Science & Society

A high proportion of people are not using condoms when they have sex with a new partner, according to a new study of heterosexual partnerships among British men and women - but it's not teenagers, it's people in their 30s, 40s and in partnerships where there is an age difference of five or more years.  Among those groups, condom use is particularly low. The research, published online in the International Journal of Epidemiology today, looks at all heterosexual relationships experienced in the previous 12 months by 11,161 men and women interviewed for the second British National Survey of…

Craig Venter and James Watson have won this year's Cold Spring Harbor 'Double Helix Medal For Scientific Research'. Venter deserves it, but what's the deal with Watson? He hasn't done much for science research recently except tarnish its image by insulting black people and calling everyone else boring. Hasn't the guy won enough medals for a career that stalled scientifically decades ago? What's even stranger is that this award is completely incestuous, coming from the lab that Watson directed for years. It's like the Catholic Church giving the Pope an award for community service. How many…

The seasons are shifting. For most places, colder weather and less daylight means the steady approach of winter. In my home in Northern California, summer lasts through October.  The sun shines steadily, temperature drops to a tolerable high 60’s and not a drop of rain is  seen. Suddenly,  it’s dark by 5:00pm and the cuffs of your pants are constantly wet from trudging through the rain puddles, you know that the dreaded winter is here. In California, we definitely have seasons. They may not be as apparent as in other parts of the country or world, but they are still here,…

So says a Daily Telegraph news item, reporting on a recent article in Journal of Clinical Nursing [1].  This brought to mind a programme from 2004 on Channel 4 (nicate?) called Sex Before 16: How the Law Is Failing,  in which the journalist Miranda Sawyer argued that the age of consent in the UK be reduced.  I still remember my reaction to this, particularly because I see science and religion bearing equally on the problem. She presented two case studies, of which the first was a young couple who had "started it" at the ages of 15 and 14 and now were happy parents.  They…

What I would have been reading over coffee in the lab, if I actually drank coffee in the lab (and of course I scrupulously follow the university Environmental Health&Safety rules and never drink coffee in the lab): At spiked, a review of Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality: The Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann believes that ‘Bohr brainwashed a whole generation of physicists... The Scientist has an excerpt from a book arguing that the newest biological weapon of mass destruction will be... entomological. If you hate roaches, you'll really…

I love to travel. Exploring new places, seeing new sights and eating new types of food are among the top greatest things. But traveling has some serious consequences. Not only do you have to deal with the circus that ensues when you try to get on the plane, and must sit on a plane for however many hours that it takes to get to your destination, but then you have to spend the next significant chunk of yourprecious travel time adjusting to the time. What if you could skip the recuperation time and avoid your jet lag? According to a new study published in Minerva Cardioangiologica, you can by…

Now that the magical glow of Halloween is over, and in its wake you realize that you have decimated the entire tub of Halloween candy that failed to attract enough trick-or-treaters. You also realize that now that the winter months are approaching, bringing with them cold, rain, snow, wind, Thanksgiving turkey, Christmas feast and New Years debauchery.   So what does this all mean for you? Well for millions of Americans, it definitely means packing on some extra weight.  Winter is the most common season for people to gain weight. It becomes colder outside, discouraging outside…

is all over my face when I read the following in an article on UK MSN: Five-year-old finds dinosaur bone A five-year-old girl has found fossilised bones from an Ice Age rhinoceros on a day out with her family at a water park.  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * A case of bad science awareness among our "meejer", as we call them in England.  A case for a polite feedback letter, if only they gave us the facility. Now I know there was a presidential election recently, but would there be a case for a polite, and I mean polite, letter or two…

Research by the University of Warwick shows how death gave birth to the modern cult of celebrity as the sudden rise in the popularity of obituaries of unusual people in the 1700s provided people with the 18th Century equivalent of a celebrity gossip magazine.  Dr Elizabeth Barry, Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Warwick has challenged perceptions that celebrity is a phenomenon born with the Romantic movement of the early 19th century. Instead she claims the modern public fascination with celebrity figures such as Paris Hilton or the late Anna Nicole…

In case you didn't know it, there's an election happening in America and it hasn't been called or conceded by anyone but only the staunchest Republican could have gone into this expecting a win.  Well, if we get 9 people on the Supreme Court to intervene I suppose anything can happen but there is no normal scenario where Republicans expected a win. That's not what I am here to talk about, I am here to talk about language.   Watching these pundits, effectively for the first time during this election, a few things stand out for me.   Republican pundits tend to talk in…