Nothing shocks me, I'm a scientist

Out soon in paperback!

2012-01-12T11:20:00.005Z

If you missed out on reading Geek Nation last year because you're not keen on hardbacks, or they're a bit too expensive for you, or you prefer a book you can fit in your pocket or your bag, then you'll be delighted to know that it will be out in the shops in paperback in exactly three weeks' time (or in May if you happen not to live in Europe). American readers may also be pleased to hear that it will be available Stateside too for the first time in May.

The cover is a funky mash-up of the Asian hardback and some of the colours from the European version, and on the back you will find a fetching little portrait of me looking especially geeky. There will be a few more events and signings this year, so please keep an eye on the events page of my website for more details. Have a Happy 2012!

Could our streets make us happier?

2011-12-31T15:01:00.009Z

Living in London these days, you can't help but notice how aggressive the city seems to have become. Cyclists hate drivers, drivers hate cyclists, pedestrians hate cyclists and drivers, and everyone who's not on a bus hates buses. We just don't seem to be very happy on our streets. Sadder still, we've taken for granted that there's not a lot we can do about it.

Well, that was until now. For the last few months I've been asking traffic engineers and scientists whether it's possible to rebuild the streets in a way that might make us safer, happier and generally nicer people. One answer is an increasingly popular (if controversial) concept known as Shared Space, which is a way of designing streets without segregating road users. Essentially, everyone is encouraged to use the same street at the same time... there are no pavements as such. Pioneered in Holland, it seems to be working over there by slowing down drivers and making all road users more aware of each other. And it's since been imported all over the world. The most high-profile British Shared Space project is almost finished in London's famous museum district on Exhibition Road (in the photo).

Another solution to maddening traffic junctions is the "scramble crossing", seen in Tokyo and now at Oxford Circus in London. I live very close to this crossing, and have to say, I love it. The traffic lights are still there (it's not a Shared Space) but now pedestrians can cross diagonally as well as on the sides, making it simpler to get from one corner to another.

If you'd like to know more about this and other research into the future of smarter streets, then tune in to hear me on BBC Radio 4 at 9pm on Tuesday 3rd January. There are loads of mind-bending ideas packed into the half-hour show. In fact, since making it, I've been looking at the roads around me with totally fresh eyes... Why is the kerb at that particular height? Why do we have traffic lights? Why do we need signs to tell us to go slower? It may sound nerdy, but it's one of the most fascinating topics I've worked on, so please listen in and let me know your thoughts.

A lot of cooking later...

2011-12-29T10:14:00.007Z

We had a bottle of sloe gin, two jars of mango chutney, three jars of sweet chilli jam (below), a tin of biscotti (above), a jar of peanut butter fudge and a tin of florentines... phew. My husband and I decided to get into the holiday spirit this year by making our presents ourselves (for reasons explained in an earlier post). And even though it was damn hard work, you'll be happy to know they went down a storm. Join the revolution and try making your own stuff! Let me know about it too.

Watch out, my blood and sweat is in there. Yum.

London Science Book Club 6

2011-12-07T15:16:00.003Z

Tuesday was the latest meeting of the London Science Book Club (now officially a year old!), and our pick was Supercooperators, out just this year by mathematical biologist, Martin Nowak, and former New Scientist editor, Roger Highfield. It being almost Christmas, this was the perfect touchy-feely tome our group needed to get us into the spirit. I've often heard friends of mine (usually bankers) claim that selfishness is programmed into our genes, to justify bad behaviour and greed. In fact, as Nowak's research proves, there is a good case to be made that cooperation has played a vital part in evolution. Essentially, his argument is that "natural cooperation" is as important as Darwin's idea of natural selection.

There's a lot in the book that our group had heard before, and some of it a long time ago: I was already familiar, for example, with the Prisoner's Dilemma and the Tragedy of the Commons, which are both fleshed out in detail in Supercooperators. But Nowak's trick is to frame familiar ideas like these in the world of biology. We all found his argument compelling, and Highfield had also done a brilliant job of illustrating the science in a way that's fun to read. The real pleasures of this book are the anecdotes and the glimpse you get into the everyday life of a scientist. For at least one of our group, it was the favourite book club pick of the year.

My homemade Christmas

2011-11-25T12:07:00.008Z

I live very close to one of London's busiest shopping streets and over the years this has made me nervous of Christmas. I've learned to hate the elbow-poking crowds with their fists full of plastic bags, so rude that they'd kick a grandmother to grab the last bargain. Which is why, this year, my husband and I are making all our presents ourselves. We're baking, gluing, cutting and picking everything from scratch (or as close to scratch as possible). I would tell you what we're making, but for the sake of surprise I'm keeping the actual gifts a secret for now. I'll let you know how it went after 25th December. Suffice to say, it's hard work but satisfying.

What got me thinking about all this in the first place was an exhibition and debate on making and crafting at the V&A a little while ago. It inspired me to write a piece for the BBC Radio 4 show, Four Thought, about why I'm a late adopter to technology. I'm of course in favour of scientific and technological progress, but when it comes to buying new gadgets (or any new things actually), I feel uncomfortable about throwing my old stuff away. This may be one reason I'd rather fix things or make them if I can. If you'd like to hear more of my thoughts on this, then tune into Radio 4 on 30th November at 8.45pm. I'd love to know what you, both my blog readers, think too.

(And if you'd rather not make your own presents and are looking for something to gift, then The Independent has just named Geek Nation one of their best science books for Christmas. There are even a few signed copies available at the magnificent Foyles bookstore on Charing Cross Road... just sayin'...).

The Right to Information revolution

2011-11-09T10:09:00.004Z

In the second of my two special radio items from India following massive anti-corruption protests there this summer (the first being an episode of Discovery on electronic governance), this week I'm on Click talking about Right to Information. This is a legislative act passed around six years ago that requires the Indian government to give citizens whatever data they want about how the country is run... as tiny as the decisions behind pupil admissions at a school, to as major as which politicians are diddling their expenses.

Just like freedom of information powers in other countries, Right to Information has been called the most powerful piece of legislation in Indian government history. And a glance at the newspapers in any given week will explain why: it's exposed enormous scandals and empowered millions of ordinary people. In this week's Click on the BBC World Service, I explore how this new generation of information activists are using the Internet and social networking to squeeze maximum benefit out of the act and helping to reduce corruption. Tune in or listen to the podcast here.

India's bureaucracy goes digital

2011-10-31T13:29:00.007Z

Living in Britain, I've always been sceptical of public sector IT projects. If you'd like to know why, you need only monitor the progress of government efforts to move NHS paper medical records onto a national computer network. Not only did the projected costs of this spiral past £11 billion, but in the end the idea was shelved altogether. So when I learned that India was trying to shift its entire bureaucracy online (and bear in mind, this is one of the biggest and most tangled bureaucracies on the planet), I'll admit, it sounded like a white elephant waiting to appear.

In the course of writing Geek Nation, though, and now having done a feature for the BBC World Service science series Discovery about electronic governance in India... my mind has been changed. Although there have been pitfalls along the way, India is slowly and successfully digitising every scrap of paper in its bureaucratic ministries and regional government departments from land records all the way down to birth certificates. It's even rolling out a national biometric identity scheme (photo above), with the aim of processing a whopping million people a day. And much of this is thanks to India harnessing its legions of skilled IT professionals. It's transforming the lives of ordinary people by making government more accessible, transparent and less corrupt. Don't believe me? Then tune into the BBC World Service tonight at 7.30pm.

London Science Book Club 5

2011-10-12T21:24:00.008+01:00

Tonight was the latest meeting of the London Science Book Club, and our pick was Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear by Canada-based journalist, Dan Gardner. It's essentially a book about the way we misuse and misinterpret statistics, in areas as broad as breast cancer occurrence and fears around nuclear power. It's full of wonderful snatches of research, particularly by the psychologists Kahneman and Tversky, who ran some famous experiments trying to understand why and how people make errors. And it will make you think very differently about the stats you hear about in the news. One funny example I read recently, proving how easy it is for people to blind us with numbers is this: When Elvis Presley died in 1977, there were 37 Elvis impersonators in the world. By 1993, there were 48,000. So extrapolating, every 3rd person will be an Elvis impersonator by 2010. This is ridiculous of course, yet it's the kind of thing that happens in news reports all the time.

Risk also happens to be well-written and beautifully researched, if a little more focused on examples than human stories. The only thing missing, a couple of us noted, was some deeper explanation of why humans behave so irrationally when it comes to some fears. Having read Antonio Damasio's book Descartes' Error in our first book club, we were all aware of the neuroscience of behaviour and how it has shaped our understanding of what it means to be human - with all our faults. Is there something about odds that we just can't seem to grasp? Are we just a bit thick, or is there more at play?

In all though, a big thumbs up for Risk! We really enjoyed it.

Also, some good news for new members: Owing to work and family commitments, we have had a couple of people drop out of our small club. So if you're based near London and would be willing to get together with us once every two months over a good non-fiction science book, then please send me an email or a tweet (contact details available here).

Final book talk of the year

2011-10-05T12:11:00.005+01:00

By my reckoning, I have done 21 book talks and literary festivals on three continents for Geek Nation this year. Now, the last one is approaching. And it's in Sheffield. The Off the Shelf literary festival starts this weekend and my part will be played on Monday night, with an illustrated talk at the Showroom Cinema at 7pm. Since it's a special occasion, I'll be giving away a free signed copy of Geek Nation to the best question from the audience. So book your tickets now (or get them on the door on Monday)!

In other news, Geek Nation will be out in paperback in Europe in February with a fresh cover (above). Well, actually, it's the Asian cover slightly remixed, but it looks super cool. If you'd like to be one of the first to get your hands on a copy, you can pre-order it now on Amazon UK.

Mathematics in the dock

2011-10-03T16:54:00.009+01:00

A few years ago I met a mathematician called Norman Fenton at Queen Mary, University of London, who told me about the disturbing problem of miscarriages of justice happening in British courts because jurors, judges and lawyers were failing to understand statistics. The most famous case in recent years is that of of Sally Clark, who was sent to jail for killing her two young children, before mathematics proved that it was likelier that they were both victims of cot death. The solution to bad statistics like this sometimes comes in the form of Bayes' Theorem, a formula that forensic scientists use to calculate the odds of one event given the prior odds of other related events. Number-crunching evidence using Bayesian reasoning, Fenton said, was a much more accurate way of assessing a suspect's guilt (in fact with one of his colleagues, he invented a piece of software that does all this number crunching for you).

But while lots of mathematicians support the use of Bayesian reasoning in courts, judges have historically shown a hostility to formulae for fear of confusing jurors. Explaining Bayes' Theorem to people isn't easy, even with diagrams. Fenton has been an expert witness in some high-profile trials, including that of murderer Levi Bellfield back in 2007, and he knows first hand just how easy it is for people (including scientists) to misinterpret forensic evidence. So I ended up writing a feature about our encounter for New Scientist in 2009, explaining the common statistical fallacies that happen in courts, and how they might be avoided.

Then last year, in an appeal case known as RvT (the redacted judgment is available here), a High Court judge effectively ruled that Bayes' Theorem can't be used at all except in limited circumstances, such as with DNA evidence. Experts have told me on and off the record that this could lead to many more miscarriages of justice in the future. It has sent shockwaves through the forensic science community. Fenton has been so concerned by the ruling that he is forming a research group to figure a way to get this mathematical tool back in the courts. If you'd like to read more about the whole story, check out my feature in The Guardian today.

For anyone who would like to investigate the issue more deeply, there has been a spate of academic publications recently looking at it, including this draft paper by Fenton and his colleague Martin Neil, one in the Criminal Law Review by Redmayne, Roberts, Aitken and Jackson, and a paper in Science & Justice by Berger, Buckleton, Champod and Evett.

How useful are makers to manufacturing?

2011-10-01T08:11:00.019+01:00

If you're in London anytime during the rest of this year, I strongly recommend you get yourself down to the Victoria & Albert Museum in South Kensington because they have a brilliant exhibition celebrating the power of making, crafting, tinkering and fixing. Curator Daniel Charny has assembled a little bit of everything, from enormous artistic makes, to the ingenious ministerial Red Box (the lock is at the bottom so you can never forget to close it) and personal 3D printers.

I was there last night to see the exhibits and then take part in a panel debate about manufacturing, organised as part of the Battle of Ideas. And to my surprise, it became a pretty heated discussion (and not just because the room had no air conditioning). James Woudhuysen, professor of forecasting and innovation at De Montfort University, said that knitters, crafters and individual makers had no value in real manufacturing because the scale at which they work is just too small. And this left Sandy Black, professor of fashion & textile design & technology at the University of the Arts London, having to defend people who work in sustainable fashion. Meanwhile I was somewhere in the middle: I'm an advocate for big scientific projects and industrial-scale technology, but at the same time I really can see the value in individual makers. Not only are they one end of a manufacturing spectrum that includes all inventors, but they help nurture a culture that values products as more than disposable engines of economic growth.

Claire Fox, the director of the Institute of Ideas, which organised this entire debate series, commented that she neither had the time nor inclination to fix things. But while I don't want to force people to knit their own clothes or mend their own toasters, one aspect of maker culture that I think everyone should experience at least once is the satisfaction that comes from fixing something. I was taught to sew, knit and do DIY by my parents, and I still get a buzz from stretching the lifespan of stuff I own by repairing it, or transforming some piece of clothing with a little imagination. Whether it's driven by necessity or desire, making satisfies a human urge. We are a creative species.

So try it for yourself just once. Make something. You'll love it, I promise.

Festival fun in Delhi

2011-09-27T16:09:00.004+01:00

I'm in New Delhi right now, courtesy of The Hindu newspaper's Lit for Life festival, which was at the weekend. It was really good fun, thanks mostly to the other authors on my panel, Mukul Deva and Anuja Chauhan, who are both bestselling fiction writers here. Thank you to all the Geek Nation fans who turned up. If you'd like to see coverage of the event, check out the The Hindu's website (the photo above of me doing my usual weird hand-waving while I talk is from Monday's newspaper, taken by Rajeev Bhatt).

On Friday I'll be back in London and part of a panel debate at the Victoria and Albert Museum about manufacturing, hosted by the Institute of Ideas. It's free and you don't even need to book a place, so why not come along if you happen to be in the Big Smoke.

What happened to higher education?

2011-09-22T16:56:00.006+01:00

When I was at university, a long time ago, tuition fees had just been introduced in England. They were pretty low but enough to have us students up in arms that suddenly higher education was no longer free. Worse than that, it felt as though young people were being penalised for wanting to learn and train to become more productive citizens. Today, things are even worse. We have higher fees and British universities are threatened with closure because of government spending cuts. Meanwhile, in Asia, new universities are being built as I write.

