This is normally Matt’s brief but I thought people (in the UK at least) might be interested to know that a three-part series on Science and Islam , fronted by Prof Jim Al-Khalili, starts at 9 pm tonight on BBC4.

It’s easy if you try. I’ve never much cared for John Lennon’s song: despite the wistful melody and admirable sentiment, the scientific precisionist in me could never quite get past the poor grammar. “And no religion too, Mr Lennon? And no religion either !” But the song does at least draw attention to a very important human attribute: imagination.

Yesterday morning I awoke in crumpled clothes on a strange sofa, my mouth feeling furry and unwashed. I’d crashed there at about 5.30 am and only snatched a couple of hours of fitful sleep. As I gazed blearily at unfamiliar surroundings, a woman I barely recognised appeared and asked if I’d like a cup of tea. I nodded and mumbled thanks. Partying hard in the run-up to Christmas?

Here is the second of two guest blogs from my tutorial students, completing my inverted blogging challenge. This one is from Louie Barnett, who provides an entertainingly seasonal take on the murky world of G-protein coupled receptors. Take it away, Louie: All I want for Christmas is… a GPCR? Louie Barnett It’s coming to that time of year when people are thinking about what they want for Christmas.

I know, I know—the challenge is supposed to be about getting more senior people into blogging but I turned it on its end and set a mini-challenge of my own to my new batch of Biochemistry undergraduate tutees. I asked them to write no more that 400 words on any topic from the course that had particularly grabbed them.

Gazing at the very first model of a protein structure determined by X-ray crystallography Max Perutz, one of the founding fathers of the technique, was disappointed. It may have gone unspoken at the time but the initial coiled, worm-shaped creation resembled nothing so much as a giant turd. “Could the search for ultimate truth really have revealed so hideous and visceral-looking an object?” lamented Perutz.

Blogging is mainly writing and writing—according to one informed source—is like having a poo. I have just seen the excellent Screenwipe , hosted by Charlie Brooker on BBC Four (that’s the TV, not the radio). It doesn’t appear to be on their iPlayer, I’m afraid*. There’s a re-run on at 00:50 but that’s in less than an hour’s time, so you’ll have to be quick!

I’ve rolled my rock to the top of the mountain and sat down for a rest. Tonight I will allow myself a brief respite from my labours. I’ve been working very hard of late but the job is now done and I feel a great sense of relief. Having been made a professor about a year ago, on Wednesday night I finally got around to delivering my inaugural lecture to an audience of family, friends and colleagues.

In the past couple of weeks I have been trying to convey to my students something of the glory of thermodynamics. It’s not an easy or popular subject, especially given the mathematical content. But I do love it so! I know it seems dry: heat, work, entropy, state functions, the second law. The zeroth law for God’s sake.

Quick! Look! This is a coucil flat in Southark but it’s cool and blue and rather beautiful. There was a brief report about it last night on Channel 4 News, which you can watch here. They explain how the artist Roger Hiorns created the work by flooding a derelict, sealed flat with hot, saturated copper sulphate solution. Seizure by Roger Hiorns. The whole of the interior is coated in deep blue crystals.

The inestimable Dr Rohn has, on more than one occasion, sung the praises of the engineering prowess of her lab-mates. But in this week’s Nature music and ingenuity were combined to produce a new high note of technical wonderment. A fascinating News and Views piece directed my attention to a recent paper* by Hua-Zhong Yu and colleagues at Simon Fraser University in Canada.