Public views on Science and Research

On July 9th, the Pew Research Center for People & the Press, in collaboration with the Americans Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) released its findings (full report) regarding the public perception of science. In this post I will reflect on some of the interesting aspects of the report. To give some context, the [...]

From Mouse to Monkey to Humans: The Story of Rituximab

Modern advances in science have meant that our models of diseases have vastly improved. Be that in a dish in the laboratory, a computer simulation or through using a transgenic mouse, there have been developments across the biomedical field that have given us a greater understanding of diseases and how our bodies work.
This increase in [...]

New York Times mentions role of animals in research

A recent New York Times article looked at a former banker, Mary Ann Baik, who left her job and retrained as an animal healthcare technician. Within this article another lab animal technician, Kevin Phelps, talked about his thoughts on his career – importantly he took care to mention the role of animal research in medicine.
Kevin [...]

From Science Fiction to Science Fact

The ability to regrow limbs lost through accident or the action of their nemesis is a power usually thought of as belonging only to comic-book heroes, but in nature the ability to regenerate tissues and even whole limbs is surprisingly widespread across the plant and animal kingdoms. While in the womb mammals such as humans [...]

Promote Advocacy – Support a Hayre Fellow

In March 2008 I travelled to the US as the inaugural Michael D. Hayre Fellow in Public Outreach. Through this opportunity I founded Speaking of Research and worked to improve the public’s understanding in public outreach. This year the new Hayre Fellow(s) will be able to try their hand at making a difference both nationally [...]

Have your Senator and Congressman signed yet?

Backing up a recent post by DrugMonkey, Speaking of Research is now urging you to write to your Member of Congress (contact my Congress Representative) and Senator (contact my Senator) to request that they sign the Pro-Test Petition.
For example (Pick one of the three coloured paragraphs):
Dear <insert name of your Senator/Member of Congress here>,
I am [...]

ALF run amok worldwide

Despite progress in California with the public beginning to take a stand against animal rights extremism the regular reports from the ALF website should remind us that we have a long way to go. Here is a selection of ALF attacks in the last month.
June 15th 2009 – Bomb hoax at a university in the [...]

UCLA Pro-Test … in 1 minute (YouTube)!

No it’s not the reduced Shakespeare company, it’s the first of a handful of videos which UCLA Pro-Test is producing (with the help of FPS Productions) about the successful rally on April 22nd.
Now for everyone with a YouTube account, we need your help to get this video seen by as many people as possible. So [...]