I was asked to write about this topic recently by University Alliance, an organisation that represents universities who are tightly engaged with business and industry recently, which has been producing a report about the value of graduates to economic growth. It may sound obvious, but in a time of huge cuts these things need to be spelled out. You can take a look at my take here, and also those of other contributors, including the legendary Sir Patrick Stewart (yes, from Star Trek).

Geek Nation now out in Zhongwen

2011-09-16T17:59:00.004+01:00

I've just got back from a three-day visit to Yorkshire for the British Science Festival, which was this year held in the salubrious city of Bradford. Last night I ended the trip in Otley to take part in their Science Cafe. Big thanks to Ruth Wilson from the UKRC, Farrah Nazir from the British Science Festival, Alom Shaha who kindly conversed with me for a Geek Nation event at Waterstones on Wednesday night, Marty Jopson from the Otley Science Festival for hosting me, and all the other wonderful people who turned up and were so nice.

In other news, Geek Nation is now available in Chinese! The Taiwanese publishers have gone with a different cover from the Asian and European editions, but it's funky in its own way. I've been sent five copies by my publishers, which sadly owing to my rudimentary Mandarin reading skills are likely to go to waste. So if you would like one then let me know by leaving a comment below. As long as you can send me a stamped-addressed envelope, you can have a copy for free.

I'm off to New Delhi next week for The Hindu newspaper's Lit for Life festival. I'll be speaking on Sunday morning (25th September), at the Habitat Centre on Lodhi Road. It's free and open to everyone, so hope to see as many of you there as possible.

Could we print body parts?

2011-09-13T10:50:00.006+01:00

Don't get too excited... HP doesn't make bioprinters. This picture is the product of an artist's imagination.

One of the fascinating things about science is how, despite the fact that the public sees scientists as a kind of united force, two respected experts can often hold completely opposing views. Take bioprinting, for example. This is a futuristic technology that has received millions of pounds of research funding in the hope that we will one day be able to print organs, bone and living tissue in the same way that we print fancy plastic objects with 3D printers. I recorded a feature for BBC Click (out this week, listen here) recently for which I interviewed two experts about it. One was from Imperial College London and the other from University College London. The first believed that we are only a decade away from printing living organs, while the second thought it was a near-impossible challenge that may never happen.

There's no denying that bioprinting is an attractive dream. Just imagine all the transplant patients who would be able to roll into surgery and have an organ printed out for them, tailored to their bodies and made using their cultured cells. In reality, though, tissue engineering hasn't been able to grow so much as an ear (you may remember that the famous Vacanti mouse with a living ear growing on its back was really just a piece of ear-shaped cartilage made using a mould). American doctor, Anthony Atala, did manage to reconstruct human bladders about five years ago, but these were built around artificial scaffolds.

Then again, there are lots of technologies around today that people believed would never exist. So if you'd like to form your own opinion on bioprinting, tune into Click on the BBC World Service tonight or listen again online.

Click is ten years old!

2011-08-24T17:41:00.009+01:00

Photo courtesy of Paul Clarke (and that's me on the far left).

Some of you may know that I am one of the reporters on BBC World Service radio's technology show, Click (formerly known as Digital Planet, formerly known as Go Digital). Last night was this wonderful show's tenth birthday and so to celebrate, the BBC organised a special live recording in front of an audience at the radio theatre at Broadcasting House in London. I was kindly asked to be a guest to talk about technology in India, and it was a huge treat. Not only did I get to catch up with Digital Planet alumni, including producer Michelle Martin and presenter Tracey Logan, the audience was also treated to the sight of weekly star contributor Bill Thompson in a very smart tuxedo. Presenter Gareth Mitchell was his usual brilliant self too, as was producer Colin Grant, so if you missed the programme please do make a point of listening to it this week on the radio or online. It's worth it just for the sound of musician Sarah Angliss on the theramin, playing the Click theme tune.

Geeking it up in Edinburgh

2011-08-23T09:41:00.007+01:00

I've wanted to go to the Edinburgh Festival since I was a kid. Last year I managed to catch the fireworks at its tail end, but this year I hit the jackpot and was right there in the heart of the action as a guest of the International Book Festival. My first event, with novelist Siddhartha Deb, was sold out and big fun (including Siddhartha admitting to me afterwards that he's a "failed geek" (!) and promising to buy my book). If you'd like to get a flavour then download this week's Guardian Books podcast, in which we tell Claire Armistead what we think about technology and revolution, especially in light of Anna Hazare's anti-corruption campaign in India.

On Sunday I was thrilled to be on a panel with science superstars Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Keith Campbell, debating the future of science in Scotland (although this did turn into more of a discussion about Dolly the cloned sheep and her siblings). What became clear is that journalists and writers play an important part in both encouraging a scientific culture and making sure the public understand science and technology without being afraid. As Keith mentioned, it's easy to skew the facts, which is why it really helps for writers to have a background in science or engineering. That said, the cultural gulf between the humanities and the sciences must be improving, given the great questions we had and how many people turned up. I hope we get to see even more science represented on the programme in Edinburgh next year.

Other than that, I caught a few shows (including the brilliant Bad Bread), ate a couple of tattie scones, drank some great champagne, and wandered around magnificent Edinburgh. Thank you to everyone who came to see me, bought my book, or said hello.

London Science Book Club 4

2011-08-18T11:34:00.004+01:00

Last night was the latest meeting of the London Science Book Club. It should have happened last week but the London riots put the kibosh on that plan. Only two of us managed to turn up yesterday. Nevertheless, we had a lively discussion and plenty of space on our massive table in the empty cafe.

Our pick for this month was Marcus Chown's Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You. It's a lovely little book (fewer than 200 pages) but it does require your absolute concentration. Quantum theory is perhaps the most difficult and mind-bending of all the sciences, and it's particularly tough to make sense of it without the aid of formulae and diagrams... which makes Chown's achievement all the more impressive. That said, I can't say that we understood everything. One of our group read it twice and still wasn't comfortable with explaining the concepts to someone else. I read it once, and even though I felt more enlightened by the end, I still don't really understand the difference between a fermion and a boson either.

Even so, we would definitely recommend this book to others. It comes closer to explaining quantum physics and cosmology in an accessible way than anything else we've read. Plus it has loads of fun quotes (including a great one from Woody Allen) and footnotes (did you know, for example, that black holes didn't become popular amongst researchers until someone gave them their name?). And it has inspired at least one of our group to read up about quantum theory more deeply and research the lives of characters like Thomas Young (of double-slit experiment fame).

Our next book club pick is Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear by Dan Gardner. So look out for our review in October!

Saving the arcade

2011-08-16T08:56:00.020+01:00

I happen to live not far from the London Trocadero near Leicester Square. And as any young Londoner will know, the Trocadero is famous for its games arcade. I spent my 18th birthday there, back when it was still pretty slick (in fact I played Laser Tag there on my 30th birthday last year too). But sadly, over the years it's slowly degraded into something resembling a scene from Blade Runner. The escalators are frequently broken, the candy-strewn floors stick to your feet, and there are machines shoved into corners where machines should never be. And then about a month ago I learned that the legendary Funland at the heart of the Trocadero had given up the ghost altogether... and closed down.

I can't explain why this left my heart so heavy, because I never went to the arcade anymore anyway. But I felt as though I'd lost something important. And this inspired me to record my latest piece for Click, the technology radio show on the BBC World Service, on the future of the games arcade. Home consoles are so impressive these days that arcade designers have found it tough to keep up. In countries like the UK they're being replaced by slot machines (the crack cocaine of gambling) or being ditched altogether.

But don't despair because big gaming companies, including Sega, as well as a few young upstarts are planning to save the arcade. And they were at the Digital Out-of-Home Interactive Entertainment Conference recently to discuss how. To find out their plans, tune into Click tonight at 7.30pm BST or catch it when it goes online on the BBC website.

Extra news: Next week marks the tenth anniversary of Click (I started reporting for it when it was still called Digital Planet, but before that it was called Go Digital) and the producers are organising a special live show from the fabulous radio theatre at Broadcasting House in London, hosted by the wonderful duo, Gareth Mitchell and Bill Thompson. Among the panel of Click contributors during the show will be me, so please do tune in to the BBC World Service at 7.30pm BST on Tuesday 23rd August.

A free extract... just for you

2011-08-07T23:49:00.008+01:00

It's shaping into a really fun summer. I went to my first Skeptics in the Pub meeting in Camden in London last week to talk about Geek Nation. Many thanks to Sid Rodrigues for the invite and for the brilliant questions, not to mention to everyone who sweated it out in the evening heat, bought a book and laughed at my anecdotes.

I have a few more events lined up this year, including the Edinburgh International Book Festival, the British Science Festival in Bradford, and Sheffield's Off the Shelf Literary Festival. So book your tickets now because I'd love to see you there. And if you'd like to keep up to speed with what's happening around Geek Nation, including photos and press coverage, then please also join the Facebook group (394 fans and counting!).

In the meantime, my amazing publishers have kindly put up a chunky extract from Geek Nation on their website for free. Yes, you read correctly. Not many people know about this, so I'm sharing it with you, my blog readers, because I know you'll appreciate it the most. For access, just click on the extract link on this page or click here to download the PDF directly.

A Baby Bot is born

2011-07-23T21:48:00.011+01:00

Longtime readers of this blog, both of you, will know that I started my career in television (don't judge me), and specifically as a video journalist. I've actually shot more than a hundred short films and news items in my time, and still make time to do a filmmaking assignment or two even when I'm busy writing books. But now, at the urging of some of my clients and friends, I've decided to turn this bit of my career into a fully-fledged enterprise. And the name of this new company is Baby Bot Productions. The focus is on making video and audio, especially if it has something to do with science and technology, for everyone from small websites to giant universities.

It's an exciting new venture for me, so please copy the link and spread the word!

Making do in India

2011-07-19T09:12:00.010+01:00

When I was growing up, I never really noticed how much my parents would make and fix things for themselves. Loads of my dresses were sewn by mum, as were our curtains and pillowcases, and I don't recall a single moment when my dad called in a handyman. I took it for granted that you don't throw stuff away unless you've made every possible attempt to repair it first, and that you leach all possible utility out of every object. I inherited that ethos... I still do a lot of my household DIY and recycle religiously.

But it's only recently that I've discovered what a particularly Indian trait this is. The habit of fixing, tinkering and making do (by hook or by crook) even has its own word: jugaad. And if you'd like to find out more, I've written an article all about it for the India in Transition series for the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania. I'd love to know what you, both my blog readers, think so please do leave your comments here.

Big me and the Little Atoms

2011-07-11T22:44:00.005+01:00

I'm a voracious podcast listener, but I have just a few regular favourites and one of them is Little Atoms. It's the science and ideas show that gets all the best guests, asks all the best questions and guarantees to get you thinking. So goodness only knows why they asked me to be a guest. The topic was of course Geek Nation and the hosts were the wonderful Becky Hogge (who has her own book out soon) and the witty Neil Denny (who made my day when he told me afterwards that my book was "brilliant"). If you'd like to hear the show, which was recorded last Friday, then it will be available on iTunes soon or you can download the MP3 on the Little Atoms website. Sadly we had only half an hour so we didn't get a chance to get into all the fun stuff, but just enough to reveal how I stole sugar from the Infosys campus, when I watched a space rocket launch in Trivandrum, and why I think geekiness is cool.

A world full of boys

2011-07-07T16:05:00.006+01:00

It's rare to read science journalism that is as journalistic as it is scientific, so I was thrilled to get a review copy of Mara Hvistendahl's new book Unnatural Selection this summer. It investigates the shocking phenomenon of sex selection by parents, mainly in Asia, which has created entire regions with far more men than women. I've always been aware of cultural preferences for boys in countries like India and China, but I had little idea that sex-selective abortion and infanticide were so widespread as to leave the world with millions of missing girls. The entire story, from the experience of mothers to the role played by politicians, is as fascinating as it is deeply disturbing. My review is in the latest issue of New Scientist, and I urge you to read the book if you can.

Getting geeky this summer

2011-06-30T12:58:00.005+01:00

Now that the busy publicity tour for Geek Nation is over and life is back to normal, I can look forward to the summer... and nothing says summer like a good old British literature festival. I was at the Asia House Festival in London last month, and next month I'm going to be speaking at The Telegraph Ways with Words event at Dartington Hall (above) near Totnes in Devon. The organisers have imaginatively titled my talk Curry and Chips (get it? like silicon chips?). Tickets are £9, which is total bargain because I'll be giving the audience a rip-roaring tour through cutting-edge India, which will both astonish and educate. So if you're free on Sunday 17th July, get yourself down to the south-west and book a place before it sells out.

In August I'll be in Edinburgh, one of my favourite cities in the world, for the International Books Festival. I'm lucky to be signed up to two events there, so you really have no excuse for not meeting me. The first, on Saturday 20th August, is a discussion about modern India with the acclaimed author, Siddhartha Deb. And the second, on Sunday 21st August, is a debate about Scotland's scientific role in a changing world, with Keith Campbell, the embryologist in the Scotland-based team that created Dolly the Sheep, and astrophysicist Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

Hope to see you, both of my blog readers, there. And thanks for all the lovely emails about the book... you guys rock. If you'd like to be kept up to date with the latest Geek Nation news, please sign up to the Facebook group (385 fans and counting!).

The legacy of Frederick Gowland Hopkins

2011-06-28T09:18:00.008+01:00

The picture above is of the faculty of the Biochemistry Department at Cambridge University in 1916. Anything strike you as unusual? Yes, there are almost as many women scientists in the picture as men. And the reason for this extraordinary balance of the sexes, years before Cambridge even awarded degrees to women, is Frederick Gowland Hopkins, the head of the department, sitting in the centre of the photo. He wasn't only a groundbreaking scientist (he won a Nobel Prize for his work on vitamins), he believed strongly in equal rights for men and women. And even though many people at the time thought this was weird, he was vindicated by the fact that many of the women he worked with became important researchers in their own right.

Last week marked 150 years since Hopkins' birth. I was lucky to be invited to his old house on Grange Road in Cambridge, where his family and a group of scientists were unveiling a plaque to commemorate his achievements. If you'd like to hear what they had to say, my feature about Hopkins was on BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour this morning and is available online now. To me it is amazing that his warmth and generosity are remembered to this day almost as much as his intellect and scientific achievements are

If you'd like to learn more about him, his work, and the incredible women in the photograph above, the Department of Biochemistry has put its archive online. Please check it out.

