| Upcoming talks and news Upcoming talks at Skeptics in the Pub and Science Online, and a strange happening with the blogJust a quick note to say that I'll be giving a talk in Manchester on the night of Thursday, September 9th, on the impact of dodgy science in the developing world. For more details, take a look at the Manchester Skeptics in the Pub website.Martin Robbins is a science writer and freelance journalist covering science, skepticism and politics at The Guardian, The Lay Scientist and beyond!In this talk Martin will give us a more global view of homeopathy, crackpots abroad and bad science in the developing world. He will cover homeopaths in Haiti and Africa, AIDS denialism, how alt med props up the Cuban healthcare system, anti-vaccination movements in Africa and Asia, dodgy bomb-detectors, and a plethora of other stories about quacks amok in the third world.I'll also be part of a panel at Science Online London this weekend, for details check out their website. With many of journalism's institutions, traditions, and practices under fire, science journalists face a tough evolutionary challenge: How should we adapt if we're to take engaging, rigorous science writing into this changing environment? What traits and behaviours should we cultivate or keep, and which leave behind? What pressures and opportunities do new media forms and standards create, and how should we respond to them? How do we ensure accuracy and transparency while engaging readers? Finally, how can people who want to write well about science do all this ... and make a living? Can we be the same old animals, or must we take new forms?Format Panel 2.0 style: After some brief framing remarks by the moderator, each panelist will speak for 5 to 8 minutes. Halfway through the session, we‟ll open it to what we expect to be a very lively give-and-take discussion.Oh, and weirdly it seems like I'm writing this blog post on guardian.co.uk. I'll explain a bit more about that in the next couple of days, because I want to spare you the tedious "Hello World" introductory post and because this move is part of a much wider story that should be told, but in the meantime do also check out the community science/skepticism blog I run, layscience.net, and my personal website at mjrobbins.net. And feel free to Twitter at me.Martin Robbinsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Precursor to H.I.V. Was in Monkeys for Millennia The finding in a new study complicates the question of what happened in the last century to let the virus move to humans and mutate, with devastating consequences. feeds.nytimes.com |
Fire detection technology goes high-tech Fire detection technology originally developed for the NASA mission to Mars has been successfully trialled in the Tumut area. abc.net.au |
US, China blame each other for slow climate talks By TINI TRAN 2010-10-09T12:47:02ZTIANJIN, China (AP) -- Modest progress at U.N. climate talks Saturday was overshadowed by a continuing deadlock between China and the United States, clouding prospects for a major climate conference in Mexico in less than two months' time.... hosted.ap.org |
Stephen Fry on language Just a few thoughts about language, spelling, grammar and Nazis on this Monday morning.I love language and grammar and I am especially fond of word etymologies. My passion for language is so strong that at one point in my life, I gave serious thought to becoming a linguist or a lexicographer (studying the evolution of language or words, of course!). Stephen Fry also loves language and grammar and is quite happy to go on at length about it, and about those who use language as a weapon by allowing themselves to become loudly offended by other people's spelling and grammatical errors. This interesting kinetic typography is from one of Stephen Fry's podgrams. The original sound file is one of Stephen Fry's Podgrams.GrrlScientistguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |