20% off The Cabbages of Doom

Yesterday was apparently International Waffle Day, which sounds a bit made-up to me but is excuse enough for Lulu.com to have a 20% sale until the 31st of March. Just use WAFFLESSAY20 to get 20% off The Cabbages of Doom (just 80p!) or for some graphic entertainment, I can recommend Jesus ‘n’ Mo.

What I've learnt from another year of blogging

I was hoping to do a bit of an End of Year review for the blog with the top posts of 2012. Unfortunately, blogger does not seem to be able to provide annual stats - it's limited to the last day, week, month or all time. Google Analytics is more useful but, unfortunately, I only set it up on the blog in April so I cannot use that either. Instead, here are the top six posts from 2012 based on all time stats at the beginning of January:

#	Post	Date	Views
1	Kumala Zenith Merlot/Cab Sav/Shiraz - another bargain red	6 Feb 2012	381
2	There's nothing scary about the Spice Kittens	16 Oct 2012	360
3	Tim Minchin talks to Caitlin Moran	30 Aug 2012	273
4	How to root a phylogenetic tree	7 Jun 2012	183
5	A fan fixes Star Wars (Machete Order)	7 Oct 2012	181
6	Finding Nemo's sex-changing father	18 May 2012	159

So, what have I learnt from this year's blogging?

✏ People like wine. (OK, I already knew that.) Although I do not really consider The Cabbages of Doom to be a "science blog" per se, I am a bit disappointed that the science posts have not rated higher. It's especially embarrassing to see a wine post top the bill as I don't really know much about wine and the posts show that! (They're really just for me to keep track of wine I like!)

✏ Sex, celebrities and kittens sell. Also not really surprising, I guess - this is the internet - but three of the top six feature sex, celebrities and kittens. Not things I blog about often but good to remember if I ever feel the viewing stats need a boost!

✏ Education, education, education. I've blogged before that Education is the key to impact and it seems to hold true for blog posts too - mine at least. The top science post was the education-related How to root a phylogenetic tree and the second also stemmed from a lecture. Still, good motivation to blog some more lecture-related material when I have the chance.

✏ Blog what you like. The philosophy behind my blog has always been "because the internet has a better memory than I do". I don't think it is easy - or that healthy - to try and predict what other people will be interested in and write about that, unless you are trying to blog professionally, of course. Given that I do not think I would have predicted any of the above as top posts, I think this is a good philosophy to continue.

✏ It doesn't have to be fresh. Especially with science, it sometimes feels like a race to "get in on the action". The more I blog, the more I feel it's best to leave that to the pros. There is something nice about returning to the scene after the dust has settled and there's less pressure to try and be original.

✏ Quality not Quantity / Fun not Frequency. There was a period when I got a bit obsessed about trying to knock out one post a day. It did not last too long and it killed some of the fun. One of my favourite blogs, coelsblog, probably posts one or two times a month on average. This is a hobby, not a job, so it's perfectly OK for it to be sporadic.

✏ Comment on other people's blogs. I don't mean leave snarky troll comments all over the internet but making positive contributions to other people's comment threads is a great way to get a few extra page views heading your way from those with similar interests. Even without the carrot of extra page views, I still recommend leaving comments that encourage posts you have enjoyed - as a blogger, I know how nice (although sadly rare for me!) to get them. (Desire for feedback is also part of the point of blogging.) Such conversations can also provide good inspiration for future posts. (On the subject of other blogs... more end of year blogging wisdom can be found at Under The Banyan.)

✏ Be polite. Attack the idea, not the person. Or, better still, question the idea. (Usually, the best defence is not offence.) Both when blogging and commenting, always remember than you are effectively self-publishing to the world. I'm sure I don't always get it right but I try to stay mindful of (and avoid) anything that might come back and bite me later, hence my blog disclaimer: "Any unsourced opinions on this site are my own. I sometimes get things wrong and will be happy to amend my position in the light of new information."

The Cabbages of Doom 2.2

A new edition of The Cabbages of Doom is now available on the Kindle for only 99p (or $1.59). Thanks to some editorial advice (thanks, Karen!), a few grammatical errors and typos have been fixed here and there. It also features a new cover. Following some changes at Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, it can be lent too. (Though only in America, I think.) The iBooks and Lulu versions will be updated when time and energy allows. (Unless I discontinue them and enrol in "KDP Select".)

If you are curious, visit Amazon to download a free sample, read the blurb or view the sample chapter (PDF). If you need more encouragement, here it's one review so far (for the Lulu PDF version, which is yet to be updated):

★★★★★

This exciting and entertaining first novel exceeded all of my expectations. The story itself is a very imaginative chase across the English country side involving inter-dimensional travellers culminating in an entirely unpredictable hilarious and action packed final confrontation. The story had me laughing out loud and genuinely invested in routing for the good guys (okay, cabbage and small animals). Unlike most self-published first novels in this price range this one was very well spell-checked and surprisingly grammatically correct. If you are in the mood for a smile, a fun story and groan or two for some amazing puns and references to classic films, then this is the best 99p you can spend.

Go on. You'll make my day.

Standing up for Genetic Modification

It's my 300th blog post and so I wanted to try and post about something that captured the essence of the blog, hence the delay! What could be better than to combine food, science and The Cabbages of Doom?

Actually, The Cabbages of Doom is a bit of a red herring for this post. Just in case there is any confusion, The Cabbages of Doom is not a negative reference about Genetically Modified (GM) foods. (It's a surreal science fiction story about some marauding cabbages from another direction invading Swansea. And only 99p! Review here.)

In fact, I could not be much further away from an anti-GM position. For me, the success of the anti-GM lobby in the UK and across Europe in the late nineties represents one of the biggest scientific, political and media disasters of the modern age. A well-organised and probably well-intentioned but horribly misinformed group of scaremongers managed to hijack the public debate over use of one of the most promising technologies ever to be developed in the history of mankind.

Let's make one thing clear from the outset: there is nothing inherently unnatural about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). For a start, many GMO just involve targeted mutations within a strain or introduction of genetic variants from related species. These could potentially be achieved by conventional breeding and artificial selection at much greater expense of time and money (and death). The more advanced GMO involve taking DNA from one organism and inserting it in another. Even these GMO are not really unnatural, even if the techniques used to create them are: although it is rare in multicellular plants and animals, "Horizontal Transfer" of genetic material between organisms - including eukaryotes - does occur in nature. (See Keeling & Palmer (2008) Horizontal gene transfer in eukaryotic evolution. Nature Reviews Genetics 9:605-18 for some examples and discussion.)

It is true that the level of modification desired is unlikely to be achieved by natural mechanisms within the lifetimes of the scientists involved. This, though, is one of the key benefits of GM: it greatly speeds up our ability to generate and evaluate possible genetic solutions to environmental problems. We don't need to wait around just trying to get lucky.

Furthermore, far from being inherently dangerous, many GMO are probably safer to the environment than non-GM alternatives. Why? GM is far more precise and targeted than "traditional" methods of creating mutants for screening, which involve chemicals or radiation and produce something much less predictable. The more we understand the nature of the modification, the easier it is to both predict possible risks and also detect or mitigate them. You only have to look at the problems of "invasive species" to realise that entirely "natural" organisms in the wrong place can be an environmental calamity. By eliminating the ability to customise and refine appropriate native organisms through GM, inappropriate introduced species might be used instead. (Often it is not clear what the problems might be until they are released.) The other reason is that, done right, a GMO can permit reductions in uses of chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides.

Food safety is more of a concern but the solution here is not a blanket ban nor even a blanket hysteria, it is adequate food testing and common sense. If a gene has simply been removed from an organism or repressed, as in the "Flavr Savr" tomato, it is no more dangerous than a new hybrid from natural breeding - DNA is digested when we eat food, so if the product itself is not toxic, there is no obvious risk. If, on the other hand, the GMO is producing something like Bt toxin, one obviously needs to be more careful. Even here, though, it is not obviously the case that using chemicals, or even "organic" alternatives (all GMO are organic!) like spraying Bt strains of bacteria, would be any safer. Preferably, all new foods would undergo appropriate toxicity and allergy testing, whether they were the product of conventional breeding or GM. If there is a genuine problem, clearly that specific GM food should be withdrawn, just as one would do with anything containing, or grown with, new bacteria or chemicals.