Hey, teacher, don't leave them kids alone

2011-06-20T19:54:00.007+01:00

While announcing the opening of a new marine biodiversity institute last month, India's environment minister Jairam Ramesh said something a little odd. He told reporters that the world-famous Indian Institutes of Technology are as great as they are, not because of the faculty, but purely because of the talented students. The implication was that they'd do equally well in a library on their own for three years. He himself graduated from one of these institutes. And so the current affairs magazine Outlook India asked me to write a response to Ramesh's comments, which was published at the weekend and you can read online here.

Actually his opinion is fairly common: many Indians I've met hold the view that good students don't need good teachers to succeed because they'll manage fine by themselves. But I just don't agree. The best teachers, especially in higher education, guide students to the books and ideas that help shape their minds without them even noticing it. I owe everything to the wonderful tutors I've had throughout my life and I'm fairly certain that's true of successful college students in India too. In fact having visited the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, to be honest, I was a little more impressed by the faculty than by the kids.

Geek Nation on Wisconsin Public Radio

2011-06-08T08:42:00.006+01:00

Since my book came out this Spring, I've been lucky enough to be interviewed by reporters in India, China, Britain, Brazil and Italy. But If you'd like to hear the American perspective on Geek Nation (and in fact on India generally) then download my interview with Wisconsin Public Radio yesterday. I was a guest of the brilliant Here on Earth show, with Jean Feraca. It was a fun conversation, taking a couple of messages from the audience and discussing such things as space exploration, Short Circuit, geekiness and women in science.

Also, if you'd also like to see me in person as well as hear my voice (although I can't imagine why), then I'm appearing at a few more festivals this summer. On Sunday 26th June, I'll be speaking at The Sunday Times Festival of Education alongside a whole host of bona fide superstars, and on 17th July I'll be at The Telegraph's Way with Words Festival at Dartington Hall in Devon. I have a couple of other appearances lined up this year, including the British Science Festival in Bradford, so please keep an eye on the events page on my website for more details.

Now I'm off for brunch. For some reason, since last night, I've been craving crab, bacon and shrimp cakes with eggs...

Utopia here on earth

2011-05-24T10:59:00.006+01:00

The topic of the week is science fiction. On Thursday I visited the British Library's new Out of this World exhibition and last night I took part in a Little Atoms podcast recording about techno utopia at the Free Word Centre in London. I was joined on stage by Ken Hollings, the mind-bendingly brilliant writer and Gia Milinovitch, the technology broadcaster who was one of the BBC's earliest web users in the 1990s. It was moderated by open rights expert Becky Hogge, who I worked with at openDemocracy moons ago.

The idea of manmade utopias goes back at least a few hundred years. But the big question for us was whether such utopias can exist or if they'll always be imaginary. It happened to coincide with Adam Curtis's documentary last night on BBC Two, about the radical ideas of Ayn Rand, which seemed to suggest that trusting the wisdom of the markets, mediated by technology, will doom us to destruction. Ken made the point during the discussion that, given nature is so often dangerous and cruel, it makes little sense to believe that we can create ideal communities without danger or cruelty. But then again, we never seem to abandon the idea that we can improve life on earth using good technology. One of my themes in Geek Nation, for example, is how Indians (and in fact this also applies to South Koreans and Chinese) are convinced that we have the power to transform society for both the rich and the poor through things like electronic governance, genetic modification and nuclear power.

We discussed all this, plus privacy on the Internet, the curiously British fear of change and other interesting ideas. But if you missed the live event, don't worry, the podcast is available online on the Little Atoms website.

India, but not as you might know it

2011-05-23T10:09:00.008+01:00

When my publishers were coming up with book cover ideas for Geek Nation, my only ask was that it shouldn't have any elephants, tigers, gods or swirly paisley patterns. The Western idea of India as this kinda spiritual haven full of simple-living people in floaty saris and dhotis is about as far from the reality of its booming cities as a Hovis advert is to an English town... even so, it's a difficult stereotype to shift. But in their latest issue, the team at Wallpaper* has done it. I was asked to have a tiny, tiny hand to play in their latest issue, about design and architecture in India, and I'm amazed at what the editors have come up with. It's an incredible glimpse into this fast-paced, eye-popping world.

The wonder of the work of some of India's designers is how they twist local materials and traditional aesthetics to create products and buildings the likes of which you won't see anywhere else in the world. This isn't just for the rich, it's part of everyday life (you only need to watch the telly to see how searingly clever and witty some of the adverts are). The magazine captures this perfectly, including an excellent piece on the city of Chandigarh (where some of my family live), which was designed by Le Corbusier in the 1950s and has been enormously influential on urban planning across the country. There are also some great tips on what to eat and where to go next time you're in the megacity that is Mumbai.

Hands down, my best review

2011-05-21T18:39:00.009+01:00

Gazillions of reviews have been coming in for Geek Nation since I finished the big fat Indian book tour last month. I've had to resist the temptation to share them with you for fear of boring both my blog readers to death... but then a really, really good one came in this weekend and I thought hey, what the hell. It's written by Subhra Priyadarshini, the editor of Nature India, and will be published in next week's edition of Business World. The glossy highlights include:

"Saini’s book is what every science journalist in this country has secretly wished to live at one point of time or the other. Hopping in and out of flights, taxis and buses, Saini has merrily stolen the plot from under their noses, and how!

"Saini has the potential of becoming the Xuanzang of Indian science — picking up bits and pieces from a slice of history when India’s science is truly coming out of its cocoon to take wings. She turns these anecdotes into a highly readable travelogue. The book will have its place in history as one that recognised the trends of the time and scribbled interesting notes on the margins."

Woo! On another note, if you happen to live in or around London then don't forget that I'll be discussing Geek Nation and Indian science more generally on the evening of Tuesday 24th May with the clever and witty Alok Jha of The Guardian, as part of the Asia House Festival of Asian Literature. Tickets will be available at the door so please do come along and say hello.

The broad church of science fiction

2011-05-19T11:32:00.008+01:00

I was a lucky ducky this morning to get a sneak preview of the new science fiction exhibition at the British Library, which opens tomorrow. I've been a fan of the genre since I was a kid, so it was brilliant to see such a beautifully curated collection, including Thomas More's Utopia from 1516 and Francis Godwin's The Man in the Moone from 1638, as well as modern giants like Asimov and Clarke. You can also listen to snippets from a BBC play from 1953, Journey into Space, which was the last radio show to have higher ratings than a television programme. But even more interesting was to see how much comes under the science fiction banner these days... it's not just paperbacks about aliens, but alternative histories and realities too, like Fatherland by Robert Harris. It's proof that science fiction and fantasy is finally overlapping with serious literature.

So if you have a free lunchtime or weekend anytime before 25th September then head down to the library. The Out of this World exhibition is totally free and full of fascinating insights into how people in the past imagined we might be living now (look out for the 1825 William Heath drawings tucked away at the back, which imagine the future might include a vacuum tunnel from Britain to to India). Plus you can draw your own alien, which gets projected onto the wall. Mine looks like a red cube with blue buttons.

London Science Book Club 3

2011-05-12T11:06:00.000+01:00

Last night was the latest meeting of the London Science Book Club. We went for a heavyweight tome last time, so for this month we settled on something a little lighter... The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum.

I read it while travelling, which I think might have caused a little panic on planes and trains because the title sounds almost like a manual, when in fact it is the riveting tale of forensic science in New York during Prohibition. Blum's book belongs to that emerging genre of narrative science books, with the characters at the centre of the story rather than the science. In this case, the protagonists are the famous forensic scientists, Charles Norris and Alexander Gettler, who built up New York's forensic laboratories and developed techniques for detecting poisons almost from scratch.

We unanimously loved it. In fact, many of us have already started recommending it to others. The chapters are divided by poison, from methanol to thallium, and she manages to skilfully weave a huge dose of chemistry in with the history without making the book any less readable. Every page comes alive with descriptions of smoky speakeasies and the fantastic tales of weird and gruesome killers (a little too gruesome for me, though, I have to admit).

Our next pick is Marcus Chown's Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You. So look out for our review in August!

What are you doing this summer?

2011-05-02T10:50:00.009+01:00

Spending your nights on Twitter? Then why not come along to something fun and geeky with me! I'm speaking at a whole bunch of things across the UK in the next few months and it would make my summer to see you there. First up is a panel discussion on collaboration in science hosted by the Triple Helix Society at Cambridge University on 12th May. Then on 23rd May there is a recording of the Little Atoms podcast at the Free Word Centre in Farringdon, London, on the topic of techno-utopia, with Gia Milinovich and Ken Hollings.

And on 24th May, the evening before International Geek Pride Day, you'll find me at the Asia House Festival of Asian Literature in Marylebone. I'll be in conversation with The Guardian's famous science correspondent, Alok Jha, about Geek Nation. This event, I've been informed, will have refreshments plus the venue is amazing so buy your tickets as soon as you can. I'm doing a couple more literary festivals outside London in July and August, but I'll let you know the details closer to the time.

If you'd like to be kept in the loop about other events and coverage surrounding the book, then please join the Geek Nation Facebook group (345 fans and counting!). Also, if you're in the UK and you still haven't bagged a copy of the book then you'll be pleased to know that Amazon has kindly dropped the price to a bargain £11 (it's almost too cheap).

A stroll in the park with Sunil Sethi

2011-05-02T10:17:00.010+01:00

One of the weirdest things about being a journalist who writes their first book is that the tables are suddenly turned and you find yourself in the position of being the interviewee instead of the interviewer. Being a natural introvert and fairly private, this hasn't been easy for me. Then again, occasionally you meet such amazing characters that it's just a pleasure... like having a fun conversation with someone really clever off the telly. In the UK, my favourites were Nick Higham and Andrew Marr. But in India, my most memorable interview was without a doubt with Sunil Sethi. In the past few years he's interviewed pretty much every important author that has visited India (plus a few not-important-at-all ones like me) for his programme on NDTV, Just Books.

Luckily, he's a massive fan of Geek Nation, and so he managed to squeeze me into his show (and you can now see it YouTube, above). Just so you know, they filmed it in the park next door to the NDTV studios in Delhi and it was bloody hot, which is why I look like I'm melting.

Reviews, reviews, reviews

2011-04-21T19:39:00.013+01:00

Geek Nation has been out for about six weeks now in the UK and a couple of weeks in India, where it has hit number one in the bestseller lists. And the reviews are still coming in. One of the nicest arrived in my inbox today from Mumbai's Business Standard: "She’s not starry-eyed, doesn’t mind burning a few formidable bridges for the sake of truth and always takes facts with a fistful of salt... At a time when science writing is beset by arid literature, Saini’s writing gives her already interesting premise a masterful and penetrating feel." Meanwhile, The Hindu, which is one of my favourite Indian newspapers, wrote (along with a really embarrassing photo of me looking sweaty and pink): "In these days of quick reading and one-dimensional plots, Geek Nation comes as a breath of fresh air. It's a combination of substance and style, of fact, fiction and storytelling to make for some wonderful reading."

In the past I've blogged about stories in the brilliant E&T Magazine, so I was thrilled that they also gave Geek Nation a rave review: "In a pithy, engaging and radiant style, Saini synthesises the various cultural, historical, psychological factors which in part explains India's resurgence as a centre of engineering and scientific excellence." Finally, Wanderlust magazine, which is for adventurous travelling types, has reviewed both my book and Brian Clegg's brilliantly fascinating Inflight Science and given us both four stars. Plus if you buy the latest issue or enter online, you can win one of five copies of Geek Nation.

If you'd like to see some of the other reviews and coverage then keep an eye on the books page of my website. And also feel free to leave comments and pictures on the Facebook group (326 fans and counting). I love seeing your messages!

(The photograph above is from the beautiful blog of Akeela Bhattay)

Science fiction's new world

2011-04-21T11:35:00.008+01:00

I love the show dearly, but one thing that has always bothered me about Star Trek is why the Federation is so American. If it's set in the future, wouldn't it make more sense for it to be overwhelmingly Chinese? Of course this reflects how much of a tight grip Hollywood has on our cultural visions of the future... but it looks as though that's already changing. Jonathan Wright has written an eye-opening piece for The Independent today about how an increasing number of science fiction novels are being based in emerging nations, including Zoo City by Lauren Beukes (South Africa) and The Dervish House (Turkey) by Ian McDonald.

Jonathan included an interview with me for the story, partly because Geek Nation looks at the future of Indian science but also because some of the technologies I describe in the book are particularly weird and occasionally dystopian (in other words, potential science fiction fodder). There are, for example, Hindu scholars trying to prove that interplanetary flying machines existed thousands of years ago, a private company building a city of the future in the remote Western Ghats, and a renegade engineer who claims to have built a truth machine.

Interestingly, while on tour last week I did notice that science fiction and fantasy by Indian authors seems to be attracting more readers than ever. New novel, The Immortals of Melhua by Amish Tripathi, is a bestseller, and Samit Basu's recent book about technological superheroes, Turbulence, was also a hit. Graphic novels are already so popular that India is hosting its second annual Comic Con next February (by the way, if the organisers are reading this, I would love an invite). Maybe one day we may even see a movie with an Asian woman at the helm of a starship... Bollywood, can you hear me?

(The picture above is of Indian superstar Rajinikanth in last year's hit Tamil sci-fi film, The Robot)

Want to be a science writer?

2011-04-20T08:56:00.007+01:00

When I wanted to become a journalist, it was still a good time to be a journalist. Newspapers and broadcasters were hiring, and I was very lucky to get a paid traineeship with ITN that launched me on the road to professional happiness. Sadly, we don't live in those golden times anymore. If you want to get a job as a reporter these days, you need to stand out from the crowd.

That's why I encourage all aspiring science writers who are trapped in a lab or lecture room somewhere to enter a new competition launched by The Guardian, The Observer and Wellcome Trust, which asks you to write an 800-word article on almost any scientific topic you like. There are some tips on how to get started on the Guardian Science blog. It's open to anyone who isn't already a published writer and winning entries will appear in the paper. It's a brilliant opportunity. The deadline is 20 May, so get writing!

Bengaluru and Hyderabad

2011-04-17T12:31:00.006+01:00

Well, the India book tour is over. Sad though I am, it has been a really tiring couple of weeks. And now, nine events, dozens of press interviews and gazillions of signed books later, I'm back off to London tomorrow.

Bengaluru was the big one on my itinerary because it features so heavily in Geek Nation. I gave two talks to the staff at the enormous offices of Tata Consultancy Services (they have 28,000 employees in the city!), followed by a packed-out event at the British Library that featured me in conversation with the fabulously geeky Samhita Arni (a real-life child prodigy, who wrote her first book at the age of twelve). I know I shouldn't have, but I used the opportunity to vent about a particularly sexist reporter from The Week magazine who had told me last week that I had "the profile of a chick-lit author" (not sure whether that's because of my engineering degree or my years as a serious journalist...). On the whole, though, reporters here have been lovely, and if you'd like to see some of the brilliant coverage and reviews check out my website.

