Author Archives: Joe

Labour’s Corbyn election – ten thoughts.

Riiiight so both Corbyn and Angela Eagle can run for Labour Leader, so the election’s on. Labour’s turn to agonise about runners, riders, the gap between party members, the MPs who they volunteer for, and the public who might (or … Continue reading

Posted in Activism, Blog | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

On schools testing

Schools testing has been in the news again recently… are SATS etc useful objective measures of a school’s performance? Or do they add unnecessary stress and bureaucracy? Well I think we can all agree more objectivity and less stress are … Continue reading

Posted in Activism, Blog | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Why aren’t we benchmarking bioinformatics?

Talk presented at the #bench16 (benchmarking) symposium at KCL, London, Wed 20th April 2016. Funded by the SSI. Slides (Slideshare – cc-by-nd) Tweet this Digg Post to LinkedIn Slashdot Stumble This

Posted in Publications, Science, Talks | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

More MinION – the ‘1D rapid’ prep

My last MinION post described our first experiments with this really cool new technology. I mentioned then that their standard library prep was fairly involved, and we heard that the manufacturers, Oxford Nanopore, were working on a faster, simpler library prep. We … Continue reading

Posted in Science | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Copying LOADS of files from a folder of LOADS *AND* LOADS more in OSX

Quick one this, as it’s a tricky problem I keep having to Google/SO. So I’m posting here for others but mainly myself too! Here’s the situation: you have a folder (with, ooh, let’s say 140,000 separate MinION reads, for instance…) … Continue reading

Posted in Coding, Science | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

How to fake an OSX theme appearance in Linux Ubuntu MATE

I’ve recently been fiddling about and trying to fake an OSX-style GUI appearance in Linux Ubuntu MATE (15.04). This is partly because I prefer the OSX GUI (let’s be honest) and partly because most of my colleagues are also Mac … Continue reading

Posted in Blog, Coding, Science | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Messing about with the MinION

Molecular phylogenetics – uncovering the history of evolution using signals in organisms’ genetic sequences – is a powerful science, the latest expression of the human desire to understand our common origins. But for all its achievements, I’d always felt something … Continue reading

Posted in Science | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Real-time Phylogenomics

General science talk about the potential of real-time phylogenomics, delivered at the Jodrell Lecture Theatre, Kew Gardens, November 2nd 2015 Slides [SlideShare]: cc-by-nc-nd Tweet this Digg Post to LinkedIn Slashdot Stumble This

Posted in Publications, Science, Talks | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cheat on your exams

Had a heated discussion with a friend the other day. I went to a school, where ‘exam techniques’ were part of the standard toolkit given to students to get them the best possible grades at GCSE, A-levels, and beyond. She … Continue reading

Posted in Science | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

An appalling, terrible, borderline-criminal proposal from Westminster Council

I’ve just seen the proposal from Westminster Council on a section of the Quietway Grid in their patch from Covent Garden to Waterloo Bridge. A patch, lest we forget that’s used by a lot of bikes: I’m really pushed for time … Continue reading

Posted in Activism, Cycling | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment