The second metro (subway if you wish) line in Warsaw has been under construction for the last five years now. It has been delayed over and over, but finally, in the beginning of March 2015 it opened. The opening itself was a bit strange. It was done with very little fanfare […]
Sunday was cold and windy, so we decided it’s a perfect day for visiting a museum. Despite living almost 7 years in Warsaw I had never been to the Museum of technology in the Palace of Culture and Science. Well, it a museum that itself belongs in a museum. Nothing seems […]
As part of a research project I took photos of small blocks of PDMS submerged in an organic solvent. I love how the blocks themselves are almost invisible but the shadows stand out so well.
One of the coolest developments over the last few years is the integration of relatively good quality, high speed video recording in many consumer devices. Together with a free tracking program like Tracker one can do lots of really cool things that used to be possible only with professional equipment. […]
Over the last few years our institute has started sending out more professional press notes about recent research we have published. It has earned the institute some space in media. I am a little divided about these kind of press releases, since they tend to hype the research a bit […]
This post started out as a personal rant, but it also says something important about the state of science in Poland. Today the results of the latest application round for grants from the Polish National Science Centre (NCN) were announced. I have for some time that my application was not […]
When I referee an article I rarely comment on the grammar or the choice of words. Most authors are not native English speakers and as long as the language is not so spectacularly bad that it makes it hard to understand the meaning I usually don’t mention it. I especially don’t bother […]
Yesterday I lied to a priest. I did it to avoid an argument, and I felt bad about it. Not because I was lying to a priest, but because I felt the need to lie. I’m an atheist, and I never had any problems with saying so, or even vocally […]
The last week I’ve been working on the final report of a project I was running over the last three years. Mostly this is mind-numbingly boring stuff, but now a one-page popular science summary should be included. Since I had to write it I can just as well put it […]
This week our institute is arranging its yearly Microsymposium* where all the scientists get to show the others, through talks or posters, what they have been doing during the year. I always have a bit of mixed feelings about this kind of arrangements. One one hand it feels like a […]
