Monthly Archives: September 2016

Librarygeddon

Posted on 30 September 2016 by Frank Norman

The Library, the collection When it’s done right it is a wonderful thing. The collection dedicated to meeting a specific need: carefully selected, sensibly arranged, appropriately indexed, comprehensive in its coverage and range of formats. It is precisely calibrated to meet a … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Collections, Libraries and librarians | Comments Off on Librarygeddon

In which green means go

Posted on 29 September 2016 by Jennifer Rohn

It’s often been said that witnessing your child grow up is akin to scientific experiment – an intense longitudinal observational study with no control group. As a fan of language in all of its nuances, it’s been fascinating watching Joshua … Continue reading →

Posted in Domestic bliss, Scientific thinking, Work/life balance | Comments Off on In which green means go

Paradigm – the sculpture

Posted on 27 September 2016 by Frank Norman

Recently I attended the first public event at the Francis Crick Institute’s new building next to St Pancras.  Ironically the event was not about science but was a conversation with an artist, sculptor Conrad Shawcross. He created the enormous sculpture … Continue reading →

Posted in art | Comments Off on Paradigm – the sculpture

Expectations

Posted on 25 September 2016 by Athene Donald

Nature this week published its annual (and international) survey on salaries. As the article points out, many respondents use the survey as a means of venting, so the survey also provides a snapshot of (self-selecting and therefore not necessarily representative) … Continue reading →

Posted in advice, careers, early career researchers, Royal Society, Science Culture | Comments Off on Expectations

In which the calm cowers before the storm

Posted on 21 September 2016 by Jennifer Rohn

Can you hear it? Yes, that’s the sound of a distinct lack of undergraduates knocking around the place. Even the summer lab students have departed, off for a few weeks of R&R or debauchery before the grind kicks back in … Continue reading →

Posted in academia, students, Teaching, The profession of science | Comments Off on In which the calm cowers before the storm

Withdrawal Symptoms

Posted on 20 September 2016 by Athene Donald

As a new PI what advice is likely to be of assistance? Eight of us old hands were recently asked by the THE to write some words of wisdom, which newly-minted PI’s may or may not have found useful. Their … Continue reading →

Posted in advice, early career researchers, mentoring, principal investigator, Research, Science Culture | Comments Off on Withdrawal Symptoms

Freeing the Brain

Posted on 17 September 2016 by Athene Donald

I’ve been away for the past week somewhere where I really could escape my email. (My previous post about whether one should read email on holiday was written with feeling!) When I go away I particularly like to go somewhere … Continue reading →

Posted in academia, holidays, River Wye | Comments Off on Freeing the Brain

The Lasker book prize

Posted on 15 September 2016 by Frank Norman

Well, not really. The 2016 Lasker~Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science has been given to Bruce M. Alberts for “Discoveries in DNA replication, and leadership in science and education”.

Posted in Books, Prizes | Comments Off on The Lasker book prize

Pride and Prejudice and journal citation distributions: final, peer reviewed version

Posted on 12 September 2016 by Stephen

Today sees the publication on bioRxiv of a revised version of our preprint outlining “A simple proposal for the publication of journal citation distributions.” Our proposal, explained in more detail in this earlier post, encourages publishers to help mitigate the distorting … Continue reading →

Posted in Academic publishing, Preprints | Comments Off on Pride and Prejudice and journal citation distributions: final, peer reviewed version

Goodbye David – my brother and childhood hero

Posted on 11 September 2016 by Sylvia McLain

My older brother, David McLain, died suddenly of a heart attack on August 18, 2016. He was only 51 years old and none of us saw this coming. He was a force of nature, my big brother, I already miss … Continue reading →

Comments Off on Goodbye David – my brother and childhood hero