The stars are beautiful to look at and even more beautiful to photograph. We take an in-depth look at how to do so with this complete guide to astrophotography. We humans have been looking at the sky in wonder since the dawn of time. And if you’ve seen these amazing astronomy photos, you may even […] … learn more→
Shooting stars: Your complete guide to Astrophotography
Pint of Science: Sips of science for everyone
Systematically practiced in the scientific world, communication is a central, complex exercise that responds to codes specific to the academic world, with specificities from one discipline to another. True “caudine forks” of research, symposia, conferences, congresses, national, European or international level require to transmit complex knowledge, sometimes the fruit of long years of research, in just […] … learn more→
Gender studies banned at university – the Hungarian government’s latest attack on equality
After several months of tensions between the government and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungarian academics are once again up in arms, after the academy banned two conference presentations on what many are claiming to be purely political grounds. According to the Hungarian Free Press, one of the talks, which looked at the under-representation of women in the computer […] … learn more→
Writing recommendation letters is a courtesy, not an obligation
Are academics obliged to write letters of recommendation for students even if they abhor what the student in question is applying to do? That question is raised by the recent case of John Cheney-Lippold, a University of Michigan academic who refused to support a student’s application to a study abroad programme in Israel because of […] … learn more→
It’s naive to think college athletes have time for school
From my first day as a sociology professor at a university with a Division I football and men’s basketball team, education and athletics struck me as being inherently at odds. Student-athletes filled my courses to take advantage of the fact that the classes met early in the morning. The football and men’s basketball players – most of […] … learn more→
College madness: A “fist bump” is sexual harassment
In our “criminal justice” system, being convicted of a sex crime is a permanent mark of shame. Lay hands on a girl one day shy of her 18th birthday, or equally molest an infant, and forever more you’re branded a “sexual predator,” and your neighbors are notified as such whenever you move. That label is […] … learn more→
A voice from the precariat
You can often find me on the edge of things. For the most part it’s where I choose to be. When you do find me in the thick of it, it’s invariably when thinking and speaking collide fuelled by feeling and I really ought to remain silent. But my current state of in-betweenness feeds on […] … learn more→
Check for ‘code words’ – revising your writing
It is not uncommon for doctoral writers to get supervisor feedback saying they need to unpack an idea. But what does this unpack really mean – and how does a writer get in a situation where they have something that needs to be unpacked? Well. Let me start with the last question first of all. How do […] … learn more→
“Everyone goes down”: why I chose to talk about science at the theater
Curious by nature, I have always been passionate about science. During my studies, it seemed natural to me to turn to research. Like the majority of doctoral students, my enthusiasm has been somewhat shaken by the reality of the laboratory, between the experiments that do not work, the hypotheses swept over after several months of experimentation, as […] … learn more→
The glass box: a law teacher’s experience of structural discrimination
I work in a glass box. In higher education, as elsewhere, the cultural barriers to workplace progression for women, often referred to as the glass ceiling, are well reported. The glass floor of the box, one the other hand, is less common, and stems from my discipline – law. In legal education there tends to […] … learn more→