Wandering the Immeasurable: A sculpture at CERN by Gayle Hermick, picture re-used with permission from the artist  Even if you’re not a Physicist, there is plenty to see and do above and below ground at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Home to the worlds largest experiment on what is arguably the worlds largest machine near Geneva in Switzerland, CERN is a very inspiring place to visit.

Seven things to do at CERN if you’re not a Physicist

The year 2016 will go down as an interesting one, but was it magnificent, horrible or stupid? Or perhaps all three Annus mirabilis? 🇬🇧 For some people, 2016 was a good year, an annus mirabilis. If you voted for Trump or are brexiteer who voted to leave the European Union, 2016 was a good year.

The year 2016 will go down as an

 interesting

one, but was it magnificent, horrible or stupid? Or perhaps all three

 Annus mirabilis?

For some people, 2016 was a good year, an

 annus mirabilis

. If you voted for Trump or are brexiteer who voted to leave the European Union, 2016 was a good year. If you are a climate change denier, you probably enjoyed 2016 too.

2016: Annus mirabilis, annus horribilis or annus stupidus?

Sometimes, being a PostDoctoral researcher is a tough life. Thankfully, help is at hand in Philip Bourne and Iddo Friedberg‘s guide Ten Simple Rules for Selecting a Post-Doctoral Position published in PLOS Computational Biology.

Sometimes, being a PostDoctoral researcher is a tough life. Thankfully, help is at hand in Philip Bourne and Iddo Friedberg‘s guide Ten Simple Rules for Selecting a Post-Doctoral Position published in PLOS Computational Biology. This article is part of a series of editorials [1,2,3] which discuss various aspects of the weird and wonderful world of scientific research.

Postdoc Hell: Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

The Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre (MIB) is officially opening on 25/26th October 2006. The centre has been about a decade in the making, and aims to be a world-class research centre, with around £37 million (~$70 million) of initial funding from the Wellcome Trust charity, UK Research Councils and others.

The Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre (MIB) is officially opening on 25/26th October 2006. The centre has been about a decade in the making, and aims to be a world-class research centre, with around £37 million (~$70 million) of initial funding from the Wellcome Trust charity,  UK Research Councils and others.

Manchester Biocentre Launch

It’s that time of year when people look back at over the year that was 2014 (1-5). The place where I work, celebrated it’s 50th anniversary. Colleagues put together a little booklet of facts and figures with an some accompanying web pages to mark the occasion. My personal favourite factoid compares computing in 2014 with 1964.

2014 vs. 1964: Numbers speak louder than words

PubMedication: do you get your best ideas in the Pub? CC-BY-ND image via trombone65 on Flickr. Many people claim they get all their best ideas in the pub, but for lots of scientists their best ideas probably come from PubMed.gov – the NCBI’s monster database of biomedical literature.

Punning with the Pub in PubMed: Are there any decent NCBI puns left? #PubMedPuns

Tweeting down Twitter Lane, Waddington, Lancashire  While passing through the beautiful Forest of Bowland the other day, I chanced upon a remarkable place known as Twitter Lane in the village of Waddington, Lancashire.

The extraordinary residents of Twitter Lane

Manchester Town Hall by Richard Hopkins, creative commons licensed picture via Flickr The term Manchester is a misnomer, mutated from it’s original form. The name

 Mamchester

might be more appropriate, but only if the pedants get their way.

Manchester or Mamchester? You’re twistin’ my melon mam!

John Peel comtemplating Drum &amp; Bass via bhikku on Flickr. If you’ve filled your boots with the wall-to-wall glastonbury festival coverage, you might find it curious that many people have little or no interest in new music, choosing instead to listen to the artists they liked in their formative years and loyally sticking with them for life.

New music? No thanks, we’re stuck in the fifties / sixties / seventies / eighties / nineties / noughties

Airplane by By Kuster &amp; Wildhaber Photography  The Software Sustainability Institute www.software.ac.uk has launched a Fellowship programme that recognises outstanding UK-based researchers who use software. The Fellowships come with £3000 funding which can be used for travel, collaboration and running events.

Fancy becoming a Software Fellow?

Andrea Wiggins [1,2] from Syracuse University, New York is visiting Manchester this week and will be doing a seminar on “Little e-Science“, the details of which are below.