So, what went wrong? One of the big problems was the old chestnut of "balanced reporting" in the media. All too often, this seems to equate to equal air time for both sides, no matter how uneven the evidence supporting the two sides was. A calm and cautious (and often already pretty balanced) scientist is paired up with a volatile and definitely one-sided activist. Clearly, this is going to end up biased towards the activist even if their position is weaker and founded on misunderstanding and/or misrepresentation of the science. Worse, the journalists chairing the whole thing often fail to interject when one side is just plain wrong about their facts.

The second problem was education. I don't think it would be such a big problem today because DNA and genomics is in the news so much more but, at the time, a scary proportion of the British public did not think that a non-GM tomato had any DNA in it, for example. (At Nottingham, we had a public debate on the issue and a someone had to be removed because they just kept shouting "I don't want to eat DNA!" and would not stop to have it explained that he was eating DNA in all his regular food.)

The final nail was economics. The anti-GM campaign was good enough at scaremongering that public confidence was weakened, despite (inadequate?) attempts by the scientific community to set the record straight. Supermarkets perceived that they would lose enough custom to warrant pulling the plug and so they did. GM has been largely vilified in the public domain ever since, although I think the EU has now relaxed its zero-tolerance stance. After all, if a supermarket is advertising itself as "GM free" as a good thing, GM must be bad. Right? (Obviously, the consumer desires of someone like me, who would rather eat the cheaper, tastier, less wasteful GM tomatoes, are not so important.)

GMO are not universally good and I am sure there have been situations where big corporations have used GM just to make more money or to increase herbicide resistance and thus use more herbicide, which is bad for the environment. Like any technology, the applications need to be considered on a case-by-case basis.

That said, there are some clear situations where GMO can be a force for good, such as the Golden Rice Project, which seeks to use "biofortified rice as a contribution to the alleviation of life-threatening micronutrient deficiencies in developing countries". Drought- and salt-tolerance maize and other such crops could also be important in our changing world.

The sad irony is that, by resisting the development of government-funded GM crops in academic institutions, the anti-GM lobby have actually driven it all into the hands of large corporations that can get round legislation by doing tests overseas and are far more likely to create the kind of GMO that we don't actually want. (Or, even more scary, unregulated amateur biohackers.)

Whether you think it's man-made or not (it is), Climate Change is a big problem and the more we ignore it, the worse it's going to get. This is a problem so big that we need to throw every weapon in our arsenal at tackling it head-on, and that includes taking a chance here and there. There is a reason that food security is one of the major focuses of UK science funding. We have to feed a growing population on dwindling resources. It's not rocket science. (And I haven't even mentioned biofuels.) Genetically modified organisms represent one of the best - possibly the only - chance we have, short of a massive reduction in the global population. (Population crashes and extinction are natural responses to Climate Change - let's make no mistake here, "natural" is not always good.) It's time to let the genie back out of the bottle and let it be a force for good.

20% off The Cabbages of Doom!

Blogging has taken a back seat over the past few days because I have been in Lucca for a family wedding, where there was considerably better access to wine than wifi! More on Lucca later but for now just a quick plug: 20% off The Cabbages of Doom (and everything else at Lulu.com)!

Mystic Mog and the Exploding Tortoise: The Plan

My recent posts have been a bit dominated by the great National Trust YEC fiasco of late, so now for something completely different and altogether not-so-serious. Observant ones among you may have spotted a new "page" appear in the side-bar, linking to a new blog: Mystic Mog and the Exploding Tortoise. This is cross-post from that new blog, explaining what's going on - or hopefully will be going on, at least...

