So we are a few days into National Science and Engineering week which lasts until the 20th March.  The theme of this year’s week is ‘Communications.’

Yesterday afternoon I had the good fortune of seeing one of the performances of ‘Mind the Gap’ being put on this week at the Royal Albert Hall (RAH) by Y-Touring.  This is the second year that Y-Touring, RAH and AMRC have had a week-long residence there.  The play which deals with mental health and neurological issues has lost none of its energy.  I felt particularly lucky to be sitting next to the playwright, Abi Brown, who I learnt has been writing for the BBC’s Casualty in recent years; one of my favourite programmes.  Now there’s an admission!

Tonight we announce the winners of our own Science Communication Awards.  It is always a great event and I’m looking forward to it immensely.  The short-listed charities are listed on our website here.

I woke up this morning to the unfolding tragedy and dramas in Japan as I am sure many of you did.  I was interested to overhear both our Chief Scientist, John Beddington, as well as others provide their perspective on events  at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.  New Scientist seems to have a live blog of events if you are interested.

But, more pertinently given it is National Science and Engineering Week, the most fascinating report on The Today programme was that which talked about how the Japanese Government had gone into overdrive in terms of communicating to the public what was happening with regard to radiation levels but the difficulties that people were having in understanding the risks and the course of action they should take.