Royal Society of Biology
Engaging the Silent Majority
How can you ensure all students in a teaching session have the opportunity to engage, be involved and interact? This is the question that I wanted to address when I set out to understand why students choose to sit in a given location within the lecture theatre.
Lifting the curtain – in celebration of LGBTQ+ scientists’ visibility
Who inspired you to find who you are or who you could be? “Dear Minister, I am a twelve-year-old Queer. I want to be a Queer artist like Michelangelo, Leonardo or Tchaikovsky.” As a child, Derek Jarman, the film-maker, artist and gay-rights activist, knew who his heroes were. He looked up to them because their … Continue reading
“Parliament is a stronger body because of the scientists present today.”
It was another packed room for this year’s Parliamentary Links Day, organised by the Royal Society of Biology on behalf of the science and engineering community.
The debate on regulation of heritable genome editing
Nature has published a letter from a group of scientists and bioethicists calling for a moratorium on the clinical use of heritable genome editing.
What exactly is the Industrial Strategy?
Despite the hot weather there was “standing room only for science” according to Chi Onwurah MP at the 30th anniversary of Parliamentary Links Day, the 10th event in this series to be opened by Speaker of the House of Commons Rt Hon John Bercow MP. This year’s theme was Science and the Industrial Strategy and … Continue reading
An LGBT+ champion: Professor Ben Barres, one of the first transgender neuroscientists
The first international day for LGBTQ+ scientists in STEM aims to be a celebration of diversity in science. Organised by Pride in STEM, House of STEM, InterEngineering and oSTEM, the day is the first of its kind to celebrate the LGBT+ community across all the sciences. The important goal of the organisers and supporters – … Continue reading
School biology – a future biology curriculum
At the last Policy Lunchbox we welcomed Michael Reiss, professor of science education at the UCL Institute of Education, to discuss the future of the school science curriculum. Professor Michael Reiss’ talk looked at the key components of a science curriculum and learning about biology, as well as the aspects we might consider for future … Continue reading
The Biologist says goodbye to plastic wrap
This week, when unwrapping your lovely new edition of The Biologist, you might notice a slight difference: the clear protective polythene wrap has been replaced with a milky, biodegradable envelope. This fully compostable biopolymer, known as Mater-Bi, is composed of natural corn starch and vegetable oils. We will no longer use polythene, which is only … Continue reading
Top tips for an Athena SWAN application
Following our workshop in March, we asked attendees for feedback on the challenge of applying for an Athena SWAN award, and what advice they could give to future applications. I’ve collected these into three ‘top tips’ for those considering an application.
Using citizen science to understand more about house spiders
Citizen science describes projects whereby members of the public work with researchers to provide useful and interesting scientific data. In the last five years or so, the approach has seen a big growth in all sorts of areas of science.