It is a tremendous irony that my present profession is closer to how I pictured an academic career than academia itself turned out to be.
Continue readingAll I ever wanted
New category: Movember, men’s health
One of the most enduringly popular postings – or rather, series of postings – on Total Internal Reflection is “Great scientists, great moustaches“. Posted every November, and combining appreciation of both scientific achievements and male grooming, this has now reached its 9th iteration and some of the individual articles continue to attract large traffic volumes every year.
To make them easier to find, I’ve now collected them all together in a new “Movember, men’s health” category (ringed in magenta on the right of the image). This will also serve as a home for any other postings that relate directly to men’s health.
Don’t forget, if you know of any great scientists with great moustaches, feel free to nominate them for the series! You can go to the category directly by clicking HERE.
Holiday reading 2026
With the summer holidays looming, here’s a selection of fiction & nonfiction books I’ve been reading recently, with a strong anti-fascism flavour – see if there’s anything that grabs your attention. Have fun, bibliophiles!
Terms of empowerment
Students reach molecular biology from a variety of sources, but what if we started them off from it instead?
Continue readingThe Dunning-Kruger chainsaw massacre
Just over a year ago, I wrote about the “chainsaw massacre” being perpetrated by Elon Musk and his acolytes at DOGE. At the time, these were the most visible elements – the most visible outrages – of the Trump Administration’s war on science and coupled to the beginnings of the anti-DEI ouster, suggested two initial impulses at work: a backlash firstly against the data-driven nature of scientific decision-making (anathema to those who wish to do as they will, unencumbered by facts, details, or restraints), and secondly against merit-based advancement (because education is the great equaliser and facilitates promotion through ability rather than patronage).
Continue readingDevil’s advocate (the case against preprints in biomedical science)
I’m a preprint fan. All the research papers from my final period in academia were posted as preprints before being submitted to journals, and I’ve also utilised preprint peer review services at Research Commons and eLife.
But in my present work as a medial writer, where I’m involved in the publication and dissemination of industry-funded biomedical research, I am slowly realising that many of the things that make preprints so fantastic in the biological sciences simply don’t apply in biomedical science, or not to the same extent.
Continue readingMedComms is not SciComm
When scientists assess career options outside academia, there’s a prevailing misconception that MedComms is a variant of SciComm.
The trap, after all, is right there in the name. SciComm = science communication, MedComms = medical communications, so MedComms must basically be the same activity but dealing with medicine instead of scientific research, right?
Wrong. Here’s why.
Continue reading2025: Total Internal Reflection’s year in review
Catching the zeitgeist
Mark Ronson’s “Night people” memoir is an engaging and engrossing account of his formative years as a DJ in the New York club scene of the 90s. It also illustrates one tantalising facet shared by the arts and sciences: catching the zeitgeist.
Continue readingGreat scientists, great moustaches IX (a Movember posting)
Here’s the latest instalment in TIR’s longest-running posting series, the definitive guide to scientist moustaches! A Movember-themed celebration of some great minds and the great moustaches that went (just) before them. Links to parts I-VIII in the series can be found at the end of the posting.
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