Displaying posts tagged with

“Science”

Mozilla does scientific matchmaking between programmers and researchers

Mozilla Science Labs are looking top pair programmers and scientists. If you are a scientist in need of a programmer,  read the following, and then go to the website to see how to take it further. Thanks to Miami University’s Office for Advancement of Research and Scholarship  for bringing this to my attention.   Interdisciplinary Programming is […]

For Ada Lovelace Day: Florence Nightingale

Note: a repost of a 2010 post I published for Ada Lovelace day. Unfortunately, I am too busy these days to write a new one. “Ada Lovelace Day is celebrated today to “…raise the profile of women in science, technology, engineering and maths.” So without further ado: She is a ‘ministering angel’ without any exaggeration […]

Postdoctoral Position in Computational Bioengineering (Rice University)

The Kavraki group at Rice University is looking to hire an enthusiastic postdoctoral researcher to enhance their research efforts in computational structural biology, drug design, and computational bioengineering. The group has significant expertise in the development of methods for motion planning for complex systems in robotics. Their Open Motion Planning Library (OMPL, http://ompl.kavrakilab.org) is now […]

On Joke Papers, Hoaxes, and Pirates

“Our aim here is to maximize amusement, rather than coherence.” SCIgen developers Joke papers have been known to sneak into otherwise serious publications. Notably, in the Sokal Affair, Alan Sokal, a physicist, published a nonsense paper in Social Text, a leading journal in cultural studies.  After it was published, Sokal revealed this paper to be a parody, kicking off […]

SCOTUS: DNA is information, not a chemical

Should DNA be subject to copyright law, rather than patent law? Section 101 of Title 35 U.S.C. sets out the subject matter that can be patented: Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the […]

#DNA60

It has not escaped Twitter’s notice that the Watson & Crick paper is 60 years old today . Sorry, too busy to be really creative, so here is a repost from 2009. Think of it as a transposon. Short quiz and a movie for DNA day. 1) We celebrate DNA day because: a) Congress said so […]

Terrible advice from a great scientist

I am not inclined to write polemic posts. I generally like to leave that to others, while I take the admittedly easier route of waxing positive over various bits of cool science I find or hear about, and yes, occasionally do myself. But WSJ editorial from E.O. Wilson has irked me so much, I have […]

The scientific process

Found on 9gag.com. EDIT: as pointed out by Jason McDermott, hypothesis should probably be used here instead of theory.

Group review, continued

I love it when other people use my ideas, especially before I think them up. After my previous post advocating group review of scientific articles, it was pointed out to me that two journals are already using group reviews to referee their papers. One is Frontiers (which is a collection of journals, rather than a […]

Nobel Prize Quips at PDBe

I received this email today from Gary Battle at PDBe . Very cool:   Nobel Prize Quips: Explore the structure of B2AR bound to its G-protein. Today, Nobel Laureates Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka take center stage in Stockholm where they will receive their Nobel Prize Medals for their studies of G-protein–coupled receptors […]

DNA half life, and my dream of an Allosaurus Army

Let’s get this clear: Tyrannosaurus rex, the best selling figurine of class reptilia is not my favorite bad-ass top-of-the-food chain predator. Come on. Did you see its arms? I mean…   As a kid, I always thought the Allosaurus was much cooler. For one thing, it was on the cover of my favorite dinosaur book, “The […]

Grants are the scientist’s homework

I can’t believe I did not realize this before. Thanks to Mickey Kosloff for enlightening me by posting this on his Facebook.   Of course grants are like homework. You don’t want to do them; anything is better, really; multiple excuses why not to do them right now; anything has more priority, suddenly. BUT if […]

Should research code be released as part of the peer review process?

So there have been a few reactions to my latest post on accountable research software, including a Tweeter kerfuffle (again). Ever notice how people come out really aggressive on Twitter? Must the the necessity to compress ideas into 140chars. You can’t just write “Interesting point you make there, sir. Don’t you think that your laudable goal would […]

Postdocs in Genome-Scale Proteomics, Imaging-based Screening and Cancer Biology

  Three postdocs positions available at a great lab in Denmark. Read on:   We are seeking three Postdoctoral Fellows to The Cellular Signal Integration Group (C-SIG). The group is a network biology research group located at the Department of Systems Biology at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). Our department represents one of the […]

Taming the Impact Factor

Quite a bit has been written about how the journal impact factor (JIF) is a bad metric. The JIF is supposed to measure a journal’s impact using a formula that normalizes the number of cited articles in  a given time frame (typically a year). It is calculated exclusively by Thomson-Reuters, and is trademarked by this […]