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Holiday Spirit
I was going to present a long disquisition on secularism, religion and society at large, but this is better: “Whether you believe with an absolute literalism or with a more analogic faith, whether you believe at all, whether you are Christian or Jewish or Muslim or merely human, the word we would like to feel…
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London Pleasures
Sitting at the front of the top of a double-decker bus; Borough Market: chorizo & rocket sandwiches from Brindisa Not so pleasurable: no public transport on Christmas Day (even without a strike!). How am I supposed to keep my busy social schedule??
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More light, more science, no subways
Yesterday was the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. So it all gets better from now on (Seasonal Affective Disorder seems to me a perfectly reasonable response to the darkness). But what else? A Republican-appointed member of the federal judiciary has slammed the Intelligent Design crackpots, seeing them for the crypto-creationists they can…
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Quick lunch-hour dispatch, all to be clarified soon: Last week I participated in a collaboration between the Dana Centre (the adult wing of the Science Museum) and some artists, entitled “Big Ideas.” Imperial College is to be leaving the University of London. Fantastic late-night Dinner last weekend, with (among many others!) Kosso, Rachel, Imp, Deirdre,…
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Real Art, Fake Food and Incense in Tokyo
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An unexpected highlight was the fantastic exhibit of photographs from Hiroshi Sugimoto (at the Mori Gallery, on the 53rd story of the otherwise very shopping-mall-like Roppongi Hills “city-within-a-city”. I’ve seen smaller exhibitions of his work at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, New York City (where he lives and works), but this retrospective proves him to…
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From Tokyo
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…where I’m attending the fifteenth Japanese Workshop on General Relativity and Gravitation. At some point, I’ll blog about: All the interesting work being done by the mostly young, mostly Japanese physicists here; The distressing things The Royal Society is saying about open access to scientific information (which has already been covered all over the blogosphere);…
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Live From 33,000 Feet over Siberia
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Alright, in-flight wi-fi internet is a luxury I do not need and can scarcely afford, but too cool to resist this once. Next stop, Tokyo.
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Helsinki
So, why Helsinki? I was here to be the “Opponent” for a Ph.D. examination for a student at the University of Helsinki. I felt like the host of a talk show: after short presentations by the candidate and me, we sat at the front of an auditorium, and I quizzed him on topics near to…
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Happy Thanksgiving
… from Helsinki, Finland (no turkey for me…)!
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Science and Parliament II
The official aims of the MP-Scientist pairing scheme are To help scientists recognise the potential methods and structures through which they can feed their scientific knowledge to parliamentarians. To help practising research scientists understand the pressures under which MPs operate. To give MPs the opportunity to forge direct links with a network of practising research…
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