In this weeks’s Nature there is an article on X-chromosome silencing. This sounds very technical, and it is, but it has fun consequences, namely tortoiseshell cats (and tortoiseshell-and-white or calico cats, as seen in the picture). You may know that tortoiseshells are almost always females, but you probably don’t know why.
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I was in Zurich last week, attending a workshop at ETH (= Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, the university Albert Einstein went to). I enjoyed it. It was quite a small conference, around 30 people, allowing for lots of informal chatting about people’s results and what are the outstanding problems.
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I have just come from the 2011 graduation ceremony for postgraduate students both in the Physics Department and other Departments in our Faculty (Computing, Maths and the Engineering Departments). I think it was over 300 students getting their Master and PhD degrees, including a PhD student of mine.
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Universities have two basic roles: teaching and research. These two activities are closely related. For example, our research leads to an ability to teach cutting edge material to undergraduate students, and to supervise a research project in their final year of study. As well as undergraduate students, we also have postgraduates studying for masters or […]
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Every year, as part of a final year statistical physics course, I have a lecture on correlation vs. causation. This is a very important distinction in science. For example, the average temperature over the Earth’s surface, and the number of pirates in the world’s seas, are correlated
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Sir Martin Rees, distinguished scientist, Astronomer Royal and a churchgoing atheist, has just accepted the Templeton Prize. This is awarded by the Templeton Foundation, a charity set up by the late John Templeton, a wealthy merchant banker, enthusiastic Christian and fan of the big questions in life. It is £1 million – chosen I think […]
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