Last night took me to Hyderabad for a book event at the Saptaparni Theatre in Banjara Hills (picture above). It's a beautiful spot but, unluckily for me, it was also outdoors... which meant a feasting session for the mosquitoes. I was in conversation with the famous Indian bioscientist, Dr P M Bhargava and the writer Chandana Chakrabarti, who once both co-authored a book about post-Independence science in India, which is now out of print. This is the first time I've been able to get the reaction of the Indian science elite, and so it came as a relief that they loved Geek Nation. Chandana said she managed to zip through two-thirds of it in a day. But to be honest, I was so busy scratching my leg that I missed a lot of what else happened.

So finally, thanks to all of you who came out to see me over the last fortnight. I've had a blast, and am so happy to see Geek Nation appearing on bestseller lists across India. I promise I'll be back soon! If you would like to stay updated on other events around the world, please join the Facebook group (315 fans and counting).

Geek Nation in Kolkata

2011-04-14T19:00:00.008+01:00

I'm halfway through my mammoth book tour of India and the latest stop was the magnificently old-world city of Kolkata. Bengalis are famous for being philosophical, literary types, but we wanted to nerd things up a bit so the Geek Nation launch was held last night in the Birla Planetarium, which is India's first and largest planetarium. We had around a hundred people turn up to hear me in conversation with science fiction fan and academic Rimi Chatterjee, including the UK's Deputy High Commissioner. Again, loads of great questions and kind comments. I've been particularly happy at how many women geeks have been turning up to all the events, especially doctors. If you want to know more, there's a nice account of the evening in The Telegraph.

I have fallen in love with this city. But no literary visit to Kolkata would be complete without a walk down College Street... a madcap corner filled with book stalls and hole-in-the-wall publishers, mainly selling science textbooks. Meanwhile at the classier end of town, I was a little weirded out by a cardboard cutout of me right in the entrance of the plush Crossword bookstore. Head there if you'd like an autographed copy and don't forget to say hello to the two-dimensional Angela (the three-dimensional Angela will thank you later).

The next stop is Bengaluru. Yes, dork central. I'll be giving talks at Tata Consultancy Services and one for the public at the British Library at 7pm on Friday 15th April. See you there!

Getting geeky in Chennai

2011-04-10T16:33:00.012+01:00

Chennai has to be on my list of all-time favourite cities: lush green, billboard-free and architecture that takes your breath away. And as stop two on the Geek Nation tour of India, it gave me a welcome I didn't expect. The Chennai Superkings were playing in a big IPL match on Friday night and yet we managed to pack out the room for the book launch, above. The comments were fabulous and the questions were clever. I was also very lucky to be interviewed for an hour on India's only radio book show on 104.8FM ChennaiLive and also for the books show on NDTV Hindu (tune in on Sunday for this one, and that's me with the lovely presenter Anuradha Ananth below, or watch the video on YouTube).

On Saturday night I spoke to the members of the Madras Club, which is a beautiful old building next to the river. Sadly, the microphones made me sound like a robot and the mosquitoes took full advantage of my bare ankles. Other than that, the cheese toast was great and the club gave me a book voucher.

There have been some lovely reviews of Geek Nation out this week too, in The Sunday Indian and Mumbai Boss. Next stop is Kolkata. If you happen to be in the vicinity of the Birla Planetarium on Wednesday evening at 6.30pm then you can hear more about the book and meet little ole me.

Geek Nation launches in Delhi

2011-04-07T19:45:00.010+01:00

Last night saw the big launch of Geek Nation in India, hosted by the British Council in New Delhi and my wonderful publishers here, Hachette India. Spirits were high because the book has been on the bestseller charts for two weeks already, based on pre-orders, and is the book of the month at Crossword stores. And spirits were even higher because I was in conversation with the wonderfully sharp yet sometimes controversial journalist and onetime maths geek, Hartosh Singh Bal (fortunately for me, he really did enjoy the book). If you're curious for more details, there was a write-up of the event in The Sunday Indian.

It has been amazing to return to Delhi after the Commonwealth Games. The city looks beautifully clean, the roads wide open again and Connaught Place is polished up like a groom on his wedding day. I've spent the last week doing interviews with the press, visiting bookstores (I bumped into Lord Meghnad Desai at Bahrisons in Khan Market, who told me he had already bought my book... see the photo above!) and being weirded out by cardboard cutouts of myself which have been strategically placed in bookish locations all over the city. I was also very lucky to give a talk to the brilliant students of the British School in Chanakyapuri, who donned masks in the shape of the spectacle machine on the Geek Nation cover. To see pictures of this and all the other happenings so far, you'll have to join the Facebook group, where they will go up tomorrow.

I have to sleep now because I'm up bright and early in the morning to catch a flight to the next stop on the tour, Chennai.

Geek Nation in The Independent

2011-04-01T00:43:00.005+01:00

There is a wonderful review of Geek Nation in The Independent newspaper today by the historian Chandak Sengoopta. The highlights: "Saini has produced an eye-opening survey of scientists in today's India. It shows in meticulous detail that, pockets of excellence notwithstanding, the overall state of Indian science and technology continues to be dispiriting... Engagingly written and remarkably objective, Geek Nation shatters many myths while not discouraging guarded optimism."

If you'd like to check out other reviews and recent press coverage, travel to my website. Plus, don't forget that Geek Nation is available on Kindle as well as traditional old paper (a friend of mine sent me a picture of himself holding his copy, above). And please, readers, keep your feedback coming. I love to get your nerdy emails!

Google, San Francisco

2011-03-30T14:48:00.009+01:00

Three domestic flights and a considerable amount of jetlag later, on Monday I reached the offices of Google in San Francisco to give a talk to the staff there about Geek Nation, as part of their Authors@Google programme. The talk was filmed and so, even if you don't work there, you can still watch it above! Enormous thanks to Google supergeek Russ Middleton who organised everything and plastered pictures of the book on every wall. I have it on good authority that Russ also happens to be such a master coder that he may well be the next Zuckerberg... you heard it here first.

If you're wondering what Google is like on the inside, the view from the canteen looks over the beautiful Bay Bridge, which gives you some sense of what an awesome place it is to work. The cubicles resemble playpens in a nursery and there is even a giant slide between floors, should you not be feeling in a stairs kinda mood.

I'm now back in London for a few days before leaving for a mega five-city book tour of India. I'll be blogging from every city and posting pictures on the Facebook group, so please keep your trigger finger on this page. I can't wait to see what Indian readers think of the book... but as a bit of early good news I was thrilled to learn that this week Geek Nation entered the bestseller charts there, at number four for non-fiction. Thanks to everyone who has bought a copy, and please do email me with your feedback.

Columbia Jouralism School

2011-03-27T14:02:00.005+01:00

Sadly, today is my last day in New York. Thanks to everyone for your wonderful suggestions for what to do and eat while I've been here. I've had some magnificent soul food at Sylvia's in Harlem, sang karaoke in Korea Town, been to the Met and MoMA, and done a spot of shopping in SoHo. I am really disappointed to be leaving... a feeling tempered only by the happy fact that tomorrow I'll be speaking at Google in San Francisco.

On Friday evening I was lucky to be able to visit Columbia University's world-famous Journalism School as a guest of the South Asian Journalists Association and Professor Sree Sreenivasan (who happens to be a technology geek too). I was in conversation with well-known American science journalist, Unmesh Kher (above), who asked me about such things as GM food in India, the drone-like reputation of Indian engineers and why Indians prefer academic pursuits to sports. The audience came up with some brilliantly clever questions too. I was particularly thrilled to be joined by the venerable Alan Kotok, formerly of Science, who travelled all the way from Washington DC to be there, and proved why science editors are the nicest people in the world.

Just a reminder that if you are in New York and would like an exclusive copy of the book before it's released in the US, then head down to Book Culture on West 112th off Broadway. And in the meantime, please do join the Facebook group for Geek Nation (268 fans and counting... they make it hip to be a square!).

Newswomen's Club of New York

2011-03-25T14:27:00.008Z

I've been in New York for a few days now, pretending not to mind the snow and hail, and eating as much cherry pie as possible. Yesterday, the first Geek Nation event of the trip, hosted by the wonderful Newswomen's Club of New York (they promised to put my book next to Eleanor Roosevelt's in their library!), was a talk at the Book Culture bookshop off Broadway. It was a brilliant night and packed out... I'd like to think this was because of me alone, but I should really also thank the wine and cheese platter, plus the amazing networking power of Kristina Cooke from Reuters, who organised everything (she is second from the right in the picture above).

Yesterday was special for another reason too: In the afternoon I was invited to coffee with Krishna Guha, who is the vice-president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (the closest I have ever come to being in a building that feels like Hogwarts), to tell him about the book. Turns out, like me, he is a bit of a geek too.

Today, the weather is gorgeous and so I'm planning on a long walk and some soul food in Harlem. If you happen to finish work early then please do head down to Columbia University's Journalism School, where I'll be part of a panel discussion about science in India with legendary geek, Professor Sree Sreenivasan. It's free and there will also be refreshments.

Finally, Geek Nation, although available everywhere else in the world, is not yet out in the US unless you order export or Kindle editions through Amazon. So if you are in the Big Apple and would like your own copy of the beautiful hardback, then head down to the Book Culture store on West 112th Street, off Broadway. But be quick because they have limited stock.

The FT & New York

2011-03-19T16:22:00.009Z

Reviews for Geek Nation have been trickling in over the last few weeks, but today's trumped them all. The Financial Times has an excellent, brief synopsis of the ideas in the book written by the brilliant science author Manjit Kumar (and available on the FT website). He ends with:

"Indians, Saini observes, have 'a unique freedom to explore the edges of what's believed to be possible'... Saini's vivid portrait of hi-tech India reveals a country in a hurry. No one knows how long it will take, but India's present economic expansion is a reminder that more than 1,000 years ago it had a scientific culture as advanced as any in the world."

Meanwhile, I'm gearing up for my big trip to the Big Apple next week. This is my first visit to New York in eleven years so I'm planning to pig out on giant pretzels and big brunches! In between all the eating, there are two exciting book events planned. The first is being hosted by the Newswomen's Club of Ne w York at the Book Culture store on 112th Street, starting at 6.30pm on Thursday 24th March. This one will be a lecture followed by questions and a signing, where you'll be able to buy an exclusive copy of Geek Nation before anyone else in the United States (it's not out there yet, unless you happen to own a Kindle).

The other event is on Friday 25th March, and hosted by the South Asian Journalists Association, featuring me in discussion with Professor Sree Sreenivasan from Columbia Journalism School. It starts at 5.30pm and will take place inside the journalism school itself, ideal for students who want to come along after classes. Both are free and open to anyone. So see you there!

Nuclear power won't kill you

2011-03-18T09:36:00.010Z

It has been horrifying to watch the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan over the last week. But coverage of the disaster has had me open-mouthed for another reason too: are we at risk of a nuclear catastrophe, as the caption on this Washington Post picture seems to suggest (baby crying!)? No.

In my journalistic career, I've visited three nuclear facilities. One is the Sellafield plant in England, another is the Ignalina power plant in Lithuania (which, incidentally, was built on a similar design to the one at Chernobyl), and most recently I was at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Trombay, India. In all three was huge support for nuclear power amongst the employees and surrounding residents. And the reason? Living close to a nuclear reactor helps you realise how safe these things really are. What happened in Japan was freakishly rare. The Fukushima plant was earthquake-proof and tsunami-proof. The problem arose when both happened at the same time, overwhelming not just the plant itself but devastating the areas around it. And even then, the accident is being managed fairly effectively. In fact, the death toll due to the earthquake has reached almost 13,000 according to some estimates. And deaths due to the nuclear plant so far? Zero.

I was on the BBC World Service's news programme, The World Today, this week trying to put fears around the Japanese nuclear incident into perspective, especially in light of the fact it may lead some countries to reassess the future of their own nuclear reactors. There does seem to be a disproportionate level of hysteria in the media around this issue, made worse by the fact that many journalists don't understand the real science and engineering behind nuclear power. One of my followers on Twitter, who lives in Germany, has been telling me about enormous factual mistakes he's noticed in his country's Japan coverage, overblowing the nuclear risks. And I've spotted the same kind of mistakes this week on Channel 4 News in the UK.

The world will probably need a lot more nuclear power if it's going to fill the growing energy gap. In fact, I dedicated an entire chapter in Geek Nation to India's ambitious nuclear plans, which will see a new generation of super safe, thorium-powered reactors built across the country and possibly exported overseas too. Without them, they believe that millions of poor Indians may never get access to the electricity they need to join the ranks of the rich.

So while I understand that people have an instinctive fear of anything radioactive, try taking the hysterical headlines with a pinch of salt. And check out the IAEA website and the MIT nuclear blog for some more sober and informed coverage.

Geek Nation on Radio 4

2011-03-14T10:11:00.008Z

The only thing that can beat being interviewed by the lovely Andrew Marr is being interviewed by Andrew Marr in the company of two of the great Brians of science, Brian Cox and Brian Greene. I was on BBC Radio 4's Start the Week this morning, discussing mind-bending physics in the rest of the cosmos, as well as the more terrestrial subject of science and technology in India. If you missed it and would like to listen again, it's temporarily available on iPlayer.

The UK leg of my book tour is starting to wind down (although I am on the Nihal show on the BBC Asian Network this Wednesday, and of course at loads of festivals this summer). So now I'm gearing up for my big trip to the United States next week. If you're in New York and keen to hear more about Geek Nation, plus bag yourself an exclusive copy of the book, then head down to Book Culture off Broadway, where I'll be giving a talk to the Newswomen's Club of New York on 24th March at 6.30pm.

Also, a strange thing happened to me this weekend: I was the answer in a quiz. Check it out on the website of the magazine, Business Line.

Last night's talk at Imperial

2011-03-11T10:49:00.006Z

Considering last night was a busy one in London's geek calendar (Prof Brian Cox was giving a lecture, and it was the Geek Pop launch) I was thrilled to be speaking to a packed-out audience at Imperial College London about Geek Nation. My book doesn't have any pictures of its own, so I decided to illustrate the lecture with loads of photographs of people and places mentioned in Geek Nation, including the city of Lavasa, the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi and India's magnificent fleet of space rockets (I can't deny it, I love pictures of rockets). We were lucky to have an actual IIT graduate in the audience, who also asked the best question of the night and won a T-shirt I bought in India, showing the Hindu god Ganesh transformed into a supercomputer.

If you missed the talk and the signing afterwards, don't fear because there will be more Geek Nation talks at literary and science festivals this summer. Please keep an eye on the events page on my website for more details. And if you would like a signed copy of the book then get yourself down to Blackwell's bookshop inside the Imperial campus, which has a stock of signed copies available on a first-come, first-served basis. In case you haven't seen the hardback yet, the first edition happens to contain some gorgeous blue endpapers with pictures of scientific instruments. Subsequent editions won't have this, so act soon if you want this luscious collector's copy.

London Science Book Club 2

2011-03-10T09:34:00.005Z

Last night was the second meeting of the London Science Book Club, and it was another wonderfully mind-expanding discussion. Our book was The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes, which is a hefty book first published in 2008.

For all of us (and yesterday's group included an astronomer), it was a revelatory read and a real page-turner. That period of history, between the Enlightenment and industrialisation, was perhaps the most important in British science. It saw the founding of the Royal Society, the Royal Institution and what came to be the Royal Geographical Society. Explorers like Joseph Banks and Mungo Park were investigating the furthest reaches (as they saw them) of the natural world, while astronomers William and Caroline Herschel were transforming our view of the universe. But what was most surprising to us readers was that the Romantic poets and artists had such an important place in intellectual circles with scientists (although, we learned, they weren't actually called scientists until later). Coleridge and Shelley were enthralled by the new science of the time, and at the same time, scientists were also writing their own (often pretty good) poetry and prose.

So in short, The Age of Wonder was such a great book that we even loved the footnotes, and it's one that has inspired at least a few of us to read around the history and poetry of that time even more.

Our next book choice is The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum. Keep an eye out for our verdict on that in about two months!

Geek Nation on the World Service

2011-03-08T09:42:00.009Z

You, both my blog readers, will be aware that I have a longstanding love of the BBC World Service and so, even though this has been a busy week of publicity, nothing means quite as much to me as being a guest on Digital Planet. The wonderful Gareth Mitchell and Jamillah Knowles have both read Geek Nation, and asked me about why I wrote it and what it was like travelling to techie places like Bengaluru. It is on now (10.30am GMT), but it will be repeated this week, and available later today on iPlayer, podcast and the World Service website.

Also, I was thrilled to see a wonderfully long review of Geek Nation on the New Scientist Culture Blog this week, written by its perceptive online editor Sumit Paul-Choudhury, as a follow-up to the snappier review in the magazine this week.

Plus, if you are a BBC Radio 4 listener then tune in next Monday at 9am, because I'm being interviewed by Andrew Marr for Start the Week. The other guests are Brian Cox (the "hot" physicist and TV presenter... the Radio Times said this, not me. I would never judge a scientist by his or her cover) and the world-famous string theorist Brian Greene. I just hope that I'm not too overawed...

Finally, big hugs to all of you who have sent me beautiful messages this week about how much you're digging Geek Nation... I promise that I'm reading and replying to each one. Please do leave your reviews on Amazon (thanks if you have already). And don't forget that if you would like to have your copy signed and hear more about the book, I will be at Imperial College this Thursday evening!

Geek Nation in the Sunday papers

2011-03-06T10:57:00.013Z

All hail the weekend! I have a mammoth double-page spread in The Observer today (above) with a beautiful graphic showing places and ideas mentioned in Geek Nation, plus a gorgeously fat extract from my chapter on electronic governance, featuring the strange and beautiful new city of Lavasa in the Western Ghats. Don't miss it! If you can't get hold of the paper, then please do check it out online. It should give you a bit of a flavour of the book.

I also have an encouraging review in The Sunday Times, including a picture of me (below), and written by the formidable historian Patrick French. The glossy highlights are:

"In her book Saini travels around the country meeting scientists who range from the brilliant to the bonkers... many entertaining and informative stories. Saini has a genuine talent for describing science."

Geek Nation is now available to buy through both the Guardian and The Times bookshops, at a discount. If you haven't got your copy yet, I can only wonder what you're waiting for. If on the other hand, you are waiting for a signed copy, then please come along to Imperial College this Thursday evening where I will be signing copies galore, telling stories from my travels, and giving away a special geeky souvenir from my trip to the person in the audience with the best question. Be there and be square!

Read a free extract!

2011-03-04T12:24:00.007Z

Last night was the launch party for Geek Nation, and what a fun affair it was. Huge thanks to Hodder, the Royal Academy of Engineering (who provided the room) and Moti Mahal (who provided the delicious canapes) for a wonderful evening, plus of course to everyone who turned up.

The media train continues today with my column on page 34 of the Guardian newspaper about how India is an emerging geeky superpower. Such is the disbelief of the general public (or at least those leaving their views on Comment is Free) that it's already creating vociferous debate. You can check out the article online on the Guardian website. I'm hoping that once you read it, you're inspired to get the full story from the book...

And on that subject, my amazing publishers have kindly put up a chunky extract from Geek Nation on their website for free! Their generosity should at the very least be repaid by you, both my blog readers, with a download (just click on the extract link on this page).

Geek Nation is go!

2011-03-03T11:18:00.011Z

Yes! Today marks the first official publication day of Geek Nation (although I understand many of you have been able to get hold of copies already). It has been a rip-roaring week, with interviews for BBC television and LBC radio. I have already been described as the person who "makes geeks cool" (I thought that title belonged to Steve Jobs), but there are even more exciting things lined up in the coming weeks... no, I can't tell you what they are now, but if you watch this space everything will become clear.

The highlight of my day so far has been this lovely review in the latest New Scientist magazine (above), which describes the book thus: "Why are Indians such a bunch of geeks? Angela Saini goes in search of the truth behind the stereotype... those who want to understand how India is shaping up as a scientific superpower will find it a worthwhile and engaging read"

Appropriately, today is World Book Day, so in the spirit of generosity my UK publisher, Hodder & Stoughton, will be giving away one free copy of Geek Nation via some kind of twitter promotion this afternoon. So if you're a member of the twitterati, please look out for #geeknation today. And remember, even if you're not the winner, you can still be a winner by buying Geek Nation today at your local bookshop or by picking up a copy from Amazon.

Thanks everyone for all your lovely messages. Stay square!

Why does a space-faring nation get aid?

2011-03-01T16:50:00.008Z

It has been revealed today that the UK's level of aid to India is likely to be maintained at 2009/10 levels (£295 million). But people have been asking, when India has a pretty ambitious space programme, why is it getting anything at all?

The implication is that anything to do with space exploration must be an unnecessary extravagance. But let me put it into perspective: The Indian Space Research Organisation (I spent a lot of time at ISRO while I was researching Geek Nation) was founded at the end of the 1960s with the aim of making the lives of ordinary people better using space technology. Within a decade, it had sent up its first satellite. And using this kind of technology it ran a pilot scheme called the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment, which provided educational programming to thousands of villages across India. Back then, India faced exactly the same kind of criticism that it's getting now... that it was too poor to be wasting money on satellites and colour TV.

Yet if the space programme hadn't been supported, the telecoms boom that happened a couple of decades later might have stalled, and the half a billion mobile phone connections in India now might be far more expensive. Most importantly, the incredibly successful Indian IT industry may never have been able to get off the ground. In other words, what was once an apparently extravagant space programme directly improved the lives of millions of ordinary Indians years later.

Now bear in mind that India also gets a lot of space bang its buck. It has arguably the cheapest space programme in the world. ISRO's budget is roughly $1.45 billion a year, which is just a fraction of NASA's annual budget of more than $18 billion. Although it's sadly true that millions of Indians are still illiterate and poor, and perhaps this money would be better spent improving their lives directly (indeed, this is why aid is still needed), I don't agree that the route to development means bypassing high technology and cutting-edge science. If anything, it means embracing it.

Imperial College on 10th March

2011-03-01T09:46:00.006Z

It's turning out to be a busy week, but loads of fun. I was on LBC radio last night for the Book Club with Iain Dale and lovely co-guest Katharine Birbalsingh, author of To Miss with Love. Unfortunately you can't hear it again online, but it was a great discussion (Katharine called me a "neek", which is apparently the new word for "geek"). I also managed to sneak in a mention of Short Circuit, one of my favourite films of all time.

If you would like to hear and see more about Geek Nation then I want to remind you, both my blog readers, about an event at Imperial College on 10th March. It will be an anecdote-packed lecture about my adventures in India, a couple of short readings and an exciting album-full of pictures of the things I saw. Plus, you will have the chance to buy the book, get it signed, and if you ask the best question at the end, you also get an exclusive souvenir from my travels. Not only that, it's free! All you have to do is send a message to events@imperial.ac.uk to let them know you'll be there.

The god confusion

2011-02-28T16:49:00.004Z

One of the more controversial themes in Geek Nation is the impact that the rise of science and technology is having on superstition and faith in India (which is, after all, said to be the most religious place in the world). Unlike some scientists and radical atheists like Richard Dawkins, I'm actually quite sympathetic to the emotional reasons behind religious belief. The ideas we're instilled with as kids are far more difficult to abandon when we grow older than some rationalists would like to think they are. And of course I know lots of intelligent, rational people who cling to faith (and many more who read their horoscopes)... for many, it's comforting and reassuring.

But then again, sometimes it can be hard to square some religious ideas on science with the facts. And that's where, I think, young, educated Hindus are finding it increasingly tough. I have an article in this month's New Humanist magazine (above) exploring this issue, so please do check it out and let me know your thoughts.

Meet the Author on the BBC

2011-02-26T12:04:00.004Z

As both you blog readers must know by now, Geek Nation launches in just five days! I've already had some wonderful feedback from readers and reviewers, but I was also very lucky this week to be interviewed by the lovely Nick Higham from BBC News for his regular show, Meet the Author, at the Royal Institution (which happens to be one of my favourite science spots in London). It will be repeated on the BBC News Channel this week, and hopefully also on BBC World for international viewers... or you can have the digital pleasure of watching it on the BBC News website.

Being a digital writer

2011-02-19T17:58:00.006Z

I've spent some of the afternoon watching a discussion at the London School of Economics titled "New Technologies and the Reinvention of the Author" with authors Sam Leith, Lionel Shriver, Nigel Warburton and chaired by Tom Chatfield. The question these guys were trying to answer is what it's like being a book writer in the digital age, with the Internet, eBooks, iPads and smartphones. It was pretty good, especially the brilliant Lionel Shriver, who has this knack of cutting through the bull and getting straight to the point. Traditional publishers aren't just a means of getting books out, she explained, but also a fairly decent means of quality control, as well as of course a way for authors to earn advances to allow us to write books at all (we need to make a living too!).

The challenge for publishers is how to make money when people seem to be putting so much content on the Internet for free and the price of e-books seems destined to drop. This hasn't been resolved yet... although eBooks are a bigger share of the books market, as Nigel Warburton noted, there's something irresistible about paper books that we just don't seem to be able to abandon. They're not just deliciously tactile and beautiful objects, they're also symbols of our interests (this is something I explored in a piece for BBC Digital Planet a couple of years ago, including an interview with Borders UK, which has ironically since gone into administration).

The most interesting part of the discussion for me, though, was a comment by Sam Leith that his publisher recently got in touch to ask him to approve the script for his book trailer. He found it a bit weird that his book should have a trailer at all. For me (I guess because I come from the world of TV News and multimedia journalism) it seemed natural that my book might have an accompanying video. In fact, I insisted on making it myself. I even found a theme tune for Geek Nation, and set up its Facebook page. But then, I can imagine that a lot of authors feel uncomfortable with all this stuff, feeling that their real job is the writing, not making films. It can be distracting to have to deal with this kind of business while having your head stuck in research.

But I guess if young authors are going to make a mark in a digital world, then there's no choice but to suck it up and embrace the Kindle, YouTube and Twitter. Even so, I liked the comment from Shriver that, despite the Internet revolution, she doesn't read comments or reviews on the web... to have to hear what everyone thinks, good and bad, is just way too much to deal with.

State of the Geek Nation

2011-02-16T16:20:00.006Z

My, what lovely endpapers you have!

Well, Geek Nation launches in exactly two weeks. The first hardback arrived the other day, bound in yellow and sheathed in turquoise, looking destined to be the brightest thing on the bookshelves this summer.

One thing that many early readers have mentioned is that they would have loved to see pictures of the places that I visited (there aren't any in the book itself), and so I've decided that in the book talks and lectures I'm giving this year I'll bring along loads of photographs and illustrations to give you a peek at some of the incredible things I saw. Please do keep an eye on the events page on my website and sign up to the one closest to you.

So far, among the places I've been booked into are the Edinburgh International Books Festival, the Ways with Words Festival at Dartington Hall, the Asia House Festival of Asian Literature, the Newswomen's Club of New York, and I'm giving at talk at Google in San Francisco that will be available on YouTube this summer. But before all that, on 10th March, I'll be speaking and signing books at Imperial College London - the undisputed heart of geekiness in the city. If you'd like to come along (and I would love to see you there), please use the contact email link on the Imperial events website to register. Since it is my first official book talk, I'll be giving away a special souvenir from my Indian travels to the guest in the audience who asks the best question.

Thank you to everyone who has been pre-ordering Geek Nation on Amazon and elsewhere... virtual hugs are on their way. And in a final fit of generosity, I'm giving away one free signed hardback copy of Geek Nation to a random Facebook fan (212 fans and counting!) on 3rd March, so if you want to be in it to win it, get liking!

The damn truth about sexism in the media

2011-02-15T18:00:00.009Z

This isn't an easy blogpost for me to write, and for the sake of my career I probably shouldn't write it at all. But I believe that if these things are kept silent, then we all suffer for it. And by "we", I mean women.

Let me start by giving you some context: I have been a journalist since I left Oxford University, which was around seven years ago. In that time, I've picked up a couple of awards for investigative reporting and science writing. While I was working full-time at the BBC I studied for a second Masters at King's College London in my spare time, which I passed with flying colours. And now I've just finished my first book, for which the global rights have been sold to a major publisher. I think I've reached the point in my career, at the age of 30, at which I can reasonably call myself a professional. I'm proud of what I've achieved.

And then, today, I was invited to a meeting with a national news programme (that shall remain nameless, but is not the BBC). So I wondered, what could they want? Are they looking for a science reporter? Or someone to produce an investigation? No, I was told. They're looking for a new weather girl. Someone with a bit of a background in science (bear in mind, my undergraduate degree was in Engineering, not Meteorology).

And it was after this bizarre meeting, having said "no" politely, and having walked out as fast as I could, that I recalled the moments in my career that I've noticed editors treating women in a sexist way... Like the day an editor at The Observer asked me to go to model some outfits for a feature I was writing on the business of fast fashion. Or the day I was told I would do well in TV news because I was pretty and young (forget the fact that an investigation I started helped win BBC News an award). Or the day I overheard two male editors leering over their female Asian presenters while they ate lunch.

