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Steinbeck and Science July 20, 2010

Posted by sarah in: reviews, science . 2comments

Route of the Sea of Cortez expedition

John Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, and though his popularity had waned in the latter stages of his career, he’s been a much-read and well-loved author for many decades. The Nobel committee cited his “sympathetic humour and keen social perception” as the hallmarks of his writing. Steinbeck’s books and stories often deal with war, class, adversity and destitution, and in his lifetime he wrote both fiction and non-fiction; the former frequently based on his real-life experiences as a journalist. But did you know Steinbeck also wrote about science?

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The Big Bang Debate June 12, 2010

Posted by sarah in: reviews, science, women . 5comments

ResearchBlogging.orgA few days ago, I posted this poll about the show The Big Bang Theory, asking the question if it was bad for science (and women). I closed the poll last night, the votes are in, you people have spoken.  Here’s the final results from 58 votes – and thanks for voting, polls are fun!

Most of you don’t seem to take sitcoms all that seriously, and that’s probably a sensible attitude. Also, quite a few of you think I should get a life. That’s probably also a fair statement. Beyond that, there’s about twice the number of BBT-lovers as there are BBT-haters, with a smattering of on-the-fencers. Well, you already know where I stand, but before I return back to the life that I do in fact have, let me elaborate.

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Bad Science April 7, 2010

Posted by sarah in: politics, reviews . 3comments

Over the Easter weekend I finally got round to reading Ben Goldacre‘s Bad Science book, based on his regular Guardian columns and blog detailing all the spectacularly awful ways in which science is hijacked, misrepresented or just screwed up in society. I’m pretty sure most of you reading this blog will have read the book or the column – but just in case you haven’t, please do. But if you’re the kind of person who cares about the simple things in life, like being reasonably honest with people, caring somewhat about their wellbeing, not profiteering too much from their fears or ignorance, and generally not being a dick (m/f), I should warn you: this book will raise your blood pressure.

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Astrobetter guest post: Mendeley March 22, 2010

Posted by sarah in: me, reviews, science . 3comments

Staying on top of the literature, even in a narrow field, is one of the biggest challenges we face in research today. Do you have an ever-growing pile of astro-ph papers on your desk you’ve meaning to read? Yeah, we all have that. In recent years a number of software packages and web applications have come on the market to help researchers organise their literature: Papers, Reference Manager, Jabref, and Zotero. Past AstroBetter posts have introduced Papers and discussed Papers vs. BibDesk. A recent addition that’s been getting good press lately is London-based Mendeley.[...]

I wrote a guest post on literature-management-slash-science.fm-software Mendeley for the Astrobetter blog.  Go read it here!

More screenshots are in my public Astrobetter notebook, alongside those I did for the Evernote post.

Astrobetter Guest Post: Evernote January 25, 2010

Posted by sarah in: astro 2.0, reviews . Add a comment

Some time ago Kelle Cruz, one of the writers of the Astrobetter blog, invited me to write a guest post on how I use Evernote for work. It’s just appeared on the blog today, so go check it out.

I created a public notebook in Evernote with some screenshots to illustrate some of the ways I use the programme I’ve described in the post. At the same time this can give Evernote newbies a flavour of the application’s  look and feel.