Simpson Lab - Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Canada

Dec 1, 2007 - Dr Vladimir Hampl (Ph.D., University of Transylvania) celebrates his impending flight from Canada by hypnotizing a local maiden, and dancing her to exhaustion before drinking her blood. Two of the other undead watch approvingly.

This is completely unreasonable

The two small blue objects in the foreground are little magnetic stir bars, which we ordered from a scientific supply company. They are inexpensive, and virtually indestructable.

The carboard object behind the stirbars is the box that they were shipped in.

The Triple Felix Model

The 'triple helix model' is a scheme for the funding and nuturing of Science that emphasises strong communication and collaboration between three parties - Academia, Government and Industry. It argues (I suppose), that aligning the interests of these three parties will result in the most productive science.

On the basis of no scholarship at all, and a fuelled by an overwrought cynicism about the world, I proposed an alternative 'triple felix model'. This suggests that the interests of Academia, Government and Industry are fundamentally not aligned, and forcing a strong communication between the three will cause them to fight each other like the proverbial cats-in-a-sack. Actually the whole idea was mainly an excuse to draw this cartoon, but there could be a grain of truth in the model nonetheless.