Author Archives: Cath@VWXYNot?

About Cath@VWXYNot?

"one of the sillier science bloggers [...] I thought I should give a warning to the more staid members of the community." - Bob O'Hara, December 2010

When the NIH and UK Research Councils sneeze…

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

…does the CIHR catch a cold? From an email I received last week, titled “CIHR Funding News: Issue 104 – Results of the March 2011 Operating Grants Competition”: Looking ahead, it seems clear that we will continue to be challenged … Continue reading →

Posted in Canada, grant wrangling, UK | 7 Comments

Cost to benefit ratios

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

From today’s RSS feeds: 1) Alilain WJ, Horn KP, Hu H, Dick TE, Silver J: “Functional regeneration of respiratory pathways after spinal cord injury“. Nature 2011: 475: 196-200 (This article also showed up in my BBC science feed, with the … Continue reading →

Posted in current affairs, medicine, original research, science, the media | 5 Comments

Lab-fab abs and post-lab flab

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

And bend and stretch and rack those tips and run to the water bath to rescue your samples and walk to the fridge to put them away and lift that big heavy bottle of isopropanol onto your bench and run … Continue reading →

Posted in career, exercise, food glorious food, personal, science, silliness | 18 Comments

Tuesday Pet Peeve: shoulder check

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I’m a reasonably competent computer user. I can’t do anything fancy, but I’ve got the basics down pat. And I’ve built up my folder (and sub-folder and sub-sub-folder and sub-sub-sub-folder) structure in a very logical manner that allows me to … Continue reading →

Posted in career, communication, personal, plagues, rants, technology | 19 Comments

Geeky Grossness Gauntlet

Posted on June 30, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Long-time readers may remember my friend Kyrsten’s famous guest post about Bob the bot fly. Commenters’ reactions on the original post ranged from mild (“kinda icky”) to ambivalent (“horrible. but very cool” / “utterly revolting, but sort of fascinating” / … Continue reading →

Posted in blog wars, career, freakishness, medicine, meta, monkeys, nature, personal, photos, science, silliness, TMI | 17 Comments

Visual cymbal

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Here’s an astounding slo-mo video of a cymbal strike: Isn’t that amazing?! I mean, you know at some intellectual level that sound is a wave caused by the vibration of a solid object… but actually seeing that? So cool. (H/T … Continue reading →

Posted in music, science, videos | 5 Comments

Seeking reader input on internal pre-submission grant review practices

Posted on June 26, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I received the following email last week: “Hello All: As  you are aware there has been some discussion about the relevance of the form 100 as part of the grant application package. At the Department Head meeting yesterday it was … Continue reading →

Posted in career, grant wrangling | 13 Comments

Waiting for my congratulatory telegram from the Queen

Posted on June 25, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I realised recently that I’ve: lived in our current house for five years, which is longer than I’ve lived anywhere since I left my parents’ house (previous record: two years and two months in a shared flat in Glasgow during … Continue reading →

Posted in career, personal, silliness | 28 Comments

Trees do the darndest things! (Part II)

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

TREE HUG! (Part I is here, if anyone cares to relive the horror).

Posted in nature, photos, silliness | 8 Comments

No con/census consensus

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Dilemmas, dilemmas… life is full of them. However, there are two in particular that are causing me much internal debate at the moment: The census It’s census time in Canada! Every household in the country is obliged to fill in … Continue reading →

Posted in activism, bad people, Canada, current affairs, personal, politics, rants | 17 Comments