272 posts · 289,532 views
I am a freelance science writer based in Cambridge, England, I trained as a chemist and am a chartered member of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Currently, I write for several magazines and websites on science, technology and medicine, covering everything from astronomy to zoology, with a special focus on all things chemical, which includes materials, pharma, nano, analytical sciences.
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- March 9, 2009
- 09:00 AM
- 1,162 views
183 Meta Tag Generators
by David Bradley in Sciencetext
Meta tag generators used to be all the rage among webmasters hoping to boost the search engine rankings.
Search engines do not attach as much importance to these hidden keyword and description tags as they once did, but that is no reason not to make sure your website as properly marked up behind the scenes as [...]Post from: David Bradley's Sciencetext Tips and Tricks
183 Meta Tag Generators... Read more »
Badawia M. Albassuny. (2008) Automatic metadata generation applications: a survey study . Int. J. Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies, 3(4), 260-282.
- March 9, 2009
- 09:00 AM
- 1,370 views
Baffling Fluid Dynamics
by sciencebase in Sciencebase Science Blog
During my student days, one of the most obviously complicated and beyond-comprehension modules was that on fluid dynamics. It’s not surprising that it was complicated and beyond comprehension, the way fluids (gases and liquids by definition) move is not simple.
There is no single, straightforward equation that can describe the flow of water cascading down waterfall. [...]Post from: Sciencebase Science Blog... Read more »
M. Toumi, M. Bouazara, & M.J. Richard. (2008) Analytical and numerical analysis of the liquid longitudinal sloshing impact on a partially filled tank-vehicle with and without baffles. International Journal of Vehicle Systems Modelling and Testing, 3(3), 229-249.
- February 25, 2009
- 08:00 AM
- 1,093 views
Developing Health
by sciencebase in Sciencebase Science Blog
Compulsory licensing is one of those euphemisms that hide a whole raft of issues. By definition - it is “authorisation to a government or company to make and sell a pharmaceutical drug without the permission of the patent holder”, which makes the intent clear.
In its most obvious form, compulsory licensing is what occurs when a [...]Post from: Sciencebase Science Blog... Read more »
Sagarika Chakraborty, & Angira Singhvi. (2009) Compulsory licensing for access to medicines in the developing world. Int J IIntellectual Property Management, 3(2), 110-126.
- February 23, 2009
- 08:00 AM
- 1,355 views
Dynamic Quality Control for the Web
by David Bradley in Sciencetext
At the end of January, Google flagged up all websites on the internet as containing malware. Apparently, it was a human error in that someone had a slash on the database and it dampened the search engine’s output. I reported on the issue from Sciencetext and via Twitter until the problem was resolved and Google [...]Post from: David Bradley's Sciencetext Tips and Tricks
Dynamic Quality Control for the Web... Read more »
Surya B. Yadav. (2008) Automation of webpage quality determination . Int. J. Information Quality, 2(2), 152-176.
- February 20, 2009
- 08:00 AM
- 1,348 views
Whatever Happened to SARS?
by sciencebase in Sciencebase Science Blog
In 2004, I did some reportage for the Royal Society from their meeting on emerging viral infections. The meeting was held just after the worldwide SARS outbreak that threw nations into chaos and had the more susceptible parts of the media hyping the end of the world. Of course, SARS, an emerging pathogen, was lethal [...]Post from: Sciencebase Science Blog... Read more »
Yi-Chun Lin. (2009) Impact of the spread of infectious disease on economic development: a study in risk management. Int. J. Risk Assess. Manage., 11(3/4), 209-218.
- February 13, 2009
- 08:00 AM
- 1,251 views
R&D People Matter
by sciencebase in Sciencebase Science Blog
In the long-gone days of my Catalyst column on the original ChemWeb.com, I wrote about how R&D was becoming a distributed endeavour. It was going the way of large-scale data problems that are best solved using a distributed computing environment, or Grid. Now, roughly a decade later, it seems the management of globally dispersed R&D [...]Post from: Sciencebase Science Blog... Read more »
Hans J. Thamhain. (2009) Managing globally dispersed R. International Journal of Information Technology and Management, 8(1), 107. DOI: 10.1504/IJITM.2009.022273
- February 11, 2009
- 07:28 AM
- 936 views
Was Silverback Mountain to Blame for Lice in Your Nest?
by David Bradley in SciScoop Science Forum
Why are there two types of lice that afflict people - head lice and pubic lice? The answer came to scientist Robert Weiss of University College London, England, while he was taking a shower and thinking about gorillas in the mist.... Read more »
Robin A Weiss. (2009) Apes, lice and prehistory. Journal of Biology, 8(2), 20. DOI: 10.1186/jbiol114
- February 9, 2009
- 08:00 AM
- 1,355 views
Who Has Your Vote?
by David Bradley in Sciencetext
Identity theft is on the increase, but it’s not only your bank account and private life you have to worry about, what about your vote?
