Professor Ada Yonath has won (with two colleagues) the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Hear hear. I was lucky enough to attend a talk she gave a few years ago at a conference, where she presented several film clips of the structure of the ribosome (specifically, the bacterial kind), how it works and its interactions with antibiotic compounds. These were...
Read MoreStand back, everyone.
There are plenty of good things about being a postgraduate student in the History and Philosophy of Science. Being of any use to anyone is not one of them. Unfortunately, my calling offers precious little opportunities for those “man-on-the spot” moments, the ones where you can confidently intervene in a situation and resolve it using your...
Read Morewaste not.
This article from ScienceDaily explores the high-profile issue of nuclear waste and its removal – this time it’s E.coli who’ll be cleaning up uranium from polluted water. The news understandably generated a flurry of “OMG mutant nuclear bacteria”-type comments in slashdot, god bless them. Anyway, as the article itself notes,...
Read MoreNot coming soon to a theatre near you.
“Creation”, a film about Charles Darwin’s inner struggle with belief, is apparently not going to be screened commercially in the US – no distributor wants to touch it, because a film about Darwin and religion is judged as too controversial for American audiences. I haven’t seen the film, so I don’t know if it’s any...
Read MoreBoing!
boingboing posted a review of The Invisible Kingdom. Ah, fame at last…
Read MoreSmall in America
Have I mentioned that Small Wonders is being published in America? I don’t think I mentioned that Small Wonders is being published in America. Well, Small Wonders is being published in America. The name has been changed to The Invisible Kingdom, and it got some updates (things move quickly in the world of Microbiology) and a new bonus Bonus Track at...
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