Andrea Wiggins [1,2] from Syracuse University, New York is visiting Manchester this week and will be doing a seminar on “Little e-Science“, the details of which are below. Update Slides are embedded below:

 References

Andrea Wiggins (2009) Social Life of Information: We Are Who We Link Andrea’s blog Andrea Wiggins, James Howison, &amp;

Andrea Wiggins on little e-Science

I’m not much of a fan of Janet Street-Porter, neither am I a regular viewer of the BBC Money programme but right now they are screening an interesting series of three half-hour programmes on the impact of the internet on newspapers, books and television.

I’m not much of a fan of Janet Street-Porter, neither am I a regular viewer of the BBC Money programme but right now they are screening an interesting series of three half-hour programmes on the impact of the internet on newspapers, books and television. It’s a familiar tale of the power-and-money struggle between old media and new media that, if the first programme is anything to go by, is worth watching.

Janet Street-Porter on the Internet Revolution

“This house believes that Academic Education will never meet the skills needs of the IT Profession” via #BCSDebate Here’s an interesting upcoming event: a debate on the motion: “

 This house believes that Academic Education will never meet the skills needs of the IT profession”

This deliberately provocative motion conflates Education with Training as well spreading further confusion about the important differences between

Will Academic Education ever meet the skills needs of the IT Profession? #BCSDebate

Peter Wothers lights the blue touchpaper. If you hate Chemistry [1] it’s probably because your Chemistry teachers weren’t up to scratch. Peter Wothers,

 The Modern Alchemist,

is someone who might rekindle your interest in Chemistry through his delivery of the 2012 Christmas Lectures.

Happy Christmas Lectures (Merry “Chemist-mas” everyone)

Mentors can enrich and extend your teaching by supporting students learning.

Improving practical software engineering teaching with industrial mentoring of open source team projects

[This post is part of an ongoing series about impact factors] The latest results from the annual impact factor boxing world championship contest are out. This is a combat sport where scientific journals are scored according to their supposed influence and impact in Science.

[This post is part of an ongoing series about impact factors]  The latest results from the annual impact factor boxing world championship contest are out. This is a combat sport where scientific journals are scored according to their supposed influence and impact in Science.

Impact Factor Boxing 2009

“I have learned much from my teachers and even more from my friends, but from my students I have learned most of all” Graduation is one of the most enjoyable milestones in the academic calendar.

“

 I have learned much from my teachers and even more from my friends, but from my students I have learned most of all

” Graduation is one of the most enjoyable milestones in the academic calendar. It’s a chance to celebrate and reflect on what students have learned and how they have grown during the time they have spent at University.

…from my students I have learned most of all

The artist Andy Warhol once said:  This well worn saying has been quoted and misquoted in hundreds of different ways in the forty years since Warhol first coined it [1].  Bad Scientist Ben Goldacre, in his keynote speech* at Science Blogging (sciblog) 2008, highlighted one of these deliberate misquotes, which he attributed to NTK.net (Need To Know: Britain’s most sarcastic high-tech weekly newsletter). It goes a little something like this:  This

Famous for fifteen people

What does DNA do when it’s not being transcribed into RNA? It causes DNA mania… Quote of the Day “DNA, you know, is Midas’ gold.

What does DNA do when it’s not being transcribed into RNA? It causes DNA mania…

 Quote of the Day

—Maurice Wilkins Read the rest in [1,2] Do you or your colleagues ever suffer from DNA mania [3,4]? A biochemist friend of mine once semi-jokingly remarked that people’s manic obsession with DNA is a bit like buying some food and being more interested in the bar-code on the packaging, than the food inside.

DNA mania

Last Saturday, The Royal Institution of Great Britain (R.I.) hosted a conference called Science Online London (#solo09) co-organised by mendeley.com and network.nature.com.

Last Saturday, The Royal Institution of Great Britain (R.I.) hosted a conference called Science Online London (#solo09) co-organised by mendeley.com and network.nature.com. The event centred around the fantastic Faraday Theatre which according to the R.I. is a “beautiful, historic theatre [which] has deeply raked seating that creates an intimate atmosphere, even when full to capacity”. Absolutely.

I bet you think this blog is about you, don’t you?

Creative Commons licensed picture of a DayGlo Raspberry Pi by @kevinv033 on Flickr  STEMNet is an organisation in the UK which creates opportunities to inspire young people in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Recently, along with about 15 PhD students from the CDT in Manchester, I became an STEM Ambassador. This post briefly describes what STEMNet is all about, why you would want to get involved and how you can do so.

