Does being on Twitter make you a worse scientist? Yes… a bit.

Posted on Sep 19, 2014 in Bayes, Science, Social Media

I was intrigued by this claim, found in a Twitter survey of the “Top 50 Science Stars on Twitter” that “most high-performing scientists have not embraced Twitter”. That article is debatable on other grounds, as well, in particular in terms of what defines a “Top Scientist” on Twitter. In fact, on closer inspection, the data on […]

Flux Dance Theatre: Weaving science into dance

Posted on Aug 12, 2014 in Hands-On Universe, News, Outreach
Flux Dance Theatre: Weaving science into dance

I was very pleased to be able to facilitate the participation of Flux Youth Theatre to last May’s Imperial Festival, the youth company of the innovative Flux Dance Theatre. Ran by two energetic and dynamic dancers, Charlotte Hale and Emma Dodds, Flux Dance Theatre focuses on science and how to weave it into dance and […]

An event well worth the ticket – even a Ferengi would agree!

Posted on Aug 12, 2014 in Hands-On Universe, Outreach
An event well worth the ticket – even a Ferengi would agree!

The annual World Science Fiction Convention begins on Thursday Aug 14th at London’s ExCeL, bringing together authors, artists, publishers, and fans of science fiction and fantasy. I’m excited to be participating in one of the stands in the Exhibitors Hall: “The Great Cosmic Show”, located at Stand 66 in the Exhibitors Hall of the Convention, sets […]

#IAS2014: Two manic weeks that surpassed all expectations

Posted on Jul 7, 2014 in Hands-On Universe, Outreach

What’s more exciting than winning the World Cup, more nail-biting than the Wimbledon final, more rewarding than getting a Nobel Prize, and at least as fun as looking for dark matter in the sky? Taking part to the I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here, and getting through what I can only describe as a […]

Pigs beat dark energy 20:1

Posted on Jun 13, 2014 in Outreach

My friends at Catsnake tell me that their latest awesome video, about compassionate farming and the plight of pigs, got 4M views in a week. The awesome video we made together about dark energy got about 200,000 views, which seemed a lot at the time (and enough to win it the Berlin Viral Video Award). […]

“I didn’t know science could be so tasty!” @GSC1

Posted on Jun 12, 2014 in Hands-On Universe, Outreach
“I didn’t know science could be so tasty!” @GSC1

The weather was predictably dismal in Glasgow on that bank holiday weekend. The calendar said that it was last weekend of May, but the temperature felt more like February. I didn’t mind — the bad weather suited my goals just fine.   I had travelled up to Scotland to set up my Cosmic Fun Club […]

exp(Outreach!*Enthusiasm^n) = #IAS2014

Posted on Jun 11, 2014 in Outreach
exp(Outreach!*Enthusiasm^n) =  #IAS2014

I’ve been preparing for it tirelessly. I have chatted with previous participants, and asked them for tips about how to keep going all the way to the end. I have reviewed my past experiences, and in moments of doubt asked myself why I have entered this in the first place. I have stocked up in […]

Is Alice really burning?

Posted on Jun 5, 2014 in Outreach, quantum mechanics, universe

Imperial Physics had the somewhat unexpected pleasure to welcome Caltech theoretical physicist Sean Carroll (of preposterousuniverse.com fame) and science writer Jennifer Ouellette (whom the Twitterati might know under her Twitter name-de-plume of @JenLucPiquant), who were in London after participating to the Cheltenham Science Festival. They joined forces and gave an inspirational public talk entitled “Alice is burning”. […]

PhD projects for Oct 2014 entry

Posted on Feb 10, 2014 in Research, Teaching

For details about funding and how to apply, please visit this page. 1) Direct detection of dark matter and global fits  Identifying the nature of the dark matter (DM) that inhabits the Universe is arguably the most compelling undertaking in astrophysics and particle physics today. Current searches for DM include: – The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at […]

Building the solar system with fruits and veg

Posted on Sep 17, 2013 in Hands-On Universe, Outreach, Talks in schools
Building the solar system with fruits and veg

Year 5 and 6 pupils at Norland Place school had great fun in building our solar system with fruits and vegetables (roughly) to scale. The introduction of crushed peppercorns for asteroids was definitely a bonus. Mercury   0.38 BLUEBERRY Venus           0.95 YELLOW TOMATO Earth           1.00 […]