The Science Bit

Recent Posts - page 2

• Christmas: When will the madness end?!

  By Brian Hughes on December 18, 2012 • ( 1 )

  

  Christmas, eh? Let’s all deck the halls with boughs of decorations. After all, it’s technically against the law not to. With this in mind I headed into town at the weekend and found me some decos. In a deco shop… Read More ›

• Keeping it light

  By Brian Hughes on December 15, 2012 • ( 7 )

  

  I had the privilege of visiting India the other week. Seriously, no kidding, I totally did. To an outsider India is a highly complex and puzzling place, a complete assault on the senses, and so thought-provoking as to leave your brain sore. On… Read More ›

• At last: “Science Bit–The MOVIE!”

  By Brian Hughes on November 17, 2012 • ( 0 )

  Well, kind of. Here is a video of the keynote lecture I gave as part of the #celt12 ‘Written Word’ conference held last June in Galway, Ireland. Why not set aside 29 minutes or so of your life and watch something… Read More ›

• Chief Scientific Advisor gets the chop: Getting DNA backwards not the reason

  By Brian Hughes on November 3, 2012 • ( 9 )

  

  I have been reading a lot recently about the Irish Government’s decision to get rid of its Chief Scientific Adviser. My fellow blogger Maria Delaney has covered this well both on her award-winning Science Calling! blog and on Journal.ie. The story… Read More ›

• Obligatory Halloween tie-in: Ghost spotted at football match actually a man

  By Brian Hughes on October 29, 2012 • ( 0 )

  

  Here’s a famous football quote (out of the mouth of Satan himself): “Football, eh? Bloody hell!” Yes. Football and hell. Inextricably linked. So, it was always but a matter of time before intrepid photojournalists would capture occult goings-on at a… Read More ›

• To coin a phrase…

  By Brian Hughes on October 29, 2012 • ( 1 )

  

  It’s a small world. One that requires some joined up thinking. We need to see the contours among the shadows, to extract the signal from the noise, to construct synchrony from the chaos. You know what I mean. We need… Read More ›

• Guess what: Cancer vaccines don’t cause cancer

  By Brian Hughes on September 22, 2012 • ( 1 )

  We’ve previously discussed the whole “oh-my-god-vaccines-are-terrible” carry-on that seems to have gripped the popular Luddite imagination since, well, since vaccines were basically invented. Well, they’ve been at it again. This time the controversy has related to the tragically young death… Read More ›

• Todd Akin’s empirical question

  By Brian Hughes on August 22, 2012 • ( 0 )

  

  So, as you may have heard, Mr Akin, the Republican Party Senate candidate in Missouri (hi, Missouri!) has some weird views on rape, conception, and abortion. Basically, this is what the Todd Akin t-shirts are going to be saying this… Read More ›

• Quick media round-up is quick

  By Brian Hughes on August 11, 2012 • ( 0 )

  I am totally on holidays right now. I even have a beard. However, I still function at an intellectual level (for all intents and purposes). Here are two minor updates regarding ongoing media coverage of this blog/blogger-with-beard. Yesterday, The Guardian’s… Read More ›

• Be careful where you put that paywall

  By Brian Hughes on July 16, 2012 • ( 7 )

  

  So, lots of people (in the UK at any rate) are pleased at proposals to provide free access to the results of publicly funded research. Here’s George Monbiot’s tweet: This is great news: free access to British scientific research within… Read More ›

• Are conservatives less intelligent? Let’s ask a liberal…

  By Brian Hughes on May 30, 2012 • ( 0 )

  

  Here is an interesting article from Discover Magazine, about some recent research into the association between intelligence and social attitudes. The study was conducted by some psychologists from Canada, and published in the prestigious journal Psychological Science. It represents a… Read More ›

• Forthcoming: On ‘The Written Word’

  By Brian Hughes on May 29, 2012 • ( 3 )

  

  I’ve been invited to speak at this conference next week – The Written Word: Writing, Publishing, and Communication in Higher Education – organised by the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at NUI Galway. There’s quite an eclectic line-up of speakers with… Read More ›

• Remember, there are no right answers…

  By Brian Hughes on May 28, 2012 • ( 0 )

  

  For college students enrolled in science-based courses, ‘Research Methods’ classes can often be something of a mixed bag. The same is true for Research Methods textbooks. And I feel I should know. As I work professionally (so to speak) in… Read More ›

• Working the crowd

  By Brian Hughes on May 21, 2012 • ( 0 )

  

  As part of my day job, I’m involved in psychology research examining the effects of having other people around when you’re trying to cope with mental stress. Here’s the summary of our findings to date: it’s complicated. But not to… Read More ›

• Galway nuked, radiation fireball blasts Athlone :(

  By Brian Hughes on May 12, 2012 • ( 2 )

  

  The other day, a live World War II hand grenade was found in a garden just down the street from my house. Thirty families were evacuated from their homes in the middle of the night while the army bomb disposal… Read More ›

• Headline-spectrum of the day: Dino-apocalypse by ‘wind’

  By Brian Hughes on May 7, 2012 • ( 0 )

  

  So apparently, the dinosaurs are extinct. That’s not really news of course (time to let it go, Nessie fans). But what is making the news is some new research about how those terrible lizards ended up shuffling off this mortal coil en… Read More ›

• Is there actually evidence for anti-ageing creams?

  By Brian Hughes on May 3, 2012 • ( 3 )

  

  Here is a short piece I wrote for Tuesday’s Irish Independent. It was part of their ‘Science For Life’ supplement (not available online), in which scientists provide answers to “some of life’s big questions“. I was asked to respond to a… Read More ›

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