MODERN laboratory equipment is, on the whole, so well designed and engineered that we might take its performance for granted. Instruments have developed to the point where they offer better resolution and better reliability than ever before, provided they are…
Category: weekly news
Weekly news: a muppet of beakers and a skittle of Erlenmeyers
NEVER let it be said that we don’t like to have a little fun from time to time, here at the LabHomepage. This week we found ourselves hijacking our own Twitter feed when a casual remark about collective nouns took…
Weekly news: In praise of the table-top show, plus free pipettes offer
IT’S all about pipettes this week. Well, not all about them, but these workhorses of the laboratory have been figuring strongly in my consciousness. One reason is that one of the early supporters of LabHomepage, Porvair Sciences, is making a…
Weekly news: Most scientific research is wrong
SCIENCE is an iterative process, a steady march away from ignorance and towards enlightenment, a gradual unveiling of the hidden truth of why things are the way they are. There are some mistakes along the way, and a lot of…
Weekly news: The academic spring – removing the paywall to knowledge
WE ALL love open access, don’t we? The very fact that you are reading this newsletter is testament to the power of the internet in providing free and easy access to huge volumes of information. But what about those who…
Weekly news: Is synthetic biology the new bogeyman?
THE SCIENTIFIC community is well used to being the bogeyman, whenever a new development in human knowledge creates the possibility in somebody’s imagination that something could go terribly wrong. Now there is a new area of scientific research to defend,…
Weekly news: Deciphering the acronyms
WE MAKE it a point, whenever we can, to find out a little more about the stories we publish on the LabHomepage. One of the routine ways we do this is to decipher the acronyms and abbreviations that pepper the…
Weekly news: Left-handed asteroids and dinosaurs on other planets
IF YOU ever wonder how some of the more ludicrous science stories get into the press, this week has provided an excellent example. Every week or so the American Chemical Society puts out a press pack, mostly of worthy-but-dull items…
Weekly news: Open source is the real biotech revolution
WE’RE big fans of the wider open source movement, here at the LabHomepage, and are particularly interested to see it developing into the laboratory. Open source is an umbrella term covering everything from the way scientific research is published to…
Weekly news: the staggering speed of R&D decision making
HERE in the UK, we have been enduring the annual round of misery known as Budget Day. Along with the inescapable increases in taxes for anybody that drinks, smokes, drives, or for that matter breathes, these austere times also bring…