Let’s be astonished that we get to criticize vaccine rollouts

February 23, 2021 Stephen Heard Biology and Life Sciences, General Science

Either yesterday or today, the number of Covid-19 vaccine doses administered globally will have passed 200 million. Some countries, like Israel and the UK, are quite far along; others haven’t yet started; and it’s fair to argue that the developing world is spending too much effort worrying about its own citizens and not enough developing […]

No two people see a book the same way (or, Canadians CAN TOO be funny)

February 16, 2021 Stephen Heard Biology and Life Sciences, General Science

No two people ever see a book quite the same way (as many folks noticed during my long, dull #AYearOfBooks post series). If you want a great illustration, consider this: Last week I grumbled a little about readers who have found Charles Darwin’s Barnacle and David Bowie’ Spider too “political” The very next day Simon […]

Is “Charles Darwin’s Barnacle” political? Sure, and I’m unrepentant.

February 9, 2021 Stephen Heard Biology and Life Sciences, General Science

They say you shouldn’t read your (book/album/movie) reviews, and I suppose they have a point.* Charles Darwin’s Barnacle and David Bowie’s Spider, my book about eponymous scientific names and what they reveal about science and society, has been out long enough to have accumulated half a dozen Amazon reviews. (Incidentally, one easy thing you can […]

Barf-and-buff writing, and cherry-picking citations

February 2, 2021 Stephen Heard Biology and Life Sciences, General Science

I’m a big fan of a writing strategy that, in The Scientist’s Guide to Writing, I call “storming the beach” – but that’s sometimes more vividly termed “barf and buff”. The idea is simple: early in a writing project, don’t stop to make things perfect. Instead, charge ahead with getting something – anything – on […]

Wonderful Latin Names: Allobates niputidea

January 26, 2021 Stephen Heard Biology and Life Sciences, General Science

I have a new favourite frog. I’m late to this, as it was described and named 13 years ago (and makes regular rounds on Twitter), but I’m rather enamoured with the western Colombian frog Allobates niputidea. Not because of its looks: it’s a small brown frog with a stripe, looking almost exactly like its sister […]

What if the way Covid-19 forces us to teach is actually better?

January 19, 2021 Stephen Heard Biology and Life Sciences, General Science

Well, I survived – barely – my first full semester of teaching online;* and I’ve jumped into my second. Will it be the last? My colleagues certainly hope so, with “I can’t wait to get back in the classroom” beginning to be the most distinctive vocalization of Homo professorius. And you don’t have to look […]

Three reasons for the red pen

January 12, 2021 Stephen Heard Biology and Life Sciences, General Science

I’m gearing up for the latest offering of my Scientific Writing course, and that’s got me thinking about my (metaphorical) red pen. As scientists, we spend a lot of time commenting on other folks’ writing. I do it extensively in my writing course, but I also do it for my grad students writing thesis drafts, […]

A year of books comes to an end

January 7, 2021 Stephen Heard Biology and Life Sciences, General Science

This is it: the last instalment of #AYearInBooks (in which I’ve been tracking the non-academic reading I do). Here’s why I decided to do this. After I report on my year’s last few books, I’ll wrap up with a few comments on the experience. The Chrysalids (John Wyndham, 1955). There’s a certain feeling of dread […]

2020 was weird for blogging, too

January 4, 2021 Stephen Heard Biology and Life Sciences, General Science

Warning: navel-gazing. Did anyone else notice that 2020 was a really weird year? OK, yes, you probably noticed. Lunatic wannabe despots trying to subvert elections; overwhelmed professors desperately struggling to move entire curricula online on a moment’s notice; idiots insisting that a scrap of cloth covering their mouth and nose is a fundamental infringement on […]

How to review an NSERC Discovery Grant

December 28, 2020 Stephen Heard Biology and Life Sciences, General Science

This is a guest post by Jeannette Whitton, Group Chair for Group 1503 (Ecology & Evolution) of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada) (and Professor of Botany, University of British Columbia). She has extensive experience with the review and evaluation of NSERC Discovery Grants (among other things!) While Jeannette writes here specifically about […]

Author: Stephen Heard