So to all those women out there who are labouring under the illusion that you will be treated by TV editors as fairly as men are treated, that your mind will be of any value, or that your intelligence can help you reach the job of your dreams: Ladies, think again. There is a reason that there are so many female bimbos on TV (you know who you are): it's because they're the ones that get hired by chauvinistic male editors. The intelligent women (you know who you are) are either overlooked or, like me, treated like nothing more than a fresh piece of ass, to be ditched when we get too old (you know what I'm saying, Miriam O'Reilly). As long as this continues, the media will be dominated by disgusting, sexist men, and TV screens will be populated by beautiful yet clueless young women.

The issue of how I look and how other people perceive me is something I covered in a post last year. But today really brought the truth home. It will take me a long time to forget the humiliation of what happened to me this afternoon. But I fear that it will take even longer for the media to change.

The real magic of the movies

2011-02-15T10:34:00.006Z

Do I have a treat for you or what? Yes, I have a treat. And it comes in the shape of Leonardo DiCaprio. Well, not quite all of him, but his voice at least. For this week's Digital Planet on the BBC World Service I have been on a special tour behind the scenes of Double Negative, the firm that produced the visual effects behind Inception, the Hollywood blockbuster that has now been nominated for an Oscar for its visual effects and has already won a BAFTA.

I interviewed Paul Franklin, who was in charge of creating all these grand, dreamlike cityscapes, including the street scene of Paris in which the city seems to fold over on itself into a cube (above). This kind of digital trickery may seem simple when you're watching it but it takes weeks of work on the part of dozens of CGI experts. If you want to know exactly how they did it, and what the future holds for computer-generated movies, then you'll just have to tune in.

How to govern space

2011-02-08T09:49:00.010Z

There was a time (around the time I was born, actually) that the only two countries that could have engaged in a space war were the US and the Soviet Union. Boy has that changed. China has since sent astronauts into space and India is gaining a similar capability pretty fast. Last week, Agence France-Presse reported that the Deputy Defense Secretary Gregory Schulte said:

"Space is no longer the preserve of the US and the Soviet Union, at the time in which we could operate with impunity...

"There are more competitors, more countries that are launching satellites ... and we increasingly have to worry about countries developing counterspace capabilities that can be used against the peaceful use of space... China is at the forefront of the development of those capabilities."

And that's why the US government has developed a refreshed space strategy. Since it's the one territory that we humans use all the time, which is also completely ungoverned, it's about time that somebody came up with a set of standards. All that decides what happens above our heads right now is a set of global "norms"... essentially, the goodwill and friendly behaviour of everyone who has a presence in space. But clearly that's not something you can rely on forever. Indeed, the vast amount of space litter and China's messy anti-satellite test in 2007 suggest that we're not the best of friends up there.

In Geek Nation, in the last chapter, I look at India's ambitions in space. With a hefty collection of rockets and a successful moon mission under its belt, it certainly sees itself as a major space power these days. Indeed, one official told me that one day (when resources start to run out here on Earth) it will become an even important territory in which to stake a claim. And so I can't help thinking that America's revamped space strategy isn't just about keeping satellites safe and orbits debris-free, but also about creating some rules of governance as we enter a space-centred future.

(The photo of an astronaut's footprint on lunar soil above is courtesy of the NASA archive. See how quickly those Americans marked out their territory!

How Geek Nation will look in Asia

2011-02-02T12:34:00.006Z

Nothing I have ever posted on Facebook has elicited such Marmite-style debate as the Indian-designed cover for Geek Nation, above, which has just arrived hot off the presses from New Delhi. If you live on the sub-continent, this is what you'll be seeing in the bookshops, not the UK cover which is turquoise and very different. At the moment, the lovers are outpacing the haters but I am desperate to know what you think, both my blog readers. I personally find it quirky, fun, and just on the right side of weird.

The India launch for Geek Nation will be in early April, accompanied by a mega five-city book tour of Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata. If you'd like to come to any of these then please join the Facebook group (201 fans and counting!) or follow me on Twitter at @AngelaDSaini.

Also, much love to all of you who have pre-ordered the book on Amazon UK already. Your free hug from me is in the post.

And then they came for the World Service

2011-01-26T12:02:00.005Z

I know that the government's budget cuts are hitting everyone deeply, from the UK Film Council to domestic violence charities. Even the most vulnerable haven't been spared... so perhaps it's unfair of me to pipe up about something like a radio station, but when the BBC announced yesterday that it would be cutting 650 jobs at the World Service, it felt like a knife had been plunged into British journalism.

As a freelance reporter I've been to the science unit in Bush House on and off for nearly three years. It is the most creative and nurturing journalistic environment in the world. Reporters from all corners of the globe share offices next to one another, telling vitally important stories that might otherwise be ignored. It's the UN of broadcasting, except it actually gets things done. When I'm away from home, it's the station I listen to. Soldiers in Afghanistan listen to it. Young people all over the world listen to it, and learn about the world as it really is, not as billionaire media moguls and half-wit talk show hosts would have us believe that it is.

650 job losses mean that the World Service is losing a quarter of its workforce and as many as 30 million listeners. Bear in mind that BBC One costs more than a billion pounds to run a year, and the World Service, only £272 million. It would be a bargain at twice the price. But then, these days, it feels as though those who are making the cuts know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Are we really in such dire straits that we can afford to destroy our oldest and most cherished institutions?

The National Union of Journalists will be protesting the World Service job losses from today. Please support them.

How's your voice looking?

2011-01-25T10:24:00.010Z

I grew up in southeast London, speaking that bland and inoffensive dialect known as Estuary English. I yearned for a little Scottish, I squealed with delight when I heard Geordie or Scouse, and I ended up marrying a Welshman who happens to be a pretty good karaoke singer. I love voices. They are such beautiful, complicated things, capable of making so many different kinds of sounds.

And yet, as far as computers are concerned, our voices are nothing more than the words. Voice recognition has come a helluva long way in the past couple of decades, but the human, emotional subtleties of the voice are yet to make their way into software. So for this week's Digital Planet on the BBC World Service, I'm reporting on the artists and researchers who are trying to digitally capture those parts of the voice that aren't just about the alphabet. Dan Stowell, who is a beatboxer and engineer at the Centre for Digital Music at Queen Mary University of London, is creating an amazing visual map of human sounds. And Guillaume Drapier and Sarat Babu of 1234 Lab have created jewellery based on the soundwaves that people produce when they talk (click on the picture above for more details).

All three interviewees also have delicious voices, so tune in and enjoy.

London Science Book Club 1

2011-01-06T21:43:00.006Z

Tonight was the inaugural gathering of the London science book clubbers, and it was brilliant (although we did have a couple of seasonal flu-related dropouts). We were discussing Antonio Damasio's 1995 book, Descartes' Error. The general consensus was that it was a brain-broadening read. Philosophers in Descartes' time believed that the mind was separate from the body; something unique and non-physical. But Damasio, the famous neuroscientist, makes the argument that the mind doesn't just live in the brain, but in the entire body. It's a product of genetics, the body itself and the experiences that we undergo through our senses all the time. He gives a convincing explanation, using case studies, metaphors, loads of technical details and diagrams.

The only problem, as our group found, was that it was a bit too technical (and bear in mind that there is one ex-neuroscientist among us). In fact, it's written so much like an academic paper and, at times, in such intelligible prose that it's a drag to read. One member didn't like the constant use of the phrase, "the latter", which wasn't just annoying but sometimes inappropriate too. We also poured scorn on the diagrams, which were almost exclusively unclear and unhelpful. In short, the whole thing could have used a good edit.

That said, if you do manage to get through it, my final verdict is that it's worth it for the wonderful insights into the human mind. I'm already quoting Damasio to my friends.

Geek Nation book video

2011-01-02T13:22:00.006Z

Making a short film on a zero budget is not easy, let me tell you. But with a little jiggery pokery on Final Cut Pro, this is the result. It's the book video on YouTube for the UK edition of Geek Nation. There will be something slightly different for India, but even I don't know what that will be yet. Also, if you're interested, there has been some early nice coverage of Geek Nation in the press, which you can see here.

Here's looking forward to 3 March. In the meantime, watch! Enjoy!

The brainiest room in the world

2010-12-31T10:59:00.005Z

I spent a lovely afternoon a few weeks ago surrounded by brains. Not live brains, but dead ones. I was visiting the Corsellis Collection at the West London Mental Health NHS Trust for the BBC World Service radio show, Health Check. It's an incredible scientific resource, with a wonderful back story. It was started in the 1950s in Essex by the pathologist, John Corsellis, who believed that dead brains could tell us more about the mind than psychologists believed they could. He was right: Even in an age of sophisticated MRI brain scanning, his collection of 6,000 brains (by the way, the photo above is not from the Corsellis Collection but from Wikipedia because the actual collection has people's names on the containers so taking pictures is officially banned) is still being plundered by neurologists studying schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.

The beauty of the collection is that it is so vast and goes back so far that it paints a picture of every kind of brain problem from stroke to epilepsy, as well as healthy brains, and shows how these brains change over time. When mad cow disease emerged in Britain in the 1990s, the collection helped prove that it really was a new illness. Today, Michael Maier, a consultant psychiatrist, and Matt Williams from Imperial College London, manage the collection and are making sure it keeps on making breakthroughs. If you'd like to know more then check out their paper in the September issue of Brain.

And if you'd like to hear my radio feature, then tune into Health Check this week or listen again on the BBC website.

State of the Geek Nation

2010-12-16T23:26:00.003Z

Oh, this Christmas brings much nail-biting. Advance copies of Geek Nation have been sent out to reviewers, editors and bloggers, which means that I can start expecting feedback in the New Year. I spend my nights having mares about scathing one-star Amazon reviews written by my enemies. And then I wake up and try to think of any enemies I may have. Of course, this is pointless. A fellow author who's far more seasoned than me told me recently that he doesn't even read bad reviews... I only wish I had his willpower.

Anyway, fun news on the book front next year includes talks at Imperial College London and the Asia House Literary Festival. I'll also be doing a book tour through India's metropolises in April. I'm particularly looking forward to this, since the head of Hachette India (my publisher over there) has described Geek Nation as his "non-fiction superlead of next year".

If you would like to make this a merry holiday for me and give yourself a nice literary surprise on 3 March next year, then please pre-order Geek Nation on Amazon UK. On the other hand, if you're not yet willing to make that kind of financial commitment but would still like to be kept in the loop, then why not join the Facebook group (184 members and counting!)? Thank you to everyone who has already joined the group or ordered the book. Hugs await you.

In the meantime, happy holidays and see you all in the New Year!

Give a science toy this xmas

2010-12-11T10:50:00.003Z

It's fun! Really.

Seriously, I have always had a hankering for science and technology-themed toys. Not only are they more fun than Barbies and Action Men, they're also satisfying brain food. At my birthday this year, I was thrilled to get two DIY robots (thank you, Cynthia). And since I still watch the toy industry with a keenness unjustified by my age, I thought I'd share my top picks for parents looking for geeky gifts this Christmas:

Your first stop should be the Science Museum shop, which is a Toys 'R' Us for nerds. My favourites are Science Putty (£6), the perennial global bestseller, Ice Cream Space Food (£3.50), and the amazingly lifelike Hex Bug (£15).
If your child's interests lean towards electronics, then check out the Maker Shed. Lots of these items are for adults but some good ones for kids include the Blinkybug Kit ($14.99) and the Soft Circuit Elephant ($18).
Of course, part of Christmas is getting the toys that all your friends want. On this front, just spoil them with a Techno Gears Marble Run (£49.29) and I promise that you'll satisfy even the worst bragger.
No science-themed holiday gift list would be complete without the Wired Geek Dad Guide. My fave from this list is the Thingamagoop robotic synthesizer (from $99), which I believe any teenager would love.

Or you could always be a great parent and just take your kid to the local museum or zoo... Scientific fun for next to nothing!

London Games Conference

2010-11-16T09:35:00.008Z

I confess, I'm not much of a gamer. Not because I don't love video games but because I have a slightly obsessive personality that prevents me from stopping one once I start. It happened with Super Mario Brothers, with The Sims, and then a few years ago, I started playing King Kong on the XBox, finished it, and never picked up a console again.

But if the games industry has its wicked way then we'll all be gamers one day. If not on the XBox, then on our mobile phones, PCs, iPads and televisions. Or at least that was the impression I got at the London Games Conference last week. I was covering the event for Digital Planet on BBC World Service radio (it aired today but you can listen again on iPlayer).

My obsessive fears aside (nothing's going to make me sign up to Farmville), it's actually a pretty exciting time because gaming is opening up to new demographics, such as older people and women, who tend not to game as much as young men. Shuji Utsumi from Q Entertainment in Japan, for example, recently launched a role-playing game based on the life of a geisha, which has turned out to be a big hit with middle-aged Japanese women. There are other examples, but you'll just have to tune in.

We're all fimmakers now

2010-11-12T10:46:00.009Z

I've spent this week working as a trainer with the incredible team at Rosenblum TV, an American outfit with a radical approach to television. Their philosophy is that huge crews, separate cameramen and separate editors aren't the only way to make great TV; why don't we shoot, edit and tell our own stories? After all, technology has made this possible. Good-quality cameras are so cheap and editing software is so easy to install that every one of us is a potential filmmaker. The great thing is that the vision you have as a producer or director can be translated exactly the way you want it, not through another person's lens.

Of course, television (news in particular) has been slower to catch up with this digital revolution. When I was a reporter at the BBC, for example, editors still tended to value material shot by cameramen over material shot and edited by skilled VJs. But I'm sure that's already started changing. I was stunned, for example, that many of the people I helped to train this week in Final Cut Pro had never done any professional shooting or editing in their lives and yet produced the most incredible, humorous and touching stories.

Sadly my own film-making has taken a back seat for the last year because I've been working on my book... But when my publishers told me the other day that they wanted me to be interviewed for an author video (the kind of thing you see on Amazon), I was itching to get back behind a camera and so I suggested to them that I make it myself. My last big editing project was cutting my wedding video and it's about time to get back in the saddle. Instead of the usual sit-down interview, I'm going to try something more creative. Watch this space!

How to get a book deal

2010-11-08T09:49:00.007Z

I've had lots of emails and phone calls in the last year asking me how to secure a book deal and so as promised I'm going to share my experience (such that it is... I'm only on my first book and still learning).

First of all, not all ideas are equal. A subject that you find important and fascinating may not catch the imagination of many readers, so before you start developing your thoughts too much, it helps to do a quick calculation of how many people would be likely to buy it. The marketing bumpf in a book proposal is almost as important as the idea itself. So for example, if you would like to write a history book about the Spanish Civil War, then find out what other books have been published on the topic, how well they did, who bought them, and whether there might be any special reason for people to buy that book now (like an anniversary).