On becoming a STEMnet ambassador: What, why and how?

As Vince Smith once put it [1] data are the fuel of Science: Despite the importance of data, some scientists are often really bad at sharing it properly. So why don’t scientists share data?

 Nature

has a special issue dedicated to this topic published today at nature.com/news/specials/datasharing [2,3,4,5] which isn’t behind a pay wall (at the moment). It describes some of the technical and cultural barriers to data sharing.

Why don’t scientists share data?

Cartoonist and engineer Tim Hunkin is probably best known for his exhibits at the Science Museum in London and his Under The Pier Show “a mad arcade of home-made slot machines &amp; simulator rides on Southwold Pier, Suffolk”.  His website is a treasure trove of weird and wonderful things.

Hunkin’s Hypothesis: Technology Is What Makes Us Human

There is an interesting review [1] (and special issue) in the Biochemical Journal today, published by Portland Press Ltd.

The Semantic Biochemical Journal experiment

Christmas lectures 2014 by @Ben_Nuttall  Our homes are full of technology that we typically take for granted and understand little. Your average smartphone or tablet, for example, is a “black box”, that deliberately discourages modification by tinkering and hacking.

Makey Christmas and a Hacky New Year!

The BBC programme catalogue has recently gone online, and provides a demonstration of the applications that can be built using web technology such as Ruby on Rails, RDF, FOAF, web feeds, tag clouds and sparklines.

Bioinformatics at the BBC: Demonstrating the power of metadata

Open Access (OA) publishing aims to make the results of scientific research available to the widest possible audience.

The Open Access Irony Awards: Naming and shaming them

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is full of scientists.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is full of scientists. All kinds of scientists working in biology, chemistry and physics, as well as plenty of mathematicians, engineers and technologists too work in the UK. They make their living in good old Blighty, pushing forward the boundaries of human knowledge, wherever and whenever they can.

Who funds Science in Britain?

An animated Bruce Hood. Creative Commons licensed picture by Dave Fayram  The holiday season is upon us which means it’s time for the Royal Institution Christmas lectures.

Happy Christmas Lectures 2011: Meet your Brain with Bruce Hood

Curryology, the branch of science that deals with curry, is an established discipline with a long and distinguished history.

Scientific research reveals the best* curry house in Manchester!

Dear Professor Nurse Fellows of the Wiki Society? To improve public engagement with Science and Scientists, the Royal Society should employ a wikipedian in residence. Here’s why: The Royal Society is a National Academy of Science which represents some of the world’s leading scientists.

Dear Professor Nurse

 Fellows of the Wiki Society?

To improve public engagement with Science and Scientists, the Royal Society should employ a wikipedian in residence. Here’s why: The Royal Society is a National Academy of Science which represents some of the world’s leading scientists.

An Open Letter to the Royal Society: Please employ a wikipedian in residence

Androids by etnyk. What are they thinking? With more than three million Android devices activated on the 24/25th December 2011 [1] and something like 200 million (or more?) Android devices in total, there are nearly enough droids around to build a primitive brain.

Does Android Dream of Electric Sheep?

A crude score for benchmarking scientists Have you ever wanted to compare different scientists by their publication record? It’s not always an easy task, but here is a crude and handy way to benchmark people by their journal publications in Nature, Science or PNAS using PubMed.

A crude score for benchmarking scientists

Have you ever wanted to compare different scientists by their publication record? It’s not always an easy task, but here is a crude and handy way to benchmark people by their journal publications in

 
 N
 
 ature

,

 
 S
 
 cience

or

 
 PNAS
 

using PubMed.

NSPNAS: Nature, Science or PNAS?

Alan Turing Binary code, Shoreditch High Street, London by Chris Beckett on Flickr (CC-BY-NC-ND license)  Over at democracy corner, Manchester Digital is interviewing all of its elected council members.

Two big challenges facing the technology &amp; digital industries (IMHO)

In 2013, 44% of newly elected Fellows of the Royal Society had biography pages on wikipedia. Earlier this month confusingly-named “Royal Society” announced their new fellows for 2013. The society is made up of (quote):  A quick-and-dirty measure of the scientific coverage of wikipedia is the percentage of these fellows that have a profile on wikipedia at the time of their election to the prestigious Society.

