| Basics: Surviving by Disguising: Nature’s Game of Charades There are many cases of mimicry in nature, which can be the sincerest form of flattery, the severest form of battery, or the weirdest survival strategy. feeds.nytimes.com |
Whooooo are you? Who? Who? | GrrlScientist You are THE reason that I write a blog, and you always have been. But I don't know who you are or what you care about. Can you help me by telling me a bit about yourself?GrrlScientist and a new friend, a wild great tit, Parus major, select among her photographs snapped at Hietaniemen hautausmaa (Hietaniemi cemetery) in Helsinki, Finland. Yes, it was damned cold there!Image: Bob O'Hara, 24 November 2008.It's been a busy time for me, my peeps. I returned from a two-week visit to England almost one week ago, where I attended and live-tweeted two meetings and several train trips, met my new colleagues at The Guardian, and snapped a thousand or so photographs (some of which I'll be sharing with you in the next few weeks). After I returned home, I thought I could begin writing for you in earnest, only to discover that the ridiculously incompetent fools at T-Mobile inexplicably shut off my wireless connection – for the third time in just six months. After battling those idiots for the past six days, wi-fi has been restored at least temporarily, which leaves me to dig out from under more than 1,500 emails, finish several essays for you and bumble around as I try to familiarise myself with publishing on this new platform. This might sound like a lot of hassle, but the reason I do this is for you. But at this time, I am blind because unless you comment, I don't know anything about you; who you are, where you live, what you do, what you care about. So whilst I attend to business, please help me out by telling me about yourself. Are you a regular reader who has followed my peregrinations all over the blogoverse these past few months or read my blurtations on twitter, or did you just find this blog? Do you live in the UK or are you one of my many international readers? Do you also write a blog or use twitter? If so, let me (and your fellow readers here) know! Of course, I'd love to know other things about you: Do you keep pets? Are you attending university? If so, what are you studying (or alternatively, if you've completed your education, what are you doing now)? Do you travel and if so, where do you most enjoy visiting? What is the title of the book that you are reading right now, or what book have you read recently that most impressed you? But most important to me, if you are reading this and you either haven't commented before or haven't commented here, would you leave a comment to say hello? And as always, if you'd like me to write about something in particular, let me know (I already have one reader suggestion that I plan to work on).GrrlScientistguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Science funding in the UK: how will it be hit by the cuts? Visualised and as a spreadsheet The Comprehensive Spending Review could have a far-reaching impact on UK research. See how science funding works now• Get the data• Interactive graphicBritain is facing a major brain drain as scientists abandon the country for better-funded jobs abroad. Leading researchers, including an Oxford professor of physics and a stem cell researcher seeking a cure for the commonest form of blindness, say they are poised to quit Britain. Meanwhile the heads of several prestigious universities warn that proposed government cuts to Britain's science budget threaten "an insidious grinding down of the UK research community".So, where does the money come from now? Basic university funding for research in the UK comes in two streams from government. In 2008/09, £3.3bn came via the research councils and £2.2bn came via the higher education funding councils.The former is distributed through competitive grants for specific research projects and pays for equipment and PhD and postdoctoral students. The latter is distributed to universities via a formula that takes into account their scores in the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), a rating of university departments on the quality of their output. This funding stream, called qualitative research (QR), is used to pay for basic infrastructure and staff at universities.An additional £2.2bn comes from the R&D budgets of government departments, including medical research funds from the NHS.Despite a decade of increases in science research funding, thanks to a booming economy and a progressive Labour administration sympathetic to research and innovation, the UK still spends a smaller amount of its GDP on R&D than other advanced countries. In 2007, the UK's public spend on R&D was 1.8%, while German's was 2.54%, France got to 2.08%, Japan was at 3.44% and the US at 2.68%. This research, from BIS, shows exactly how much money is spent on scientific and other R&D. You can also get some great statistics from the Campaign for Science and Engineering. The full data is below. What can you do with it?Download the data• DATA: download the full spreadsheetWorld government data• Search the world's government with our gatewayDevelopment and aid data• Search the world's global development data with our gatewayCan you do something with this data?Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group• Get the A-Z of data• More at the Datastore directory• Follow us on TwitterCuts and closuresTax and spendingLiberal-Conservative coalitionLabourConservativesResearchResearch fundingResearch and developmentHigher educationScience funding crisisScience policyAlok Jhaguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Video | Richard Dawkins: What would extraterrestrial life be like? Matt Ridley and Richard Dawkins speculate about the nature of extraterrestrial life in front of an audience at the Centre for Life in Newcastle guardian.co.uk |
Observatory: Encased in Amber, a Trove of New Species An excavation in western India has led to the discovery of more than 700 ancient insects, arachnids and crustaceans, and many plant, floral and fungal remains. feeds.nytimes.com |