Going down with All Hands

RRS Boaty McBoatface

Last week NERC launched a competition to name its new £200m research ship, due for completion in 2019.

'Shackleton. Endeavour. Falcon. These are just some of the names suggested for the UK's next world-class polar research ship as part of a campaign launched today for the public to put forward names for the state-of-the-art vessel to be built in the North West of England', trumpeted its press release

But no mention of 'Boaty McBoatface,' which is the current frontrunner. As I write, it has almost ten times as many votes as the next most popular, Henry Worsley (21,867 against 2,746).

Feeding Piranhas and Living to Tell the Tale

The Researchfish system is used to collect information on the outputs, outcomes and impacts that have arisen from Research Council-funded research. It tracks over 90,000 awards worth more than £40 Billion, and is used by over 63,000 researchers who have produced in excess of 1 million output reports to date. 

Submitting data on such a wealth of projects is no easy task, and universities across the UK have been making sure that their investigators provide these by the current deadline. At Kent, the job of ensuring its compliance fell to Sue Prout, Research Services Clerical Officer and PA to the Director of Research Services. Below she gives an insight into the challenges she faced in this unenviable task.

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Scottish Universities Move to Outer London Shock

University of Edinburgh, Bromley

After the revelation that 97.6% of the senior civil servants involved in the Northern Powerhouse project were based in London, Fundermentals can exclusively reveal that all of the so called 'Scottish' universities are actually located in a retail park in Bromley.

The shocking revelation was the result of a Freedom of Information request by Fundermentals. Apparently the universities were moved wholesale followed the Scottish Referendum, an attempt by the Conservative government to show Nicola Sturgeon 'who's boss.'

Peer Review and the Xerox Machine

Martha had finally found
a use for the pasta maker
they'd been given for
their wedding

Last year I wrote a column in response to a letter from a group of eminent academics bemoaning the current state of peer review. “Support for research that might lead to major new scientific discoveries is virtually forbidden nowadays,” the letter claimed, “and science is in serious danger of stagnating.”

I explored the problems of the system and what could be done to fix it. I looked forward but didn’t think to look back. I’d assumed, like many others, that the current system had always been so. I hadn’t realised that the first use of the term peer review was in 1969.

Blond on Blond

Boris and Jo: Blond on Blond

With just three and a half months to go until the EU referendum, the debate on whether to stay or go is already at fever pitch. In TV studios and pubs across the land ill-informed but passionate views are being swapped, and the focus swings from immigration, to trade, and back to immigration again.

One of the key question is the European Union's position on the display of wild blond hair (WBH), particularly for the older man. Whilst in the past Europe has been a key exporter of WBH, it has in recent years been somewhat ambivalent to those whose hair seems to defy the laws of physics. Witness the European disdain for Donald Trump.