I was chatting to a friend recently about writing fiction and he asked me how I controlled the characters as they had a tendency, in his experience, to go off and do their own thing. Well, in the case of The Cabbages of Doom, I guess the answer is that I didn't! The whole thing started life as a random email to a friend as a bit of light relief, which was followed up the next day by another that picked up where it left off, and then another and another... until I found myself writing a novella. (Too long to be a short story but too short to be a proper novel!) I don't think it was until about half-way through that I really knew how it was going to end and, even then, it took the characters rather longer than expected to get themselves to that end!

The sequel started life almost as randomly, as a title: "Mystic Mog and the Exploding Tortoise". I can't remember how or why that title became fixed - it happened when I was a PhD student before the first story was even finished - but now it has become quite established and the story has grown (or continues to grow) around it. Finishing Cabbages gave me a bit more time to dwell on the plot of the sequel, so I have an approximate plan this time of where it is going, although some things - such as the end - are still lacking. What is really lacking, though, is the writing! Things were a bit slow with my iPad because it's not that great for heavy text input but now I have a MacBook Air, I am hoping this will improve.

I am still finding it a bit hard to make the time, though, particularly as I am stuck in a bit of tricky spot - over 44,000 words are already written but not for quite a long time, so I need to try and refresh my memory (and edit) somewhat before really launching back into it. With so much of the story still to go, however, I have this "will I ever finish it?" feeling that keeps clawing me back.

Time to take action, and that action is to serialise it in the Mystic Mog blog! I've never blogged a story before, so I am not entirely sure how, or even if, this is going to work but the rough plan is essentially to follow the original genesis of The Cabbages of Doom, releasing one "episode" (snippet) each day or so until completion. I have fifty or so such snippets largely ready to go (with a bit of neatening and editing) and a whole 'nother bunch planned, so I should have enough to keep going for a while. The hope is that, in the meantime, I can write some more and keep ahead of myself. (I probably won't post every day.) If nothing else, the commitment will hopefully keep me going!

Once it's "finished", much like with The Cabbages of Doom, I imagine I will go back over it and edit out the bits that don't work, fix a few continuity errors, flesh out some weak bits and whack it out as another eBook. So, if you liked the first one, or just want to help be a "muse" (and, with luck, amused), do sign up and join me on my journey to more madness. I hope to post the first snippet in a day or so.

The Cabbages of Doom has its first review!

The Cabbages of Doom has its first review! As it's a nice one ☺, I thought I would reproduce it here (with permission):

★★★★★
By Joel Parker

This exciting and entertaining first novel exceeded all of my expectations. The story itself is a very imaginative chase across the English country side involving inter-dimensional travellers culminating in an entirely unpredictable hilarious and action packed final confrontation. The story had me laughing out loud and genuinely invested in routing for the good guys (okay, cabbage and small animals). Unlike most self-published first novels in this price range this one was very well spell-checked and surprisingly grammatically correct. If you are in the mood for a smile, a fun story and groan or two for some amazing puns and references to classic films, then this is the best 99p you can spend.

The Cabbages of Doom: now only 99p!

Perhaps somewhat predictably, copies of The Cabbages of Doom are not exactly flying off the virtual shelves. This could, of course, be that's it's rubbish and no one likes the sample chapter enough to cough up the price of McFlurry to read the rest. My web sleuthing (and ego), however, suggest that it's a lack of reviews that is the issue: why would someone invest their precious time on something with only the author's recommendation?

This is therefore an unabashed plea for some kind folks out there to write some nice words on Amazon, Lulu or iBooks - assuming you have read and liked the book, of course! It's not that long, should you want to find out! What better way to spend a lazy Sunday than in the company of homicidal vegetables and vegicidal animals on a whirlwind adventure of carnage, romance and silliness. (Mostly silliness.)

As an extra motivator, the PDF Edition of The Cabbages of Doom is now only 99p, in line with the iBookstore price - and you can try before you buy! If you read the sample chapter and are sitting on the fence, I'll even send you a copy - as long as you agree to write a review if you have anything nice to say! If you do buy it, I might even share my McFlurry with you.

(Don't mind Frankie, there. He is just trying to use his mind-control powers to convince you.)

