422 South | The Tree of Life

We're looking at many different versions which have been done before. Here's one commissioned from Bristol-based 422 South for Yale's Peabody Museum.

Flytol on the road

Blogging from the Agassiz Room in Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology with the Encyclopedia of Life crew looking at trees.

Eels have spines

It's funny how when you spot a glitch in a presentation it can take on horrible proportions. Watching back my neuroscience explanantion for the Kavli prize I note that I say that eels don't have spines. I think I must have meant legs, but who knows? An old professor of mine at Cambridge was always keen to point out the difference between an error and a slip. I think the distinction is about what might reasonably have been in your head as opposed to your mouth.

Kavli Prizes

I've just got back from Oslo where I organised and chaired the announcement of the Kavli Prizes, new Nobel-like million dollar awards in astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience. If you've nothing better to do, you could read about the prizes or watch the webcast including some badinage with Alan Alda (yes, that Alan Alda).

Under Laboratory Conditions on YouTube

If you missed Under Laboratory Conditions when it broadcast on BBC4 someone has uploaded the entire series onto YouTube. Gratifying.

Wellcome's world

Who was this Wellcome guy, anyway? Our redoubtable archivist Ross MacFarlane takes up the story.

Coffee cam, bento and lettuces

Once again at lunch yesterday reminded of the banal fascination of actuality which the web does so well. A colleague uses her facebook page to document the development of her home-grown lettuces. She is currently entranced by a japanese mother who visually blogs her son's bento box every morning. My friend Opher has given his newborn a blog already and it's true that this does address the regret I feel at not being there with him for his first encumbered outings. Of course it did all start with Coffee cam and I sometimes feel hasn't strayed far.

Shadows and light

A rather lovely musing by Margaret Wertheim in the NYTimes about whether shadows can move faster than the speed of light. I first met Margaret at AAAS in San Francisco earlier this year where she gave a passionate and practical guide to public involvement in science. It was one of those funny moments where you remember that actually the US is still, occasionally very different from UK. It's the same issue as there not being Science Week there. I haven't really got to the bottom of it but I think it's something about the way that authority works. I always these days describe Cafe Scientifique in terms of Habermas and "knowledge without power". (Actually googling that makes it look like most people think that's impossible so maybe I should write it down.) She runs the Institute for Figuring in LA, and as a hobby she crochets coral reefs.

Apeldoorn Conference 2007

I was at the Apeldoorn Conference again last weekend. It's an amazingly illustrious gathering which picks a contemporary global issue and then chews it over with opinion formers, journalists, politicians and captains of industry. It was founded by Wim Kok and Tony Blair a few years ago and has the additional goal of strengthening UK/Holland links. My father's father was dutch, and, strangely, a cousin, Felix Rottenberg was leader of the Dutch Labour Party (I've never met him). The first year I went I lead a workshop on public trust in science which partly gave rise to the Counterpoints chapter on that. Two memorable moments (both unattributable under the Chatham House Rule): in the summing up, one of the organisers was asked about dissemination, and replied that although there was a conference report being written that would be published on the web and so on, the principal route was just the fact that so many influential people were present. At the Trust we worry about the impact of some of, say, the education research we commission; I like the idea that no further efforts are required if so many of the people who can make a difference are in the room already. Secondly, there was a thrill from getting stuff straight from the source: for example there was a discussion on China's role in climate change, and one of the participants had been sent by Tony Blair to offer the chinese the chance to join the G8 in return for some carbon targets; oddly it didn't feel like oneupmanship, just relevant background. The redoubtable Norman Geras has been blogging about the conference too.

Café Scientifique. Is Homo Sapiens Just Another Animal?

Thursday 24 May, 6.30 - 8.00 PM Café Scientifique. Is Homo Sapiens Just Another Animal at BelowZero, 31 - 33 Heddon Street, London W1B 4BN Entrance Free. Join this fascinating public debate about the nature of Man. Café Scientifique is a forum for debating science issues and a place where everyone can come to explore the latest ideas in science and technology over a drink. Speakers: Professor Steve Jones, Department of Biology, University College London. Steve Jones is Professor of Genetics at Galton Laboratory. He is a television presenter and a prize-winning author on the subject of biology and evolution. Through his many broadcasts on radio and television, his lectures, popular science books and his regular science column in The Daily Telegraph Professor Jones promotes the public understanding of science in areas such as human evolution and variation, race, sex, inherited disease and genetic manipulation. Associate Professor Klas Kullander, Department of Neuroscience, Biomedical Centre, Uppsala, Sweden. Klas Kullander heads the Unit for Developmental Genetics at the Department of Neuroscience where he studies the function and development of the nervous system. In other words, he is interested in how the brain works and how it is formed. The research group is based in Uppsala, where Carl Linnaeus lived and worked. Kullander won the prestigious Fernström Prize for successful young researchers in 2006. Facilitated by Dr Daniel Glaser, The Wellcome Trust. Dr Glaser is development manager in public engagement at the Wellcome Trust. He comes from a neuroscience background, was the first 'Scientist in Residence' at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), has presented a television series for the BBC and co-chairs Café Scientifique at the Photographers' Gallery. The debate, which is held outside a traditional academic context, is open\nto the public and the entrance is free. "http://www.belowzerolondon.com/\" The debate, which is held outside a traditional academic context, is open to the public and the entrance is free. Both events are organised by the Embassy of Sweden in London as part of the 2007 Linnaeus tercentenary.