Precarity is the one constant of academic science. Themes of instability thread themselves through everything we do: experiments that inexplicably cannot be repeated. Once-sound theories that fall ...

Precarity is the one constant of academic science. Themes of instability thread themselves through everything we do: experiments that inexplicably cannot be repeated. Once-sound theories that fall ...

Update (17:00 03 Mar): all members of the UK or international scientific community were invited to indicate their support by signing the letter. The opportunity to do so closed at 17:00 UK time on 03 ...

Just before Christmas I was asked to talk to our molecular biologists about multivariate analyses. I was reminded of this on Thursday afternoon, when I saw that I had to talk to them on Friday. “Ah, ...

I am sick of impact factors and so is science. The impact factor might have started out as a good idea, but its time has come and gone. Conceived by Eugene Garfield in the 1970s as a useful tool for ...

This year I read 64 books, the first time since records began (2014) that the number has exceeded my age in years (I am 62). The total might be inflated, though, as some of the books have been ...

The anticipation of Christmas under commercial pressure has also made it harder to sustain the appropriate sense of alert watchfulness. We as a staff team at St Mary’s Hornsey Rise try to sustain our ...

Last month I attended the IAML UK & Ireland Annual Study Weekend (ASW). IAML is the International Association of Music Libraries, and this is an event run each year by the UK & Ireland branch. This ...

On Tuesday evening I was asked by Research Professional News for my views on a new report from think tank UKDayOne, which is calling for the abolition of the Research Excellence Framework, unlovingly ...

In 2025, as the century closed its first quarter (where has the time gone?) I read (and listened to) 70-ish books, though the precise number rather depends on how one counts things. Mick Herron’s nine ...

There has been much fuss and flapdoodle about a company called Colossal Biosciences that aims to use the wonders of modern genetic technology to call extinct species back from the other side of the ...

My annual selection of favourites from the photographs I took in the past year is now available on Flickr. Do people still use Flickr? I have broken my usual rule of not including family photos ...