I was a bit fed up after hearing the UK government announce further cutbacks to the science budget today, so I thought I’d delve into the recent Free Access issue of Annals of Botany from Sept 2009 to see...
Author - Alun Salt
Alun Salt
Don’t Be So Cerebral?
I’m following my introduction to Don’t Be Such a Scientist with a look at the first chapter of the book. It opens with Randy Olson’s four organs model of communication based on the Head, Heart, Gut and...
Thoughts on Don’t be Such a Scientist by Randy Olson
As well as developing the social media presence for the Annals of Botany, I’ve also started work on writing press releases for some papers in the journal. From following various blogs I’m aware that...
New Annals of Botany Bibliographies
At the suggestion of Alan Cann and AoB’s managing editor David Frost I’ve been working on a new section for the website. Up on the menu bar above there should be a Bibliographies option. It’s part of...
Bacteria and plants entangled in Research Blogging
There’s been a couple of posts on Research Blogging that have caught my eye in the past couple of days. Both of them are interesting because they show how important studying interaction is to understand the...
Carnivorous plants prefer to kill in broad daylight
I owe thanks to Dr Andrej Pavlovič for being a patient guinea pig with my first press-release (you can find it on Science Daily) and to Lizzie Shannon-Little at OUP for helping put it out. It’s good timing because...
Dropbox: a way to transfer or email large files
Emailing large files can be a pain. There’s often a size limit on the file you can send out and another on the mailbox receiving the email. If the recipient has a limited size for the inbox, then sending a big...
Even plants can have too much of a good thing
No doubt this will horrify Pat, but this is one of my favourite YouTube videos. If you’ve ever expressed a doubt about something, only to be told it must be ok because it’s natural, this is the video for you...
Moving beyond the ‘One-dinosaur-fits-all’ model of science communication
Alice Bell has written a couple of provocative posts on science communication at the Guardian and on her own blog recently. The spark is what the current science minister sees as the salvation of the sciences. Space and...
Leys Whitebeam (Sorbus leyana) in the wild
Congratulations to Merthyr Tydfil and District Naturalists’ Society. Their support for the few Leys Whitebeam left in the wild have made the news at Wales Online
Will ferns play a key role in mitigating climate change for some forests?
There’s an interesting paper in the July edition of the American Journal of Botany, Polystichum munitum (Dryopteridaceae) varies geographically in its capacity to absorb fog water by foliar uptake within the...
Plant reproduction in the Central Amazonian floodplains
The Amazon is the greatest river system on the planet. Twenty per cent of the world’s freshwater enters the oceans through the river basin. It’s an immense amount of water, but the flow isn’t constant...
