Daniel Glaser work

422 South | The Tree of Life

2008-06-12T18:21:00.000+01:00

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

2008-06-12T18:14:00.000+01:00

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

Eels have spines

2008-05-30T16:42:00.003+01:00

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

2008-05-29T13:36:00.001+01:00

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

2008-04-09T23:13:00.000+01:00

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

Wellcome's world

2007-07-27T12:26:00.000+01:00

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

Coffee cam, bento and lettuces

2007-06-22T11:17:00.000+01:00

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

2007-06-22T10:14:00.000+01:00

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

2007-06-09T13:58:00.000+01:00

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?

2007-05-20T18:05:00.000+01:00

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.

Google analytics

2007-05-20T13:51:00.000+01:00

Just started using the google analytics thing for my website and blog. It's a lot like making sure people have both your phone numbers so you can wait for two phones not to ring.

Café Scientifique: "Beauty and the Brain"

2007-05-14T19:48:00.000+01:00

Café Scientifique: "Beauty and the Brain" With fabby Chris McManus (just elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences) at Photographers' Gallery this Tuesday.

Job vacancy

2007-03-27T14:54:00.000+01:00

We have a post available as maternity cover for an Education Project Manager in Public Engagement here at the Wellcome Trust. Please have a look and feel free to forward it as appopriate.

Cafe sci: Wolpert on Belief

2007-03-26T14:41:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow night (27th March) at the Photographers' Gallery as usual. Ashish Ranpura will be chairing.

Nature Network

2007-03-20T21:04:00.000Z

Nature Network is an online experiment which tries to combine online and geographical networks. It's kind of a curious concept, although the editor used to do the truly superior (and much missed) science listings in londonist.com

The European Science Communication Network

2007-03-13T22:11:00.000Z

The European Science Communication Network is run by Steve Miller at UCL and is an exciting collection of science communication training for scientists (not those looking for an escape from science.

Web pages for researchers

2007-01-31T10:11:00.000Z

Chris Stock in the team has produced a very useful set of pages for researchers who are interested in doing public engagement. Although it's primarily aimed at Wellcome funded scientists, a lot of what's there is more generally relevant. Click to http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/researcherspe/

Andrew Jaffe: Imperial College Astrophysics

2007-01-15T19:43:00.000Z

is our guest's website. Like his blog.

Cafe sci on the universe

2007-01-15T17:28:00.000Z

As usual, last minute post for tomorrow's Cafe Sci at Photographers' Gallery.

Ivar Hagendoorn

2006-11-10T14:56:00.000Z

I was just reminding myself how brilliant this philospher is. I have for a while thought that we enjoy aesthetically things which are familiar but not too familiar - a really foreign dance performance is imprenetrable, but it is oftne hard for professional ballet dancers to simply enjoy going to the ballet. This may be instantiated in the brain as a partial perceptual resonance. As Hagendoorn has it

"It is precisely because the brain cannot form an adequate representation of the images that fall on the retina or because the object appears out of context, that it summons a chain of associations."

This is perhaps the power of art, and perhaps also a version of what the Russian formalists thought of as defamiliarization. Rereading after a gap of a few months, I am struck anew at how smart his Journal of Consciousness Studies piece is.

Beyond two cultures: The science of creativity

2006-11-08T18:10:00.000Z

Beyond two cultures: The science of creativity Once more round the block, at the Royal Academy of Music.

Munich Talk

2006-10-23T10:45:00.000+01:00

Munich Talk rather daringly I'm blogging from the back of a lecture theatre from where I'm about to give a talk for the British Council on Trusting Scientists. It's part of Munich Science Days and the audience (for the talk before mine anyway) are being given a very technical introduction to how a GPS system works. Follow that.

AAAS

2006-09-04T11:49:00.000+01:00

I am considering going to the AAAS conference in February. Any thoughts on its usefulness to get a sense of what's going on in the public engagement field from a professional perspective?

Cafe sci on flammability

2006-09-04T11:07:00.000+01:00

I thought you might be interested in a café scientifique I'm chairing this Tuesday night with the fabulous Dr Mark Miodownik from Kings on "Incendiary Materials". It's at 7pm (Tuesday 5 September) at the Photographers' Gallery 5 & 8 Great Newport Street London WC2H 7HY, just behind Leicester Square tube. Tickets via http://www.photonet.org.uk/ or on the door, do tell your friends.

Corporality

2006-09-04T11:02:00.000+01:00

Having been at Wellcome now for 3 months, it feels like I could begin to put my head above the parapet. One way of describing what's interesting about the being here rather than at UCL is that, for public engagement activity, I feel I have switched from being an amateur to being a professional. That is about procedures, credit, facilities but also responsibility. One of the things I'll have to be working about is the way a personal blog fits in to that process. Any other corporate heads out there got some tips?