My library is hosting a Ada Lovelace Day event tomorrow (ok, a little late…). Continuing in a tradition of having Women in Science Wikipedia Edit-a-thons, we’re hosting our own Wikipedia Women in Science Edit-a-thon! I’ve been doing a fair bit of reading over the last couple of years about Wikipedia culture and especially how it relates to the under-representation...

As you can all imagine, I’m quite pleased to see the backside of the Harper government on their way out the door. Of course, the Liberals have promised a lot but only time will tell how serious they are about fixing the science-related stuff that they’ve promised to fix. I’ll definitely be watching that and keeping track here on the blog somehow somewhere. That...

Serving the Reich: The Struggle for the Soul of Physics under Hitler by Philip Ball and Planck: Driven by Vision, Broken by War by Brandon R. Brown are two of the best history of science books I’ve read in a very long time. And even though they’re both about World War II, some seventy years in the past, they’ve both also very topical because they are...

Though not explicitly tied to our current federal election campaign, the début this week of the Science Integrity Project and the publishing of their Statement of Principles for Sound Decision Making in Canada just as the campaign heats up is surely not coincidental. In any case, election or not, this is a wonderful initiative and I support it wholeheartedly....

It’s tempting to go a couple of different ways here. A book that has “Insanely Great” in the title? What could possibly go wrong? On the other hand…. A kids book about what a jerk Steve Jobs was. What could possibly go wrong? Steve Jobs: Insanely Great by Jessie Hartland. An illustrated biography of Steve Jobs aimed at a younger audience which gives...

One of the real highlights for me every year is the late-summer announcement of the Lane Anderson Awards short list. From their website here: Today, we are excited to announce the finalists for the best Canadian science books written in 2014. Our jury panels evaluated submissions in two categories – adult and young readers. They arrived at their shortlist...