Now that's not to say that something obscure wouldn't sell: The Cloudspotter’s Guide doesn't sound like it would be an immediate hit, but it has turned into a runaway global bestseller. And this brings me to my next point: how are you going to tell the story? Seemingly dull subjects can be transformed by a wonderful treatment. Sometimes the skill lies in the writing, but sometimes it's also about your approach. Why not tell it from a different point of view? Find an interesting device, character or narrative? Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, for example, is a book about biology told through the story of an amazing woman and her family. It's more fun than reading a boring explainer about genes.

Lastly, follow the rules. Publishers are quite explicit about how they would like to receive book proposals so if you just do exactly what they say, your odds of getting a deal go up immediately. Usually, you will need a well-written proposal that includes an introduction, chapter outlines, your biography (why should you write this book and not someone else), marketing information and a draft chapter or two. Don't skimp. If you mess up the proposal once then you damage your chances of someone looking at it again.

These days most submissions also have to go through a literary agent. So send your proposal to those you feel would best represent your work. The one I plumped for, for example, is Peter Tallack because his agency focuses particularly on science writers. Also, don't just settle for the first publisher who offers you a deal. Figure out which one is most enthusiastic about your work. I accepted a deal with Hodder not just for the money, but because they loved my idea from day one and have shown nothing but passion for it.

Simples! Hope that's useful! If you have any extra questions than leave a comment and I'll reply as soon as I can.

London Science Book Club

2010-11-01T20:01:00.006Z

This has been a pretty sad week for popular science readers in London. Firstly, the Royal Society announced that it would no longer have a prize for the year's best science books. Secondly, I've found out that the British Science Association's London book club is no more.

Writing my own book has reignited my passion for other people's science writing, so if you are another one of those people with a strange yet irrepressible love of non-fiction then you'll be glad to hear that I'm thinking of starting a small science book club in central London. Every two months we'll be meeting to discuss a brilliant read over a cup of tea and some cake. If you're interested (and if you do join, you must attend like clockwork) then please send me a Tweet @AngelaDSaini. The idea came to me only this evening and I already have two signed up, so be quick because there will be a cap on numbers!

UPDATE: The book club membership is now full. Sorry! If you'd like to go on the waiting list, let me know.

Devaluing journalism

2010-10-28T10:09:00.008+01:00

We had an excellent London Girl Geek Dinner about science and tech journalism last night, hosted by the lovely people of Thoughtworks at their offices in Holborn. Big thanks to everyone who turned up and also thanks to Wired for free copies of their magazine.

The topic of my talk was how to become an employable science journalist and, under that banner, the importance of not devaluing the profession. There's been a huge debate on the web for the last couple of years on blogging versus journalism, the role of citizen journalists in the media and whether old-school journalism will die and be taken over by spare-time writers and broadcasters who have day jobs as press officers, scientists or whatever. Both Connie St Louis from City University (one of the other speakers) and I made the point that journalism is a profession, with its own set of skills, laws and standards. Journalists need to be on the ground, exploring, experiencing, meeting people, producing, investigating... and this is a tough job that requires full-timers, with layers of separate editing, to be done properly.

The problem is that the profession is being devalued. Firstly, by magazines and newspapers that are turning to bloggers for content instead of experienced journalists. And secondly, by people who are willing to work for free or for very little (interns, bloggers, cut-price freelancers). Now this is fine if you're just running your own site in your spare time, but the media is always going to suffer if journalists don't demand fair pay for doing real stories. Editors will get away with undercutting their writers. Plus, they'll be much keener to employ legions of churnalists on the cheap. In the long-run, the quality of stories will fall.

The NUJ has a campaign running right now to secure a fair wage for interns. And I (for one) feel it's vital to get behind it, not only for young workers, but also for the profession as a whole. The Association of British Science Writers also has a a freelance pay survey to make sure that writers get the rates they deserve.

For anyone who says that it's impossible to survive as a journalist these days and get paid a decent wage, I'd say, if you keep up your skills (including multimedia skills), quality and standards, then you can. I have, as have many other writers and broadcasters I know. Whatever may happen to the industry, editors and readers can't resist brilliant, exclusive stories. So don't get sucked into the idea that journalism isn't a profession. And know your worth.

Geek Nation update

2010-10-24T12:25:00.006+01:00

What a big week. I turn 30 tomorrow. And in true nerd fashion my friends took me out for game of Laser Quest last night.

Also, the book is finished!

Well, I've finished writing it and now the copy editors have their hands on it. After this it goes to the typesetters and finally gets turned into what you will see on bookshelves next Spring. The new launch date is 3rd March 2011, unless you live on the Indian subcontinent, in which case it will be early April. The best news of all is that I will be doing a book tour through India. If you would like to stay informed about all reading events and festivals then please join the Geek Nation Facebook group (161 fans about counting...). The extra benefit of joining the group is that, on the publication date next year, one fan will be plucked at random and sent a free signed copy. With this offer, we are spoiling you.

I've received a few calls and emails recently asking me how to get a book deal. I was a lucky ducky in this respect, but there are some simple rules you can follow if you feel you have a searingly hot idea and don't know how to grab the attention of publishers. I promise to do a blog post about it soon.

In the meantime, thanks to all the fabulous ladies who have signed up to attend the London Girl Geek Dinner at ThoughtWorks this Wednesday, where I'll be speaking about how to start a career in science and technology journalism in these uncertain times. See you then!

Is Obama taking a lesson from India?

2010-10-16T18:57:00.006+01:00

One of my research trips through India last year took me to the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, an amazing engineering and science college designed to cream off the brightest school students and set them on the road to starting technology companies, designing gadgets and becoming technocrats. The pressure to get into colleges like this has created among the fiercest educational systems in the world. Indian (and Asian students generally) just can't be beaten. And to encourage them, India is in the process of building dozens of new universities, colleges and schools.

In comparison, it almost seems like the West is shutting down. In Britain, there are plans to introduce higher tuition fees, possibly close university departments and cut research funding. But Obama (a rare voice of reason in this cost-cutting madness) seems to have learned a lesson from countries like India. About a month ago he announced a goal to recruit 10,000 more new science, tech, engineering and maths teachers. And this week he mentioned China and India as places that could surge ahead in the education "arms race".

So it seems appropriate that Obama's longest foreign trip since his Presidency began will to India in November, just after the start of Diwali. According to the Times of India, the US ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer, said, "It signifies the growing strategic importance of India in the eyes of the US." One of the eight key issues on the agenda during his trip is education.

Indian education is also one of the big themes in Geek Nation, so if you're interested in finding out more about what makes Indian students such brainboxes, then you can pre-order your copy before publication in March next year on Amazon UK, or through other local stores in Japan, Sweden, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Sorry, you can't yet order it in India or the US but I promise that you will be able to soon!

Picture it. A billion dollars

2010-10-09T10:42:00.008+01:00

I'm reading Alex's Adventures in Numberland by Alex Bellos at the moment, and one of the fascinating observations he makes early on is how humans don't have an instinctive, natural sense of numbers much beyond three or four. In some small tribes they don't even have words for numbers higher than this. And so it makes sense that our brains might find it difficult to distinguish easily between high values. For example, in my mind, the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire is big but not quite as big as a a factor of a thousand.

Politicians are constantly exploiting this fact. With talk of budget cuts, for example, billions are bandied about as carelessly as if we were just talking about a few quid. In fact, the Tories repeatedly enjoy telling us that their "efficiency savings" are analagous to us buying own-brand bread at home.

So even though some scientists may look down on this approach, I'm a big fan of visualising numbers. And in indulging this passion, I'm shamefully addicted to the brilliant site, Information is Beautiful, where David McCandless takes data and turns it into pictures. It's a powerful way of challenging our assumptions about the relative size and importance of different statistics. Plus they look amazing. So please do check it out.

My favourites are the Billion Dollar-o-Gram (above: the beige area in the picture is the worldwide cost of the financial crisis) and a bubble diagram of health supplements called Snake Oil.

The deepest cut

2010-10-06T22:57:00.010+01:00

Sorry about my failure to update this blog for the last couple of weeks. I've been finishing the final draft of Geek Nation before it wings its way to the editors at Hodder (for more updates please join the Facebook group... 152 fans and counting).

What has dragged me out of hibernation and back to Blogger is the news that the crazy cuts that the British coalition government has been making may finally hit science. Research spending could fall by anything between 15% and 45%.

There are a gazillion arguments for why science and engineering are important to the economy so I won't bother spelling them out here (although I'm at a loss as to why the government hasn't figured them out), but I understand that the country's in debt and it has to find savings somewhere. I just hope that David Cameron and George Osborne understand where this might land them. Having spent most of the last year in India, where the government has recently promised to double investment in research and development, it seems obvious that the UK might just find itself with an enormous brain drain (in fact, lots of my friends have already left for Mumbai, New York and California) and, even worse, a reputation for being unwelcome to scientists, thinkers and innovators.

Now, if this means the UK turns into a country of thickos, make no mistake, I will leave too. Although you can probably do without me (you may even prefer it), I doubt you can do without all the people who make your medicines, build your bridges, design your software and teach you in your schools and universities.

Cuts to science funding are unlike tax increases, benefit slashing or eliminating quangos, because the damage is particularly difficult to undo. When university departments close (which they will) and when researchers leave (which they will), it could take decades to get them back. So if you would like to protect UK science, then please sign the online petition at Science is Vital. 17,599 people have put down their names so far. If you're really committed to the cause, then the organisers of the petition are also holding a protest march this weekend, which will pass in front of the Treasury building.

Hello world, I'm tweeting

2010-09-11T20:32:00.007+01:00

I have a love/hate relationship with social media, partly to do with the fact that I was briefly stalked by this crazy weirdo when I worked at the BBC... which resulted in a package being delivered to my home address, which I (silly me) thought was private. I've since been nervous that strange people will find out things about me against my will or that I might, in a moment of weakness, post something personal that will return to haunt me. Another reason that I'm a late adopter of all things social is that I am actually a bit of an introvert, which makes me naturally reticent about making new friends (online or otherwise) and joining in general chit chat.

But as a journalist, I can't afford to be cut off for this brave new world. Bear in mind, I joined Facebook only this year. But now I have taken the biggest step yet. Just now, I joined Twitter. I will try to resist the temptation to tweet about private things, but if you happen to be interested in journalism, new media, science and engineering, or my Bambi steps into the world of publishing, then you can find me here.

The Twitter Birds above were designed by the talented Luc Latulippe.

Ingenious women

2010-09-11T10:42:00.005+01:00

I spent Thursday at an event organised by the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology. The reason? I've just become one of twelve media mentors for a group of amazing females engineers. The problem is that women are so poorly represented in this industry (less than seven per cent of engineering professionals are female) that the media has taken to assuming women scientists and engineers simply don't exist. And when they do, they marvel at their appearance or age (look! A young blonde in a labcoat!). So my job is to help these women get more media exposure, not for being novel, pretty or wearing a skirt, but for their work. Hopefully they can become role models for girls with an interest in engineering. At the moment, less than a quarter of students taking physics at A level and only 15 per cent of engineering undergraduates are female.

A lot of the advice will also be shared on the Ingenious Women blog, so please do follow it and leave your questions too if you have any.

Geek Nation update

2010-08-30T14:21:00.006+01:00

This has been a great summer of being holed in my study, surgically attached to the keyboard on my Mac and writing so hard that my optician tells me that my eyesight has significantly deteriorated. But every minute was worth it because now the book is almost finished! I'm just crossing the Ts and dotting the Is on the final chapter, after which there will be a couple of months of editing (and possibly re-writing), followed by whatever mysterious magic the publishers perform to turn the words into beautiful pages. The cover is now done (see above) in all its dorky glory. My sister says it looks like all my relatives have been lined up for a family portrait.

The final thing won't be out until the 17th of February next year, but if you're super-keen, you can pre-order a copy from Amazon, Waterstones, Blackwell or The Book Depository. If you have suggestions on where you might like me to go to do a reading next year, then please leave it on the Geek Nation Facebook group (134 fans and counting...). On the day the book is published next year, I'm going to pick one of the Facebook fans at random and give her/him a free signed copy, so if you'd like to be a winner, get liking!

Engaging both halves of my brain

2010-08-20T18:01:00.013+01:00

Being an engineering graduate, I tend to be a stereotypical left-brainer. But being a journalist and author means that I also can't escape my other half (and by that I mean the right-hand-side of my brain, not my husband). And so the fabulous Right Brain Blog, run by my friend and BBC journalism trainer Ramaa Sharma, interviewed me this morning about what it's like to write my first book, Geek Nation. Not the technical details, but stuff like getting through writer's block, feelings of self-doubt, how I structure my day and what makes me continue in this strange profession instead of working for a big petroleum company or something. Check it out at her brilliant blog here (it's part of a series of interviews on the art of writing, which is well worth a look).

The nuclear turnaround

2010-08-18T12:12:00.009+01:00

About two years ago I made a short television documentary, which was broadcast on Al Jazeera International (no, it's not a mouthpiece for Osama bin Laden; lots of ex-BBC and ITN staff work there), about how green activists are becoming more supportive of nuclear power. It was called How the Greens Went Nuclear. The basic argument was that nuclear power is cleaner than fossil fuels, plentiful, relatively safe these days, and the output of a single power plant is vast. In light of climate change, it's especially vital.

So it's nice to know that I wasn't barking up the wrong tree, because this week's Scientific American Cross-Check blog by John Horgan contains a glowing review of a book written by just such a greenie who, after years of research, came down in favour of nukes. I haven't yet bought Gwyneth Cravens' book, but if Horgan's summary is anything to go by, it's worth reading. It might just turn you into a "pro-nuke nut" too.

The world's most educated taxi driver

2010-08-10T22:19:00.005+01:00

Today, thanks to the excellent MIT Technology Review blog by Steven Hsu, I found another blog that I had to share with you, both my blog readers. It's written by "probably the only taxi driver in this world with a PhD from Stanford", otherwise known as Cai Mingjie. After losing his job as a university professor in Singapore a couple of years ago, Cai turned to the global career of last resort: taxi driver.

A Singapore Taxi Driver's Diary is an amazing collection of his stories about the lives of his passengers. For some reason, since this spring, he's had trouble accessing his Blogger account and has also disappeared off overseas. Nevertheless you can still read his beautiful posts online. If nothing else, they might make you think differently about the guy or gal driving your taxi. I wonder how many scientists there are in the world, reduced to ferrying folk around the world's richest cities...

No nukes?

2010-08-09T18:41:00.013+01:00

Occasionally, science gives us an invention that changes the world, and often this invention comes out of war. So it is with the atomic bomb. It's been 65 years since the Manhattan Project reached its awful conclusion and nuclear weapons were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In that time, pretty much every major country other than Japan has enthusiastically built its own nuclear arsenal, bringing us all even further from the possibility that it won't happen again.

So today on this anniversary, the survivors of that tragedy have been asking: Can we rid the world of nuclear weapons? America's answer (well, a former US Defence Secretary's, anyway): Not likely.

Harold Brown has said there is a "practical impossibility" of no nukes in the future. To be fair, although diplomats and politicians like to pretend it's not true, there really is less chance than ever that nuclear weapons will be abolished. Now this is an issue I studied while I was getting my Masters degree at the Department of War Studies at King's. For one thing, I was taught, we don't even know where all the highly enriched uranium is or which mysterious political groups have it. For a second thing, we've had a treaty explicitly demanding that countries give up their nukes for decades, but they haven't. And for a third thing, even if we were to all give up our nuclear weapons tomorrow, there's nothing stopping countries from changing their minds in the event of another world war.

But one fascinating thing has emerged since those horrific American attacks on Japan, and that's a general and complete consensus that, even if we do have nukes, we shouldn't use them. These days, in the security world, nuclear weapons are thought of as pure deterrents only. The horror and the widespread devastation that nuclear weapons cause have checked even the worst dictators and terrorists. So while in some ways it's scary to think that we still live in the precipice between safety and nuclear annihilation, at the same time it's reassuring to know that for 65 years and for all the wars that have happened in that time, nobody has used them. At least we have one line we won't cross.

Five years of girl geeks

2010-08-04T22:19:00.017+01:00

Cupcake photo courtesy of the brilliant blog by Clare Siobhan Callery

Exactly half a decade ago, a group of women working in IT in London decided enough was enough. If there weren't enough females in their industry, then they would create their own community of girl geeks. They did. They called it the girl geek dinners (I was so impressed, I covered them twice for the BBC). Today there are girl geek dinners in 26 countries all over the world (including Frankfurt, Milan, Iceland and Chicago) and almost 28,000 members on three social networks... and so this evening we all went to celebrate these facts at the Google HQ in London.

It was a fabulous night, with custom cupcakes, wine and inspirational talks that included the history of the women who worked at Bletchley Park. What really impressed me is that there are so many women out there these days who are so enthusiastic about technology, and more importantly, changing the IT industry from the inside to make it more representative. I do occasionally meet people who still believe women aren't as good at science and engineering than men are; and even that women have no place in techie professions. In fact, I recall the first girl geek dinners having almost as many men as women (and a lot of the men looked like they were only there to get a date).

So kudos to Sarah Blow, the hard-working founder, and also to all the thousands of women who are proving that being geeky is something girls do so well.

British Science Writers Awards

2010-07-23T20:18:00.006+01:00

Winning isn't everything... which is a good thing, because I was shortlisted for an award for best feature from the Association of British Science Writers, and tonight was the glitzy ceremony at the Royal Society (not quite the Oscars...) and I lost out to the fabulous Robin McKie, science editor at the Observer, and Helen Pearson, the chief features editor at Nature. Sad for me, but then I can't think of two more illustrious people to be up against.

Tonight was also a winning night for John Travis, the mega-talented European News Editor of Science, who I've known online for a while but had the pleasure of meeting along with the lovely Kate Travis (also from Science) for the first time today. He won the best news story award.

Chatting to Pallab Ghosh and Simon Singh afterwards (I know, lucky me) I got the impression that global science journalism, despite the downturn in the media industry, is enjoying a bit of a resurgence right now. The public seem to be particularly interested in science journalism, especially in exciting, investigative writing on important scientific issues, of which there are many. Of course this is nice for us science hacks, because it feels like our work isn't just appreciated by us, but that you guys might love it too.

Geek Nation update

2010-07-05T17:10:00.004+01:00

Half-way through writing a first book, I have learned, is the most nail-biting time of all. I find myself stuck in uncomfortable dilemmas: Is it any good? Does it make sense so far? Should I resist the temptation to spend my days reading through old chapters or should I just keep writing? Another sad thing about approaching the finish line is that I love writing it so much that I don't want to stop. Then again, I have some good news too: My publishers, Hodder & Stoughton, have shown me a mock-up of what the cover might look like (above). I think it's fabulously geeky in a retro kinda way, but it would be good to know your verdicts too.

If you would like to be kept in the loop about further developments on the Geek Nation front, then please do join the Facebook group (89 fans and counting!). If you are super-keen then you can even pre-order a copy on Amazon UK or through the WHSmith website. It won't arrive until next year of course, but at least you know you will be one of the first to read it.

The perfect machine

2010-07-03T18:21:00.008+01:00

I've spent this afternoon at the London Literature Festival on the Southbank, and more specifically at a fascinating discussion on the human quest to create the perfect machine, between sociologist Richard Sennett and robots expert Noel Sharkey. It was a really brilliant talk. One of the interesting things to come up was that since we naturally design machines to serve us, we often imagine that the perfect machine would be a replicant... in other words, as human as possible. And maybe that's why science-fiction is peppered with stories of humanoids, from Frankenstein's monster to the machines in the film, Metropolis. But the fact is, we are at least hundreds of years away from even getting close to creating a robot that good. As Noel Sharkey pointed out, we have robots that look human but are as thick as remote controls, and we have individual machines that are as sophisticated as limbs or organs, but we are nowhere near simulating intelligence, emotion or thought.

Richard Sennett made the point that perfectionism itself is a neurosis. Artists and writers, for example, can ruin their work and their lives by trying to attain it. In reality, engineers and craft workers can only ever hope to do their imperfect best. So where does that leave the perfect machine? Maybe our limited imaginations could never even create one. But then again, if perfection just means fulfilling a function better than anything else, then perhaps perfect machines are actually the most simple, not the most humanoid: paperclips, wheels and washing machines, for example.

One final observation I couldn't help making this afternoon was that a lot of engineers and robotics experts seem to be men, whereas a lot of science-fiction and real-life humanoid robots tend to be women (take the Stepford Wives, for example). If this says something about male psychology, I don't what it is... But on that matter, I'd love to know what you guys think.

The laser has turned fifty!

2010-06-29T10:39:00.010+01:00

Oh, I love lasers. And if you tune into the BBC World Service show, Digital Planet, this week then you can listen to me interviewing Nobel prize-winner Charles Townes - one of the guys who invented them. The whole feature is about how the laser is a fifty-year-old invention, and yet we are still catching up to its amazing possibilities in delivering fast, high-bandwidth telecommunications. One of the interviewees, Prof David Payne from the University of Southampton, also explains how the optical fibre cables already laid down beneath our feet are quickly reaching their maximum capacity because Internet demand is so mind-bogglingly enormous. It means that in the future we're going to need better pipes that can carry more lasers more efficiently.

Big thanks to the Royal Academy of Engineering (a place everyone should check out, by the way) for organising their The Laser at 50 event and giving folk like me a chance to meet these experts.

Reporting with tiny-tech

2010-06-27T16:33:00.008+01:00

When I worked full-time at the BBC, one of the best parts of my job was helping ordinary people turn their stories on home video into real television. These days, pocket-sized cameras and mobile phones have such amazing quality (in fact I once used a camera the size of a shirt button in an undercover report, and it had images as clear as a good camcorder), that it really is possible to make brilliant films with small tech on a small budget in your spare time. A friend of mine Ramaa Sharma, who is a media trainer at the BBC, has come up with an amazing set of tips to help the uninitiated understand the difference between something that looks amateurish and something slick, and how to shoot pictures that are easier to edit. It's a must-watch for anyone who has a camera, especially budding video journalists, and you can check it out on the BBC College of Journalism website.

The music that data makes

2010-06-23T09:53:00.008+01:00

One of the biggest challenges in communicating science is that, very often, it looks and sounds boring. Especially physics and maths. That's why we have zillions of nature documentaries about lions mating the wild and the secret life of caterpillars and hardly any about statistics or algebra. That's the problem I faced this week: I've been making a piece for BBC radio on lasers. In our imaginations (or in mine at least) a laser sounds like a Star Wars light saber... but of course, lasers are just light beams so they don't make any kind of noise. In the end I just had to make do with science-fiction-style sound effects. But the thing is, the nicest way to consume data is through pictures and sounds. Audio in particular carries tiny nuances, dips, curves and patterns that can turn a dry set of numbers into something beautiful, and make it easier to understand.

That's where sonification comes in. This week, researchers at CERN released what they expect the Higgs Boson (God particle) might sound like if it had a sound... to me, it's like the noise of a wet finger running round the rim of a wine glass. To do this, they took their data and translated it into audio waves. The waves aren't the real thing, but the patterns are. And it's an approach that's becoming more popular: ECG machines in hospitals have used it for ages, and some pieces of maths software now also have sound outputs. Earlier this year, scientists converted NASA data on solar winds into sounds so that their ears could pick up something they might have missed.

It's kind of like artificial synaesthesia. Who knows, maybe one day we'll end up with data not just in graphs and noises, but in 3D representations of sound, colours and movement. In fact, perhaps it's already happening.

Innovation in journalism

2010-06-11T15:02:00.011+01:00

I spent this morning at a BBC College of Journalism conference on the Value of Journalism, held at the LSE in London. The topic of the session I was speaking in was 'Innovation in Journalism'. Although I do work in a variety of media and am fairly tech-savvy (I do my best, anyway), I'm not sure that I'm much of an innovator, especially compared to such talented, entrepreneurial journalists as Alex Wood, Adam Westbrook, Dominique van Heerden, and Marcus Gilroy-Ware, who were the other panelists. Anyhow, we raised some fascinating issues: Is content still king? Has journalism got worse or better? How do you keep on top of new technologies? What new models are there?

It was especially good to have such a healthy turnout and brilliant questions. If you weren't there or would like to see our panel discussion again, then you'll be happy to know that there is a video recording (that's me, seated closest to the camera, above), and Judith Townend from journalism.co.uk has also done a brief write-up.

Obama's coming to India!

2010-06-04T22:22:00.010+01:00

Do you know where you were at the exact moment that Barack Obama was being inaugurated as US President? I'll tell you where I was. I was drinking Mirinda orangeade out of a glass bottle in a god-awful motel room in the Indian city of Ahmedabad. I was working on a story on a low budget and I was stuck in this hot, humid place, with bugs crawling everywhere and my door carefully locked, but I didn't care, because America was getting its first black leader and I never thought I would see that in my lifetime. Millions of Indians were as excited as I was. There were celebrations in the streets.

Maybe Barack knew how much his election meant to Indians... because he has announced that this November he is going to visit India, making him only the sixth US President to make the trip. Hillary Clinton this week also spelled out that the American government would like to strengthen science and technology ties between the US and India, recognising how much effort both countries have made to spur innovation and basic research. It is one area in which it's clear that the Obama administration feels that the two countries have a common aim.

And perhaps that's also why newspapers are reporting that Obama intends to nominate an Indian American engineering graduate to head up the US National Science Foundation. He has already appointed Indian Americans to the posts of Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Officer at the White House... does this mean that Obama has recognised the wonders of the Indian geek? Yep. I think so.

The Bakhshali Manuscript

2010-05-26T21:41:00.007+01:00

Regular readers of this blog (both of you) may be aware that one of the quests in my geeky journey through India for the last year has been to find out the ancient roots of Indian science. Hindus developed lots of ideas in maths, astronomy and medicine thousands of years ago... Sadly, most of the evidence of this is either lost, disintegrated or mixed up with superstitions and legends. Nonetheless my quest became such an obsession that today I finally tracked down the oldest surviving mathematical text from India (and in fact the whole of Asia).

The irony is that it wasn't in India at all. It was actually in the beautiful Bodleian Library in Oxford. The Bakhshali Manuscript is a maths textbook, dating back possibly 1,300 years, and was found about a hundred years ago in the northwestern province of Bakhshali (which is now in Pakistan). Usually it's kept behind lock and key, but luckily for me the librarians at Oxford University kindly took out one precious leaf from the manuscript for me to see this morning.

And it was incredible: A tiny, shiny, brown scrap of birch bark covered in tiny black letters. I don't read ancient Sanskrit, but I could at least make out + signs and groups of letters that looked like they might be fractions or equations. Indians have used algebra for more than 2,000 years, so it is likely that the Bakhshali Manuscript contains some of this old mathematical knowledge. Sitting in an old English library surrounded by paintings of kings and queens has been a strange end to my research. But it was also a wonderful one.

Geek Nation update

2010-05-14T09:15:00.009+01:00

Since coming back from New Delhi to central London about a month ago, I have been holed in my study like a hermit trying to write Geek Nation: How Indian Science is Taking over the World... It is a sad and lonely life but you will be pleased to hear that two chapters are nearly done and even better news is that my wonderful publishers, Hodder, have started showing me some possible cover designs. I've always been wary of all the books about India with elephants, gods and swirly psychedelic patterns on the cover -- so this will be a fun and geeky departure from that.

If you would like to stay in the loop then please join the Facebook group for Geek Nation (75 fans and counting!).

A sad week for science in the UK

2010-05-10T16:54:00.008+01:00

Having come back from India, a country so in the thrall of science and engineering that it is opening dozens of new engineering colleges and universities even as I type, it's a bit strange now to be back in London just a mile or two away from Westminster where science is slowly slipping off the agenda altogether. A few minutes ago, David Cameron became the new British prime minister, and while it's good news that the country has finally found a little stability, this has been a miserable couple of weeks for science and it doesn't seem to be getting any better.

The Financial Times reported today that squeezes in public funding are likely to hit university science departments particularly hard. And The Times science correspondent, Mark Henderson, wrote an almost tearful blog post this week about how the Lib Dem MP and champion for science, Dr Evan Harris, lost his seat (having once voted for him when I was a student in his Oxford constituency, it's sad for me too). While the Conservative's science spokesperson, Adam Afriyie, does appear to hold the fairly obvious view that engineering is important for Britain's future (although why not a single leader brought up this point in the election debates is beyond me), he also mentioned a couple of months ago that science would suffer major funding cuts.

It doesn't look good. There isn't a single industrialised economy that doesn't have science and engineering at the heart of its economy. It is, frankly, the only way to build new industries and innovations.... the United States understands this, so does Germany, and Japan, not to mention China and India. Another dangerous thing about allowing science labs and university departments to close down now is that it is really difficult to ever get that expertise back again when the economy does pick up. For me at least, it is utterly confusing that British leaders are the only ones who don't seem to understand this. I just hope the new UK government does wise up before it's too late.