There\u2019s a very real chance this could turn out to be an actual blogpost. In the original sense of the word: a web-log of what\u2019s been happening.<\/p>\n
Posts have been rather sparse on Reciprocal Space of late. That\u2019s not for a want of words. It\u2019s just that they have been expended elsewhere \u2013 over at the Guardian, in pieces about\u00a0photography<\/a>,\u00a0preprints<\/a>, the\u00a0latest Science is Vital campaign<\/a>\u00a0(please join in)\u00a0or Nicole Kidman\u2019s performance as Rosalind Franklin in\u00a0Anna Ziegler\u2019s intelligent Photograph 51<\/a>; or in the Times Higher writing about\u00a0my term of office as Director of Undergraduate Studies<\/a>\u00a0(DUGS); or the article I wrote\u00a0on the use and abuse of metrics (PDF)<\/a>\u00a0in research evaluation for the Indian journal, Current Science (my first foray onto the sub-continent); or in the latest paper to come from my lab, currently in revision but\u00a0already available on the bioRxiv<\/a>.<\/p>\n This dispersion of words away from my original blog home, which passed its seventh anniversary earlier this month by the way, is symptomatic of the calls of scientific duty, but also of the churn of events. Unintended outcomes that flow from the simple fact of having set out in a particular direction. I\u2019m not complaining (or apologising \u2013\u00a0I said I would never apologise)<\/a>, just observing, though I didn\u2019t intend for things to become so fallow at Reciprocal Space.<\/p>\n These are not the only changes in the offing. Yesterday evening I trudged home through a grey wet veil \u2013 Autumn\u2019s warning to Summer that it is time to go. The sense of transition was reinforced this past weekend as we delivered our youngest to university. All three of our children have now flown the nest. My wife and I looked at each other. “What are we going to do now?”<\/p>\n Plenty, we hope. For myself I look forward to having more time for science. As I wrote in the Times Higher,\u00a0at the end of this month<\/span>\u00a0I will step out of the heavy harness I have been wearing as DUGS. Truth be told, even as the contours of the new term take shape on the horizon, I already feel the administrative burden slipping from my shoulders. Not only will I\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0have to deal with the myriad tasks demanded by that role, but I will be entering a sabbatical year that I hope more than anything will give me a chance to\u00a0think<\/em>.<\/p>\n That thinking time is long overdue thanks to the familiar but irregular\u00a0movements known to\u00a0anyone absorbed by a life in science. Another research grant has just come to end, so another postdoc is leaving the lab and moving to pastures new. This is a good move for her but my task now is to refill the funding pot, a far from trivial endeavour.\u00a0Money\u2019s tight and the noises coming from the government are not encouraging.\u00a0<\/span>I need to dive once more into the waves of innovation and discovery. For crystallographers like myself, the\u00a0spectacular rise of new techniques in cryo-electron microscopy<\/a>\u00a0is a challenge, but also an opportunity.<\/p>\n These moments of transition come around\u00a0again and again<\/a>. The scientific life is one of motion. The plates shift on the hot mantle. Looking up, I can see that the landscape has changed. But that\u2019s OK: it is something to explore.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There\u2019s a very real chance this could turn out to be an actual blogpost. In the original sense of the word: a web-log of what\u2019s been happening. Posts have been rather sparse on Reciprocal Space of late. That\u2019s not for … Continue reading