With deepest apologies to the memory of Jimmy Cox. EDIT: I got a couple of concerned emails. No, this did not happen to me. Yet. Once I lived the life of a PI so rich, Research was going along without a hitch. Lab manager, four postdocs and grad students eight, My lab took up the […]
It is with no inconsiderable degree of reluctance that I decline the offer of any Paper from you. I think, however, you will upon reconsideration of the subject be of opinion that I have no other alternative. The subjects you propose for a series of Mathematical and Metaphysical Essays are so very profound, that there […]
The Scientist is one of my favorite go-to destinations for keeping up with current biomedical research. That’s why I was rather sad when it was recently announced that The Scientist will be closing down. However, it seems like The Scientist will continue to be published after all: NEW YORK, NY–(Marketwire – Oct 14, 2011) – […]
The IgNobel prizes were awarded this week. Yes, the Nobel prizes too, but the IgNobels are the really interesting ones. (For an thoughtful piece about why the Nobel Prizes in the sciences do not enhance or may even hurt scientific recognition, read Carl Zimmer’s piece at The Loom) . The IgNobel prizes are awarded annually for […]
Hats off to Jonathan Eisen for hosting this activity on his blog. (I’ll keep mine on, thank you. It’s raining cats and dogs here right now). A couple of weeks ago I posted a discussion about two papers that challenged the ortholog conjecture. Briefly, both papers stated that orthologs may not be such great […]
The manuscripts I review invariably fall into four categories: 1. This is crap. (Rare). 2. This is terrific. (Even rarer). 3. This can be OK, but they really need to fix A, B & C. (fairly common). 4. If I only knew what they meant in point A, I could say whether they need to fix A, […]
After WWII, Pacific islands occupied by the US military were regularly receiving goods via air. Once the military evacuated , the goods stopped arriving. Some inhabitants of those islands mistakenly thought that receiving the cargo was due to some divine intervention that required rituals they saw American servicemen performing. This eventually led them to […]
Guest post by Leighton Pritchard The new top-tier competitor to Science and Nature proposed by three leading funders of scientific research last week is a great idea, but I think runs a risk of opening the scientific process to a potentially damaging slander by opponents of science. As practising academic scientists we’re all concerned, and […]
I have been teaching a seminar course this semester, and through coaching students I think I learned more about what makes a good presentation than by reading “5 useful tips” type of articles or attending any number of “Improve Your Speaking Skills” classes. By coaching and watching students give research seminars I became acutely aware […]
“The Science Network”: who stole PubMed? Well, their accents don’t exactly fit the population in the NLM….
…you find this on the top of the paper pile on his desk:
No apologies to Lady Gaga necessary.
Since its publication, the paper about bacteria using arsenic instead of phosphorous has been criticized from several different angles. First for the media pre-publication stoking, which lead many journalists to speculate about microbes from Titan while the paper was still embargoed (titanic microbes?), when ultimately it was revealed that we are dealing with earthlings, although […]
Iddo: Following an earlier post on the hype cycle of genomic and other technologies, Leighton Pritchard has suggested producing a more elaborate phase diagram of predicted vs. actual usefulness of, uh, stuff. We kicked around the idea back and forth over the weekend, and here’s the result. Over to Leighton, who gets the lion’s share of […]
I received this email today today. I especially appreciate the personal touch in the salutation. Dear Dr. [NAME] Currently, we are involved in organizing “International Conference and Exhibition on Proteomics & Bioinformatics” (Proteomics-2011), will be held during 6–8 June 2011 Hyderabad, India. The main theme of Proteomics-2011 is to “Promote foster & enhances (sic) research […]