Measuring scientific coverage of @Wikipedia: Fellows of the Wiki Society index 2013

Thirteen year old Amy Mather aka @MiniGirlGeek steals the show at Manchester Raspberry Jam 2013  Last Saturday, the first ever Raspberry Jamboree rolled into town, organised by the unstoppable force of nature that is Alan O’Donohoe (aka @teknoteacher). The jamboree looked at the educational value of the Raspberry Pi (a $25 computer) one year on from its launch on the the 29th February 2012. Here are some brief and incomplete

Creating with the Raspberry Pi vs. Consuming Apple Pie at the Manchester Raspberry Jamboree

There’s an interesting article [1] by Chelsea Wald in Science magazine published today, about Open Science including Open Source Code, Open Notebook Science, Open Data and Open Access Publishing.

There’s an interesting article [1] by Chelsea Wald in

 Science

magazine published today, about Open Science including Open Source Code, Open Notebook Science, Open Data and Open Access Publishing.

Embracing Open Science

So, I’m going to San Francisco and on to the Googleplex in the heart of Silly Valley, California for Science Foo Camp (scifoo) 2009.

So, I’m going to San Francisco and on to the Googleplex in the heart of Silly Valley, California for Science Foo Camp (scifoo) 2009. As I put the Flowers In My Hair (what’s left of it) and confirm my booking at the Hotel California I’m not just California Dreamin’ but California Googlin’. Just how many American and Californian musical clichés it is possible to cram into one blog post and accompanying iPod playlist?

California Googlin’

It’s Friday, so here’s another one of those cool RSA Animate videos by Cognitive Media. This one is narrated by Microsoftie Manuel Lima and describes how the tree structures that we know and love, such as the infamous tree of life are becoming inadequate for organising knowledge, despite having been useful for thousands of years.

From Useful Trees to Powerful Networks: A talk by Manuel Lima from Microsoft

An equation of love (x² + y² − 1)³ − x² y³ = 0  Former Mancunian James Lovelock runs the kind of a laboratory most scientists can only fantasise about working in as they grind through the humdrum bureaucracy of peer-review and never-ending grant applications. Lovelock is fortunate enough to run a completely independent, self-funded lab located in the beautiful West Country.

The Lovelock Laboratory: A fantasy workplace in the West Country

If you took an infinite number of Professors, added some comedians, recording studios (instead of typewriters) and got them to record random radio shows you might just end up with a program like the Infinite Monkey Cage.

If you took an infinite number of Professors, added some comedians, recording studios (instead of typewriters) and got them to record random radio shows you

 might

just end up with a program like the Infinite Monkey Cage.

The Infinite Professor Theorem

Michael Ley is visiting Manchester this week, he will be doing a seminar on Wednesday 3rd June, here are some details for anyone who is interested in attending: Date: 3rd Jun 2009 Title: DBLP: How the data get in Speaker: Dr Michael Ley. University of Trier, Germany Time &amp;

Michael Ley is visiting Manchester this week, he will be doing a seminar on Wednesday 3rd June, here are some details for anyone who is interested in attending:

 References

Lincoln Stein (2002). Creating a bioinformatics nation: screen scraping is torture Nature, 417 (6885), 119-120 DOI: 10.1038/417119a

Michael Ley on Digital Bibliographies

Forty two years ago I wrote my first bit of software on a BBC Micro in the Code Club at Fitzmaurice Primary School.

Hello World: GOTO Christmas 1981

So, no-one told you life was going to be this way Your job is a joke, you are broke, your love life is DOA.

So, no-one told you life was going to be this way  Your job is a joke, you are broke, your love life is DOA. It is like you are always stuck in second gear  Well, it has not been your day, your week, your month, or even your year…  OWL be there for you, when the rain starts to pour. Software engineer Leigh Dodds explains how:   —Leigh Dodds  Read the rest in How Shall I Integrate Thee?

So, no-one told you life was going to be this way

♫ PCR, When you need to know who the Daddy is ♫ …  When you’ve finished chuckling at that ridiculous viral marketing video, go and Dance Naked in the Mind Field with Kary Mullis. Found via Respectful Insolence: Scientists for better PCR.

