For some random reason, about half-an-hour ago I wondered how toothpastes that claim to treat sensitive teeth work. Admittedly, half an hour on the web hardly qualifies me as an expert – a shame as dentists earn more than research scientists. But as far as I can see it seems that nobody really knows with […]
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A lot of guff is talked about peer review – this is the process by which scientific articles are checked before they are published in the scientific literature. The article-to-be is sent by the editor of the scientific journal to the one or more scientists in the field who read it and decide whether it […]
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We are revising our modules for the 2012/2013 academic year (note that this is not the next academic year, the 2011/2012 year, but the one after that – we plan ahead here in British Universities). The University is going to a system of 8 15-credit modules per year. So another academic, Joe Keddie, and are […]
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Some of the most interesting stuff at the crystallisation conference in Maine last week, was on trying to understand how living organisms control crystallisation. Many living organisms, including us, need tough strong structures and many crystals are strong, and much harder than living cells which are soft and squidgy. So many organisms have evolved to […]
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As we learnt in school, some planets, asteroids, comets etc orbit faster than the Earth, for example Venus takes 225 days to orbit the Sun. And some orbit slower, for example Mars takes 687 days to orbit the Sun. Now astronomers have discovered an asteroid that orbits at exactly the same speed as Earth, i.e., […]
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Yesterday, I was sent, as I periodically am, the “Old Newportonian” newsletter, for old members of my school – Newport Free Grammar School, a comprehensive in Essex. I looked through it, to see what news there was of the school, and of old pupils. It’s a pretty short newsletter, and I didn’t see mention of […]
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