter, Facebook or Friendfeed, here is a short film about what myself and some of my group got up to last Saturday. Hit it Van… Thanks to GrrlScientist for already promoting it on her blog.
When I die and am laid in my grave and my soul ascends to the Pearly Gates and the Supreme Being peers at me over half-moon glasses and declares, “Well Stephen, it’s Judgement Day”, I will look him in the eye and reply: “Dear God, not again!” Because, as a scientist, my life seems to be a never-ending succession of judgement days. Lately it’s being getting ridiculous.
Mark this day! Mark this day. Hang out the bunting And launch a clatter of fireworks from the grassy earth For its like may not be seen again. Today I ran for a full twenty-eight minutes Without stopping. I lapped the gleaming Serpentine And came to rest in Albert’s gilded gaze Beside the sun-turned crocuses. Mark this day Because life is short And we must take our pleasures where we can.
Roll up! Roll up! Lay-deeeez and Genne-men! Step right in! We have here today for your delectation and amazement a veritable cornucopia of comeliness, a festival of fecundity, a very large bucket of sciency bits, in all their wondrous and freakish varieties. We present Scientia Pro Publica Number Twenty-Two! Like a barnacle’s penis, this edition of Scientia Pro Publica is long and strange and packed with seeds–for thought.