Who’s the Daddy? PCR…

The Red Rose of Lancaster is the county flower of Lancashire. Image by Sodacan, created with Inkscape. [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia Commons.Once upon a time, there were two football teams, a Northern one (Liverpool F.C.) and a Southern one, (Tottenham Hotspur F.C.). They were due to meet each other in a historic and lucrative match: the 2019 UEFA Champions League Final in Madrid.

Are Liverpool and Manchester still in Lancashire?

Maybe you wrote that code and maybe you didn’t. If Artificial Intelligence helped you, such as the OpenAI Codex in GitHub Copilot, how did it solve your problem? How much did AI help or hinder your solution?

Maybe you wrote that code and maybe you didn’t. If Artificial Intelligence helped you, such as the OpenAI Codex in GitHub Copilot, how did it solve your problem? How much did AI help or hinder your solution? Join us to discuss a paper by Michel Wermelinger from the Open University published in the SIGCSE technical symposium earlier this month in Toronto on this very topic.

Join us to discuss using AI to solve simple programming problems on Monday 3rd April at 2pm BST

bbc.co.uk/programmes as a QR Code by /Sizemore/ Mike Atherton on Flickr available under a creative commons licence  Over at @BBCSport and @BBC2012 there are some Olympian feats of big data wrestling going on behind the scenes for London 2012 [1]. While we all enjoy the Olympics on a range of platforms and devices, a team of twenty engineers is busy making it all happen.

Where did all the BBC programme metadata go? The Infax catalogue online

Last week I attended the first Teaching and Learning conference in the Pendulum hotel, Manchester.

Last week I attended the first Teaching and Learning conference in the Pendulum hotel, Manchester. It was really good and I got lots out of it. The sessions I attended were enjoyable and well organised, I learned heaps, made lots of new contacts and got some useful questions from the audience on my lightning talk about podcasting the student voice.

Improving the Institute for Teaching and Learning (ITL) conference in Manchester for 2024

Following on from our discussion of ungrading, this month we’ll be discussing pass/fail rates in introductory programming courses. [1] Here is the abstract: Vast numbers of publications in computing education begin with the premise that programming is hard to learn and hard to teach.

Following on from our discussion of ungrading, this month we’ll be discussing pass/fail rates in introductory programming courses. [1] Here is the abstract:  As usual, we’ll be meeting on zoom, see sigcse.cs.manchester.ac.uk/join-us for details. Thanks to Brett Becker and Joseph Allen for this months #paper-suggestions via our slack channel at uk-acm-sigsce.slack.com.

Join us to discuss failure rates in introductory programming courses on 1st Feb at 2pm GMT

Learning can be an emotional process and we often don’t realise when we are actually learning. When you’re listening to an expert explain something well, it’s easy to mistake the speaker’s smooth delivery for your own understanding. You might feel like you’re learning, but actual learning is often hard work and feels uncomfortable.

Learning can be an emotional process and we often don’t realise when we are actually learning. When you’re listening to an expert explain something well, it’s easy to mistake the speaker’s smooth delivery for your own understanding. You might

 feel

like you’re learning, but

 actual

learning is often hard work and feels uncomfortable.

Join us to discuss the feeling of learning ❤️ (vs. actual learning) on Monday 4th April at 2pm BST

Some rough and ready notes from day two of the first ChEBI workshop, 20th May 2008. There were two talks, one from Kirill Degtyarenko (European Patent Office) and the other from Janna Hastings (EBI), followed by a discussion.

First ChEBI workshop, Day Two

The fourth International Science Foo Camp (scifoo) 2009 has just concluded. Here are some very brief and incomplete notes and links from some of the sessions on the second day (Saturday), see the scholarly kitchen for a report on the first day.

Science Foo Camp 2009: Scifoo Day Two

Fabio Rinaldi is currently visiting Manchester from the University of Zurich, he will be doing a seminar on Monday 6th July, the details of which are below.

Fabio Rinaldi is currently visiting Manchester from the University of Zurich, he will be doing a seminar on Monday 6th July, the details of which are below.

 References

Rinaldi, F., Kappeler, T., Kaljurand, K., Schneider, G., Klenner, M., Clematide, S., Hess, M., von Allmen, J., Parisot, P., Romacker, M., &amp;

Fabio Rinaldi on OntoGene

The organisers of the Science Online London 2009 conference are asking people to propose their own session ideas (see some examples here), so here is a proposal: Title: Who Are You? Digital Identity in Science Many important decisions in Science are based on identifying scientists and their contributions.

The organisers of the Science Online London 2009 conference are asking people to propose their own session ideas (see some examples here), so here is a proposal: If this is a successful proposal, I’ll need some help. Any offers? If you are interested in joining in the fun, more details are at scienceonlinelondon.org

 References

Bourne, P., &amp;

Who Are You? Digital Identity in Science

There is growing interest in Wikipedia, Wikidata, Commons, and other Wikimedia projects as platforms for opening up the scientific process [1]. The first Wikipedia Science Conference will discuss activities in this area at the Wellcome Collection Conference Centre in London on the 2nd &amp; 3rd September 2015.

Wikipedia Science Conference @WellcomeTrust in London, September 2nd &amp; 3rd 2015 #wikisci

A thought experiment with lots of money The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is the United Kingdom’s funding agency for academic research and training in the non-clinical life sciences.

A thought experiment with lots of money

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is the United Kingdom’s funding agency for academic research and training in the non-clinical life sciences.

How to spend a £400 million Science budget

I look at the world and I notice it’s turning While my keyboard gently weeps With every mistake we must surely be learning Still my keyboard gently weeps Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh, oh oh, oh oh Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

I look at the world and I notice it’s turning  While my keyboard gently weeps  With every mistake we must surely be learning  Still my keyboard gently weeps  Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh  oh oh, oh oh, oh oh  Yeah yeah yeah yeah  yeah yeah yeah yeah.

While My Keyboard Gently Weeps

With apologies to Jonathan Swift: So what happened was, Carole Goble asked on the myExperiment mailing list, “is there a list of scientist social networking sites”? Here is first attempt at such a list (

 not

comprehensive), you’ll have to decide for yourself which are the great, greater, little and lesser sites. For simplicity, I’ll break social software down into social networking, data sharing, blogging, ranking and video.

myScience: “social software” for scientists

Details of two-day conference titled “Biological Complexity: From Molecules to Systems” at University College London (UCL) in June 2008 have recently been announced. Speakers and topics are described in the link above and also by Martyn Amos on his blog.

Details of two-day conference titled “Biological Complexity: From Molecules to Systems” at University College London (UCL) in June 2008 have recently been announced. Speakers and topics are described in the link above and also by Martyn Amos on his blog. Speakers from the UK include: Martyn Amos, Cyrus Chothia, Jasmin Fisher, Mike Hoffman / Ewan Birney, Jaroslav Stark, Michael Sternberg and Perdita Stevens.

Biological Complexity

At our next journal club, on Monday 1st June at 11am, we’ll be discussing blended learning. We’ve picked a subject, but we haven’t picked a paper yet.

At our next journal club, on Monday 1st June at 11am, we’ll be discussing blended learning. We’ve picked a subject, but we haven’t picked a paper yet. So, if you know interesting papers on blended learning, post them to the “paper suggestions” channel at  uk-acm-sigsce.slack.com – there are a few suggestions up there already for starters.

Join us to discuss blended learning, Monday 1st June at 11am on Zoom

Long jumper for Snohomish. Creative Commons licensed picture by by Philo Nordlund on Flickr  If Science were an Olympic sport, which events would scientists excel at?  During the Beijing Olympics in 2008, I wondered what Olympic activities scientists would be good at, with a list of events.

Olympic Science: The Long Jump to Conclusions

UK news-rag The Grauniad has a series of interviews with some of the people behind the next generation web, so-called Web 2.0. After reading these interviews, I can’t help wondering, who are the equivalent pioneers in bioinformatics? The interviews include… Wikipedian Jimmy Wales WordPresser Matt Mullenweg Technorati’s Dave Sifry …and several others too.

UK news-rag

 The Grauniad

has a series of interviews with some of the people behind the next generation web, so-called Web 2.0. After reading these interviews, I can’t help wondering, who are the equivalent pioneers in bioinformatics? The interviews include… Wikipedian Jimmy Wales WordPresser Matt Mullenweg Technorati’s Dave Sifry …and several others too.

People 2.0: Pioneers of the next generation Web

Today, the 20th July 2009, is the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing. There has been plenty of global coverage, stargazing, astronautical analysis and heavenly commentary recently. But for me personally, the Apollo 11 anniversary brings back fond memories of rocket science lessons [1] – specifically, the things I learned in Chemistry at school.

How to be a Rocket Scientist

A brief report (well just some scribbled notes, bullet points and links really) on the third and final day of Network Applications and Tools in Biology (NETTAB) 2009 in Catania, Sicily. There was a special section on Methods and Tools for RNA Structure and Functional Analysis.

A brief report (well just some scribbled notes, bullet points and links really) on the third and final day of Network Applications and Tools in Biology (NETTAB) 2009 in Catania, Sicily. There was a special section on

 Methods and Tools for RNA Structure and Functional Analysis

. Disclaimer: RNA mania isn’t really my thing – so the RNA presentations and papers are grossly under-represented in this mini-report (sorry).

Nettab 2009 Day Three: Semantic Integration

In my inbox this morning, an intriguing email from Timo Hannay, Tim O’Reilly and Chris DiBona: Duncan, We’d like to invite you to join us for Science Foo Camp (or “Sci Foo”), a unique, invitation-only gathering organized by Nature, O’Reilly Media, and Google, and hosted at the Googleplex in Mountain View, California.

In my inbox this morning, an intriguing email from Timo Hannay, Tim O’Reilly and Chris DiBona:  Obviously I’m thrilled to bits to receive such an email, I’ve been to scifoo once before and it was a fantastic mind-blowing experience. This time, I’m invited as a consolation prize for being a runner-up in the international science blogging challenge 2009 which challenged younger scientists to get a senior scientist to blog.

Upcoming Gig: Science Foo Camp (scifoo) 2009

Despite what some people think (see “the myth of the lone inventor” in [1]) most scientists are usually pretty sociable people. Science is an inherently social activity [2], just take a look around you. Most laboratories are full of like-minded people working on related problems, our lab is no exception.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Researcher

At the Microsoft e-Science workshop in Indianapolis, earlier this week Carole Goble was awarded with the first Jim Gray 2008 e-Science award, pictured here collecting the prize from Tony Hey of Microsoft Research.

At the Microsoft e-Science workshop in Indianapolis, earlier this week Carole Goble was awarded with the first Jim Gray 2008 e-Science award, pictured here collecting the prize from Tony Hey of Microsoft Research. You can read all about it in the Seattle Tech Report which says:  It is very inspiring when colleagues win prizes and awards.

Congratulations Carole Goble, e-Scientist

If you travel back in time, to around 2002, it isn’t difficult to find people claiming that Web services were going to be the new silver bullet technology to create world peace, eradicate global poverty and finally make some sense of all the data produced by the human genome project. Over hyped? Just a bit.

Embracing Registries of Web Services

Nature Publishing Group are organising a workshop on science blogging, this Saturday 30th August 2008 at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London. Why would you care? Because there are: Lots of interesting people… …talking about a range of interesting subjects … .. in a distinguished venue that has recently been refurbished.

Nature Publishing Group are organising a workshop on science blogging, this Saturday 30th August 2008 at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London. Why would you care? Because there are: Lots of interesting people… …talking about a range of interesting subjects … .. in a distinguished venue that has recently been refurbished. It is also home to the fantastic Christmas lectures and much more besides.

Science blogging at the Royal Institution, London

With sincere apologies to Jamaican reggae singer-songwriter Eric Donaldson, “ChEBI, Oh ChEBI, Oh Baby, don’t you know I’m in need of thee”? Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) is a dictionary, controlled vocabulary, database, ontology of small (low molecular-weight) chemical entities that are considered to be biologically interesting, (like amphetamine (CHEBI:2679) for example). After a […]

With sincere apologies to Jamaican reggae singer-songwriter Eric Donaldson, “ChEBI, Oh ChEBI, Oh Baby, don’t you know I’m in need of thee”?  Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) is a dictionary, controlled vocabulary, database, ontology of  small (low molecular-weight) chemical entities that are considered to be biologically interesting, (like amphetamine (CHEBI:2679) for example). After a couple of recent meetings, ChEBI is going

ChEBI, Oh ChEBI, Oh Baby!

This thing called Science, whatever it is, who actually owns it? Scientists? Technology companies? Industrial Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical companies? Investors? Shareholders? Governments? Universities? Philanthropists? Charities? Publishers? Joe Public? Or none of the above…? The Scientists.

This thing called Science, whatever it is, who actually owns it? Scientists? Technology companies? Industrial Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical companies? Investors? Shareholders? Governments? Universities? Philanthropists? Charities? Publishers? Joe Public?

