Blogs

Bob O’Hara takes exception to comments by Sir Paul Nurse, the British scientist hotly tipped as the next President of the Royal Society. Nurse suggested that funders identify the top 150 or so scientists who are ‘moving things significantly forward’, and automatically giving them generous long-term funding. Bob finds some merit in the idea, but has a number of reservations:

The second problem is that for Nurse’s idea to work, we have to be able to identify the people who will make those Big Leaps. My worry is not that some of the 150 Worthies may not make advances, but rather than there will be people outside the 150 who could make advances if given the support. One does wonder how much support will be taken away from them, and also how seriously someone from outside the 150 would be taken.

On a completely different subject, Andrew Hudson-Smith highlights the now-common phenomenon of live tweeting at conference talks.

This is without question a good thing, but it can also be seen a live ‘heckling’ in the manner of Statler and Waldorf of the Muppets. Except of course these heckles are unheard by the presenter, silently typed and sent to a network of followers.

Andy’s post attracted its own share of heckling in the comments, with readers pointing out that the tweets often are ‘heard’ and even incorporated into the presentation as Q&A.

Anne-Marie Hodge has been putting the ‘nature’ back into ‘Nature Network’, with a fascinating glimpse into the lives of salamanders via a classic paper on the subject. Along the way, we learn that males of a species will go for a rival’s nose, attempting to cripple the adversary’s sensory systems. Heather Etchevers also goes wild, with a pictorial guide to the flowers of Provence (can you identify the species?).

Elsewhere, Richard G. Rant perceives a lack of good copyeditors, Eric-Wubbo Lameijer continues his excellent series on scientific training with a look at the role of fun and fear in memory retention, Jennifer Rohn seeks poetry in science, and the long-dead philosopher Jeremy Bentham is back with his very own blog.

Forums

The UK is gripped with election fever as the population prepares to go to the polls next Thursday. Where do the three main parties stand on science? Branwen Hide has kicked off a discussion over on the Science Policy forum, where you’ll also find links to the manifestos and the bits relevant to research. There’s also plenty going on in the bioentrepreneur forum, where you’ll find discussions about tech transfer, how to build a company, and videos of interest to biotech entrepreneurs.

And Finally…

Nature Network is changing. In the next few days we’ll be releasing a new version of the site with features galore and a whole new look. Among other things, you’ll be able to take part in an expert Q&A service, choose applications in a Workbench setting, and track the online activity of friends and colleagues in the scientific world. Read all about it here.