I just boggled. Quite a lot. I’ve just started skimming through an extremely interesting paper entitled 30 Years in Science: Secular Movements in Knowledge Creation. It takes global publication data from the Web of Science (Thomson Reuters) database over the last 30 years, and then plots the change in papers published against geopolitical events that […]
Science and Society
BioScience in NZ: some statsy goodness Pt II
Part II: How far along they are, how they’re battling and how we’re benefiting Having set out the basics of the bioscience industry - who’s doing what, in essence - I though it would be interesting to see how the organisations involved are doing. So, first up, let’s have a look at how far into […]
BioScience in NZ: some statsy goodness Pt I
Part I: The basics Today, StatisticsNZ released a, well, release on bioscience in NZ. Who’s doing it, where, what it’s costing them and what they’re making of of it. And, of course, what they’re actually doing. To explain, then: the bioscience survey replaces its predecessor, the biotech survey. Apparently, it was to enable the survey […]
Science articles some of NYT's most emailed
Apparently, the New York Times has a list of its most emailed articles, and researchers looking at the list have found something surprising (and wonderful) - that science-related articles are amongst the most emailed. I know! One would have thought articles about politics, gossip, sex and diets would win outright but it would appear that […]
Drink up! Beer benefits bones…
I can hear the whoops of joy emanating around the world. Joined, of course, by mine. For years, we’ve known that a glass or two of the vino has its benefits. However, I’ve never heard of anything particularly beneficial coming as a result of drinking beer (apart from general joi de vivre, of course). But […]
Living with robots - don’t panic
Yes, that was indeed an H2G2* reference. I sneak ‘em in whenever I can… Asimo, by Honda This is just a short post to point you all in the direction of a marvellous little video put together by the makers of Asimo. And various cars and bikes over the years. In it, Honda** talks to […]
Stunning science imagery Pt I
Presents for your visual systems today… And we’ll be presenting two different people who’re merging science and visuals in new, and quite effective, ways. I know I have a previous post somewhere (probably on my old blog) about engineering photos as well, but I thought I’d start afresh. So, first up (because I saw it […]
Prove your wordpower
Ah, brevity. [Insert tedious piece of waffling prose extolling its virtues] But seriously, I came across a fantastic little site today. Called the Ten Word Wiki, it is precisely that. No more than ten words to describe any given topic. I did some typing, and have given a couple of the topical words for which […]
If I was a running shoe manufacturer, I would be worried…
This is brilliant. I’ve heard intimations of it on various websites for the last few months, but it’s always good to see a published paper backing it up. In short, it says that running shoes are not actually necessary for runners. In fact, they may do more to cause damage than to protect. So, the […]
What would we do when the aliens land?
According to Nature, we’d be in trouble… I love it when serious publications take a walk into the slightly more whimsical. Let me clear, here - I firmly believe that there is intelligent life out there. I also firmly believe the hallmarks of their intelligence are that they haven’t contacted us (in the same way […]