Ask a ScienceBlogger
pharyngula | June 18, 2006Here's this week's "Ask a scienceblogger" question:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?
I don't know if you can handle the truth, but here it is…
Blogging is easy, you just make up stuff as you go, and don't bother with proofreading or editing: typos and spelling errors add character.
pharyngula | June 18, 2006Here's this week's "Ask a scienceblogger" question:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?
I don't know if you can handle the truth, but here it is…
It's easy to type fast with ten arms.
pharyngula | June 18, 2006Here's this week's "Ask a scienceblogger" question:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?
I don't know if you can handle the truth, but here it is…
Elves. And maaaaaagic.
pharyngula | June 18, 2006Here's this week's "Ask a scienceblogger" question:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?
I don't know if you can handle the truth, but here it is…
Connect the dots, people. Everyone who meets me says I'm so nice and softspoken; I've got the beard; I'm not so svelte anymore; I'm producing this stuff at a prodigious rate; I'm giving it away for free.
I'm Santa Claus gone godless, and every day is freakin' Christmas. No GI Joes or Barbies anymore, everyone is…
pharyngula | June 18, 2006Here's this week's "Ask a scienceblogger" question:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?
I don't know if you can handle the truth, but here it is…
You know I'm a developmental biologist. Who do you think would be the fortunate recipient of the first breakthroughs in cloning by the Mad Scientists' Cabal?
pharyngula | June 18, 2006Here's this week's "Ask a scienceblogger" question:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?
I don't know if you can handle the truth, but here it is…
That information is proprietary. Have you signed an NDA with us?
retrospectacle | June 17, 2006This week's question comes at a quite ironic time for me. It goes...
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?
I'll take it that I fall under the "various grad students" category. I guess one answer is that throughout my day there are quite a few "hurry up and wait" moments, like an incubation in a protocol, or waiting for an animal to wake up from anesthesia (or fall asleep). I also try to take a little time at lunch to just relax and read/write. During those…
evolgen | June 16, 2006They are asking another question of us. They have also changed their name -- just remember where you first saw that gimmick. Anyway, on to their question:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?
Who says we fulfill our primary objectives? For that matter, who says we blog prolifically? This question is rife with unwarranted assumptions. It's not like I've got an impressive publication record. How do you know I'm not just a crappy scientist who doesn't do jack…
jlynch | June 15, 2006The mothership asks:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?
Ann Coulter would answer that, in the case of PZ at least, being an atheistic anti-american liberal evilutionist, his drinking of the blood of Christian babies embues him with satanic powers of endurance (and a well known squid fetish).
As for myself, the answer is simple .... coffee. Lots of coffee.
Quick challenge update - three wonderful contributers gave a total of $235 today.
Don't be shy,…
terrasig | June 15, 2006So, as a Sb newbie, I'm just figuring out the scheduling around here and saw that tomorrow's new 'Ask A ScienceBlogger' question has already been posted. Hence, I figured I should probably answer last week's question:
Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?
My SiBlings all took different approaches on this one, with some finding it a poor question because we already probably put a lot of thought into what we're working on now and stay in that area because we love it so much.
I took…
pharyngula | June 13, 2006I've been reluctant to answer the latest question from the Head Office, because it sucks. