My resemblance to Blanche DuBois has not been remarked on before but last Wednesday evening it was unmistakeable.<\/p>\n
\tThere I was travelling on the tube to the TalkScience event<\/a> at the British Library when, like Tennessee Williams\u2019 fateful Southern belle<\/a>, I found myself entirely dependent on the kindness of strangers. Still recovering from a cold, I was suddenly overcome by a severe coughing fit. I coughed and coughed, clamped a hanky to my mouth, coughed and coughed, fought tears that streamed from my eyes and kept on coughing. In my head I was imagining my fellow passengers\u2019 rising alarm\u2014\u201cDear God, he\u2019s got TB!\u201d\u2014when the gentleman next to me dug into his bag and offered me a bottle of water. I croaked gratitude and drank, the cool fluid soothing my ragged throat. If you\u2019re out there Sir, please accept my profound thanks once again.<\/p>\n \tAnd thence, finally, to the British Library where I squeezed in late at a table shared by Frank<\/a> and Matt<\/a> and joined in a room-wide discussion on \u201cScientific Researchers and Web 2.0: Social NotWorking?\u201d Afterwards I chatted to Maxine<\/a> and Cameron<\/a> and a couple of chaps from Mendeley<\/a>. From these conversations I got tips on using aggregators and may have made a small but useful suggestion on how to enhance reference sharing. All this with people who, until recently, were strangers<\/em> to me: we\u2019d never met except via Web2.0.<\/p>\n \tWhen I got home I read Pamela Ronald\u2019s beautiful post<\/a> on her experience of a moment of scientific creativity, left a comment to express my admiration and got a reply from her containing the line \u201cEncouraging words from fellow scientists helps to keep one going\u2026\u201d Which is certainly<\/em> the case \u2013 even if they are strangers. Richard Grant\u2019s “recent post”:http:\/\/network.nature.com\/people\/rpg\/blog\/2008\/09\/14\/on-depression\u2014a-personal-perspective on depression (and the ensuing comment thread) was a further stunning example of that.<\/p>\n \tBut then again, it struck me that one of the finest features of the scientific culture is that we are not<\/em> strangers to each other. We know that engaging is simply part of the process. One of the Mendeley chaps\u2014a programmer, not a scientist\u2014asked me how I linked up with collaborators. Conferences are a good route, I told him, but it is also possible to read a paper, think up an experiment that the author and I might usefully do together and then just send them an email and take it from there. Most times, an interesting discussion and possibly some valuable science will ensue. The intercourse is not benighted by discussions of fees or contracts (though advisedly some thought may need to be given to authorship of future papers!).<\/p>\n \tI know, I know \u2013 there is plenty of ruthless competition going on as well and the world is not just. But that baseline connectedness between scientists is a thing of wonder and is for me one of the most delightful aspects of being a scientist. You can depend on it. I know I do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My resemblance to Blanche DuBois has not been remarked on before but last Wednesday evening it was unmistakeable. There I was travelling on the tube to the TalkScience event at the British Library when, like Tennessee Williams\u2019 fateful Southern belle, … Continue reading