GloFish In one of the research talks I give I use the picture at the top-left to illustrate a point. It is of genetically modified (GM) fish. They are a species of fish you can buy in a pet shop. The fish are called zebrafish, Danio rerio to give them their latin name.

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Angry Talk (Comic Style)A lot of science can be relatively quiet, perhaps even staid, but some topics can cause things to kick off. So-called alternative medicine (acupuncture, homeopathy, etc) is one of them. A couple of papers in the British Journal of General Practice have been the cause of no fewer than 10 (count ‘em here) letters to the journal, a response by the editor, and even some fisticuffs in The Guardian. Clearly the journal’s editor Dr Robert Jones and UCL’s Prof David Colquhoun will not be exchanging Christmas cards this December. The paper even received the very rare (for a scientific paper) accolade of being satirised in The Daily Mash. To be honest, I’m jealous, The Daily Mash never pays any attention to my papers.

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Img20050129 0001 de neuss wolkenThis is a post about experiments at CERN. But I am not going to mention the name of a proposed subatomic particle named after a certain British physicist whose name rhymes with figs. Not even once. You can check.

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Five years ago Amanda Page (then my PhD student) and I published a paper (free pdf here) that was computational statistical physics but was inspired by the problem of protein crystallisation. It is one of my favourite papers. An hour ago I got some automated email saying that another paper had cited this work of Amanda’s and mine. I don’t know why I got the email, I don’t think I signed up anywhere, but whatever, it is always nice that someone has referred to your work – presumably this means they have read it. Then I read the title.

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