“Postpublication peer review on social media is like the mosh pit at a punk rock conference. It’s fast, uncoordinated, a lot less subtle, more in your face, and involves a few more risks.’ Peer review is the cornerstone of scientific legitimacy – it is the process where research is analysed by your professional peers. Traditionally, …[Read More]
Science Communication
Spice up your science with these 10 simple steps
What an awful title, eh. Well, you can avoid making this mistake! A recent Guardian post by Conversation UK’s Akshat Rathi (he’s popular on the blog today!) discusses some of the common mistakes in popular science writing and how best to avoid them. It’s fairly general, and by no means exhaustive, and mainly for more …[Read More]
The greatest mass extinction in the history of life
In palaeontology, there are so many things more important than dinosaurs. For example, the study of large-scale patterns in the history of life on Earth, commonly known as macroevolution, is all about uncovering patterns of speciation and extinction. We are currently about to enter the sixth mass extinction within the last 542 million years of …[Read More]
Every time you publish behind a paywall, a kitten dies.
“Every day, people are denied access to something they have a right to.” That’s the opening line from a new appeal from students Joe McArthur and David Carroll. Open Access describes a form of publication of research where articles are made instantly available for free, and with unlimited reusability rights, as long as the source …[Read More]
The future of scientific publishing
Last night, the Society of Spanish Researchers in the UK, SRUK, hosted an event discussing the past, present and future of scientific publishing (event details). One thing that was nice about this discussion, compared to previous ones I’ve attended in London, was the number of practising academics in the room. Often, academics are excluded from …[Read More]
The Cambridge Science Festival
Last night, I was honoured to have spoken at the final evening lecture at the Cambridge Science Festival, along with Nick Crumpton, Anjali Goswami, Rob Asher, and Stephanie Pierce, about why palaeontology is important. Below is a rough transcript of some of what my talk was about. Unlike the others, I didn’t discuss my own …[Read More]
Citizen science in ecology and evolution? Sounds apps-olutely fantastic.. *tumbleweed*
There’s a lot of talk these days about science communication. Some people spend their lives debating the differences between outreach, public engagement, and science communication, and how they all mean different things. As a scientist, and I’m quite sure I can speak on behalf of the entire community, we don’t give a toss what you …[Read More]
That’s no cloud..
Science is a deadly serious subject. Well, actually, no it’s not. In the slightest. Scientists are actually pretty fun people, despite their common depictions, and sometimes they have been known to publish smile-inducing articles. Take one Radagast the Brown of Bristol University (UK). This may or may not be a pseudonym, but either way he’s …[Read More]
My year in 2013
Inspired by Martin Eve (link), I decided to make a documentation of academic-related stuff I’ve achieved in 2013. The last year was mostly occupado by the first year of my PhD, but other academic-ish stuff too as complimentary activities to research. This is kinda like a personal diary of ‘achievements’, as well as a documentation …[Read More]
To bird or not to bird..
In 2012, the controversial case over whether or not Archaeopteryx lithographica, perhaps the most iconic dinosaur species of all time, was a bird was settled. Apparently. (free pdf) This was an important analysis for two reasons. Firstly, it countered a previous study showing that Archaeopteryx was more closely related to dinosaurs like Velociraptor and Deinonychus, and secondly used advanced, …[Read More]