Who Owns Science?

Michael Ashburner at the University of Cambridge once famously quipped that “Biologists would rather share their toothbrush than share a gene name” [1]. And so we have many different colourful and imaginative names for genes. The same mis-naming rule applies the reactants and products (input and output) of metabolism.

Michael Ashburner at the University of Cambridge once famously quipped that “Biologists would rather share their toothbrush than share a gene name” [1]. And so we have many different colourful and imaginative names for genes. The same mis-naming rule applies the reactants and products (input and output) of metabolism. Here are some example names, would you like to share my toothbrush chemical name?

Would you like to share my toothbrush?

(To be spoken in the best SoCal Valley Speak you can muster) I went down to the beach and saw Yahoo She was, like, all “semantic web” And I was, like, “whatever!” References Liam Lynch (2003) (Well this is my) United States of Whatever Yours Truly (2007) Burn, Semantic Web Burn!

(To be spoken in the best SoCal Valley Speak you can muster) I went down to the beach and saw Yahoo She was, like, all “semantic web” And I was, like, “whatever!”

 References

Liam Lynch (2003) (Well this is my) United States of Whatever Yours Truly (2007) Burn, Semantic Web Burn! Yours Truly (2005) Rethinking the Semantic Web, The Semantic Web (stack): Will It All End In Tiers?

Semantic Web? Yeah, Whatever!

There are a growing number of biomedical services out there on Wild Wild Web for performing various computations on DNA, RNA and proteins as well as the associated scientific literature. Currently, using and debugging these services can be hard work.

There are a growing number of biomedical services out there on

 Wild Wild Web

for performing various computations on DNA, RNA and proteins as well as the associated scientific literature. Currently, using and debugging these services can be hard work. SOAP UI (SOAP User Interface) is newish and handy free tool to help debug services and get your

 in silico

experiments and analyses done, hopefully more easily.

Debugging Web Services

Writing good code is often harder than it looks via Randall Munroe at xkcd.com  Manchester Digital is the independent trade association for the thriving digital sector in the North West of England. Last night they held their AGM and elections for new members of their council.

Manchester Digital and Higher Education in 2013

Teaching Large Classes: Discussion. Creative Commons BY-NC-SA image via Giulia Forsythe on Flickr @giuliaforsythe

 (This post is part of a series about the New Academics Program (NAP), I’ll be using this blog to scribble notes about the NAP as I work my way through it.)

Ask ten different people what effective teaching is and you’ll get ten different answers.

What is effective teaching? The willing definition via Grant Campbell

Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas* is a better version of Connotea, please can you sort out it’s duplicated redundant links? In my book this particular bug is “buggotea” number one.

Buggotea: Redundant Links in Connotea

Happy New Year from the ChEBI team where release 64 is now available, containing 534,142 total entities, of which 19,645 are annotated entities and 693 were submitted via the ChEBI submission tool. This month’s entity of the month is Abscisic acid.

Happy New Year from the ChEBI team where release 64 is now available, containing 534,142 total entities, of which 19,645 are annotated entities and 693 were submitted via the ChEBI submission tool. This month’s entity of the month is Abscisic acid.

 References

Ohkuma, K., Lyon, J., Addicott, F., &amp;

Abscisic Acid: Entity of the Month

On this day twenty years ago, September 10th 2001, the following things did not exist: Euro coins and banknotes; real physical €uro currency was released the following year in January 2002 [1] The iPhone, iPad, iPod, iOS, smartphones and tablets.

On this day twenty years ago, September 10th 2001, the following things did

 not

exist: Euro coins and banknotes; real physical €uro currency was released the following year in January 2002 [1]The iPhone, iPad, iPod, iOS, smartphones and tablets. A new device called the “iPod” was released the following month in October 2001, swiftly followed by a tsunami of mobile devices and iThings.

On this day, twenty years ago, 10th September 2001

Delegates at the Computing at School conference 2017 #CASConf17 answering diagnostic questions, picture by Miles Berry. The Computing At School (CAS) conference is an annual event for educators, mostly primary and secondary school teachers from the public and private sector in the UK. Now in its ninth year, it attracts over 300 delegates from across the UK and beyond to the University of Birmingham, see the brochure for details.

O'Really?

Bioinformatics at the BBC: Demonstrating the power of metadata