Jungwoo Ryoo of The Pennsylvania State University-Altoona, and colleagues explain that as governments gradually migrate to web-based electronic systems for voting, lobbying, and interacting with politicians, criminals and those seeking to [...]Post from: David Bradley's Sciencetext Tips and Tricks
Who Has Your Vote?... Read more »
Jungwoo Ryoo, Tae Hwan Oh, Seungjae Shin, & Young B. Choi. (2009) A comprehensive readiness assessment framework for identity theft safeguards in web-based electronic government systems. Electronic Government, An International Journal, 6(1), 19-40.
- February 6, 2009
- 08:00 AM
- 1,151 views
Online Health in the Developing World
by sciencebase in Sciencebase Science Blog
Following on from Monday’s post about health information on twitter, it seemed a nice coincidence that I came across a research paper focusing on healthcare information available in the developing world.
The web is still relatively young and yet many people can barely remember a time when they could not simply click a mouse and gain [...]Post from: Sciencebase Science Blog... Read more »
Mahinda Kommalage, & Anoj Thabrew. (2008) The use of websites for disseminating health information in developing countries: an experience from Sri Lanka. Int. J. Electronic Healthcare, 4(3/4), 327-338.
- January 30, 2009
- 08:00 AM
- 1,151 views
Green Mercury Light Bulbs
by sciencebase in Sciencebase Science Blog
With regulations set to ban incandescent light bulbs, the illuminating invention we’ve used since the nineteenth century, a replacement is needed. LEDs hold promise but are dim compared with the bulbs they seek to replace. Compact fluorescent tubes, are a bright idea. They are essentially a miniaturised version of the strip lighting by which shoppers [...]Post from: Sciencebase Science Blog... Read more »
Iman A. Al-Saleh. (2009) Health implications of mercury exposure in children. International Journal of Environment and Health, 3(1), 22-57.
- January 28, 2009
- 08:00 AM
- 1,109 views
Autism Saliva Test
by sciencebase in Sciencebase Science Blog
I recently reported on the spit test being developed for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It’s in the very early stages of development (this is not an antenatal test), but the details were certainly of interest to the target audience on the SpecNOW site.
Of course, the mainstream media picked up on the news of the possibility [...]Post from: Sciencebase Science Blog... Read more »
Massimo Castagnola, Irene Messana, Rosanna Inzitari, Chiara Fanali, Tiziana Cabras, Alessandra Morelli, Anna Maria Pecoraro, Giovanni Neri, Maria Giulia Torrioli, & Fiorella Gurrieri. (2008) Hypo-Phosphorylation of Salivary Peptidome as a Clue to the Molecular Pathogenesis of Autism Spectrum Disorders. Journal of Proteome Research, 7(12), 5327-5332. DOI: 10.1021/pr8004088
- January 26, 2009
- 04:03 AM
- 1,034 views
Catching Obesity
by sciencebase in Sciencebase Science Blog
Research suggests that a highly infectious virus might be behind some cases of obesity. There is constant talk of an epidemic of overweight in the developed world. Overindulgence, lack of exercise, sedentary lifestyles are usually blamed. Occasionally, the words genetics or glands are mentioned, but rarely is the obesity epidemic thought of as a disease [...]Post from: Sciencebase Science Blog... Read more »
Miloni A. Rathod, Pamela M. Rogers, Sharada D. Vangipuram, Emily J. McAllister, & Nikhil V. Dhurandhar. (2009) Adipogenic Cascade Can Be Induced Without Adipogenic Media by a Human Adenovirus. Obesity. DOI: 10.1038/oby.2008.630
- January 21, 2009
- 08:00 AM
- 1,176 views
Hand Over the Keys for Greater Security
by David Bradley in Sciencetext
Microsoft Internet Explorer. Mozilla Firefox. Two tools for browsing the web. One, MSIE, shrouded in Microsoft’s corporate secrecy. The other, FF, developed as open source software. Which do you think is the most vulnerable to security threats, which is a major target of hackers, and which has to be “patched” the most often to prevent [...]Post from: David Bradley's Sciencetext Tips and Tricks
Hand Over the Keys for Greater Security... Read more »
Joseph Heili, & Jean-Mathias Heraud. (2009) To prevent them from entering, provide the keys. International Journal of Information Technology and Management, 8(1), 19-32.
