Friday Favourites 8 May

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A round up of the best things that I have discovered online this week. Covering everything from posts on public engagement with research, how we use social media and other good stuff.

I posted this week about my upcoming trip to North America to look at the communication of science via social media. If you missed it, you can read it here.

1) LIFESAVING TOOL: Freedom thanks to @DrMRFrancis for this one. It's an app that blocks the internet so you can concentrate when you need to. You just let the app know how long you need to stay offline and that's it, work away. I think this might be one for the thesis writers!

2) ONLINE DISCUSSION: The #NASINTERFACE discussion on trust in science
This roundtable discussion with academics and journalists looked at aspects of trust and public perceptions of science. There were some interesting side conversations on Twitter and you can view the talks online. It was focused on the life sciences (just to add some context).

3) VIDEO: The video from the #NASINTERFACE discussion



 
4) EVENT: Codethecity Aberdeen is back 20-21 June theme, ENVIRONMENT
No need to know anything about coding to get involved. Just a will to make the city better and create potential solutions to problems. It's free, the people involved are fantastic. Make some new friends.
 
5) ARTICLE: Digital storytelling revives the art of gossip by Katherine May in Aeon this week. Because we all know gossip is good for you.
 
6) BLOG: Len Fisher Science. I always enjoy the blog posts from Len Fisher. This post is about the discovery of heat. Titled 'Seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought'. His posts are always snappy and extremely thought provoking
 
7) OFFLINE: I got very excited about the almost, very nearly, last episode of Mad Men. I've loved following the show from the 1950s into the 1970s. It's incredible to see how much things have changed in the workplace since then and how much hasn't. The US was changing at such an incredible rate at that time. Of course the clothes are amazing too.

8) PHOTO: On Monday I had the day off. I spent the day at home catching up and organising my upcoming trip to the US. It did mean I got to spend the day with my pet rabbits Coco and Pop. They spent most of the morning hiding in this box.

 

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