15% off at Lulu

Lulu.com have a sale. Great for a cut-price Cabbages of Doom or support freedom of expression with a book of Jesus and Mo cartoons.

The Cabbages of Doom: only 99p from iBooks!

At some point, I am going to have to get to the bottom of the slightly wayward pricing of the different formats for The Cabbages of Doom. The good news is that it's only 99p from the Apple iBooks store. (Free sample chapter PDF here.)

30% sale at Lulu - today only!

That means you can get The Cabbages of Doom for just £1. Bargain!

The Cabbages of Doom: Kindle Edition out now!

My fictional folly is complete (for now) and The Cabbages of Doom is now available in a Kindle Edition too.

I thought it was going to be priced at £1.49 for the UK market but there seems to have been a glitch somewhere. I did find it a bit odd that the cheapest UK price allowed was lower than the USD or EUR prices. Oh well. If the extra 22p puts you off, the PDF and ePub versions are still only £1.44.

Over Christmas, I shall hopefully blog the full e-publishing experience. It's been interesting and I am sure I could do it better next time! (Content aside, that is.)

The Cabbages of Doom, PDF version and free sample now available!

I am happy to report that a PDF edition of The Cabbages of Doom is now available along with a free sample chapter (PDF). Try before you (maybe) buy!

The Cabbages of Doom has an ISBN!

The blogging has been light of late to due excessive busyness. One of the contributing factors to this has been the e-publication of The Cabbages of Doom through Lulu. I think the book itself will take a bit of time to filter through the system but it has an ISBN number now and everything!

I've also worked on a bit of cover art for the new edition. It's not a masterpiece but is certainly better than the previous, blank cover.

The story itself is essentially unchanged, but I have modified the text here and there, both to correct a few typos and remove a few bits that might not go down so well with a more general audience. (Or made me cringe at my ten-years-younger self!) There was also some reformatting for e-Readers to be done. Overall, though, I am happy.

It will be on sale for the princely sum of £1.44, which works out at 16p a chapter (or about 3p per 1000 words). Should you buy it and hate it, let me know and I will donate the portion that goes to me to a charity of your choice. If, on the other hand, you think it's a bargain, please make a donation to Cancer Research UK or the World Wildlife Fund. (I'm not endorsed by either, in case it's not obvious!)

The Cabbages of Doom: one decade on

As the end of September looms, so does an important (and slightly scary) milestone for me. A week today will be the tenth anniversary of the submission of my PhD thesis. Eek!

To celebrate the event, I have decided that my first ever peer-reviewed publication deserved another airing. Admittedly, the peer in question was my mate Matt, and the manuscript in question was self-published with a very limited print run. Of course, I am referring to The Cabbages of Doom. You can read the PDF here, or if you need more enticing, here's the blurb:

For Cyril the Squirrel it was just another day. His main concern was the location of his nuts and the daily battle to avoid being eaten by something with nasty sharp bits and a taste for rodent. And then came The Cabbages of Doom.

Suddenly, Cyril found himself the key player in a struggle over time and space for his survival and the safety of those around him. Plus, if he's lucky, a bit of lovin' on the side. Take some marauding vegetables, add a menagerie of talking animals, then chuck in an army of chrome-plated midgets for good measure, and you have a story that will keep you amused and entertained* for, well, a few minutes. Maybe more.

*The author accepts no responsbility for readers that are neither amused nor entertained.

Location:Nottingham, UK

A website reborn

Finally, I have got round to tidying up my website after the transition from GooglePages to GoogleSites stuffed it up, somewhat. It's a bit of a random mix of stuff and, to be honest, is largely superseded by this very blog but I thought I should say something after spending two hours fixing broken links!

There is a bit of anti-Creationism stuff for those who like that kind of thing. I'm avoiding it at the moment because all the lies make me angry but, as an evolutionary biologist, I feel like I have a civic duty to wade into that battlefield from time to time. (Fortunately, there are lots of others out there doing it better than I.)

It also has some amusing pictures of me in past days, such as the old passport photo shown here.