- January 19, 2009
- 08:00 AM
- 1,580 views
Don’t Waste Your Time on Social Media
by David Bradley in Sciencetext
Social media was the buzzphrase of 2008, it was “web 2.0″ before that, but that sounded way too geeky to catch on with most users and is soooo mid-noughties. So, is social media dead and buried and the semantic web just about to reach its peak? Probably not quite yet.
What do we mean by social [...]Post from: David Bradley's Sciencetext Tips and Tricks
Don’t Waste Your Time on Social Media... Read more »
Nikos Manouselis, & Constantina Costopoulou. (2008) marService: multiattribute utility recommendation for e-markets. International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 33(2/3), 176. DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2008.021940
- January 19, 2009
- 08:00 AM
- 1,243 views
Transplant Spectroscopy
by sciencebase in Sciencebase Science Blog
Yellow and black bile were considered by the ancients as two of the four vital humours of the human body along with phlegm and blood. Ancient and mediaeval Greco-Roman alternative medicine. Imbalances in these humours caused illness. The Greek names for the terms gave rise to the words “choler” (bile) [the prefix in cholesterol, of [...]Post from: Sciencebase Science Blog... Read more »
Iola F. Duarte, Cristina Legido-Quigley, David A. Parker, Jonathan R. Swann, Manfred Spraul, Ulrich Braumann, Ana M. Gil, Elaine Holmes, Jeremy K. Nicholson, Gerard M. Murphy.... (2009) Identification of metabolites in human hepatic bile using 800 MHz 1H NMR spectroscopy, HPLC-NMR/MS and UPLC-MS. Molecular BioSystems. DOI: 10.1039/b814426e
- January 6, 2009
- 08:00 AM
- 1,544 views
Tracking Online Trails
by David Bradley in Sciencetext
No one likes cookies, we all want to keep our privacy sacred, and we certainly hate to be tracked every virtual movement. But, there are times when tracking online trails can be to the public good - when traceability is…Post from: David Bradley's Sciencetext Tips and Tricks
Tracking Online Trails... Read more »
Man Qi, Denis Edgar-Nevill, Yongquan Wang, & Rongsheng Xu. (2008) Tracking online trails. Int. J. Electronic Security and Digital Forensics, 1(4), 353-361.
- January 5, 2009
- 08:00 AM
- 1,424 views
Reflecting on Climate Change
by sciencebase in Sciencebase Science Blog
A radical plan to curb global warming and apparently reverse climate change caused by our rampant burning of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution would involve simply covering large areas of the world’s deserts with reflective sheeting.
The idea is discussed in detail in the January issue of the International Journal of Global Environmental Issues and [...]
Reflecting on Climate Change... Read more »
Takayuki Toyama, & Alan Stainer. (2009) Cosmic Heat Emission concept to 'stop' global warming. International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, 9(1/2), 151. DOI: 10.1504/IJGENVI.2009.022093
- December 16, 2008
- 08:00 AM
- 1,759 views
Addicting Games
by David Bradley in Sciencetext
Tech writer and web designer Wayne Smallman has been discussing whether video games are good or bad for kids and has kicked up something of a magnetic traffic storm into the bargain. Earlier this year, Allan Reiss and colleagues at…... Read more »
W Boot, A Kramer, D Simons, M Fabiani, & G Gratton. (2008) The effects of video game playing on attention, memory, and executive control. Acta Psychologica, 129(3), 387-398. DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2008.09.005
- December 9, 2008
- 12:00 PM
- 1,525 views
NoScript Online Wine Shopping
by David Bradley in Sciencetext
I drink a lot of wine…not too much, I’m not quite a connoisseur, but not plain sloshed either (Fawlty Towers circa 1975). I’m also hoping that polyphenolic antioxidants are helping with the excess saturated fat in my diet too.
Anyway, I had…... Read more »
Michael J. Sheridan, Joseph Cazier, & Douglas May. (2009) Leisure, wine and the internet: exploring the factors that impact the purchase of wine online. Int. J. Electronic Marketing and Retailing, 2(3), 284-297.
- December 8, 2008
- 05:32 AM
- 1,795 views
Search Engine Marketing for Non-profits
by David Bradley in Sciencetext
We hear a lot about search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing/management (SEM), white hats, gray hats, and black hats for those hoping to exploit the internet to boost their bank balance, which is fair enough. But, there are organizations…... Read more »
Dave McMahon, & Charla Griffy-Brown. (2009) Developing an effective and affordable search engine marketing strategy for nonprofits. Int. J. Internet Marketing and Advertising, 5(1/2), 113-130.
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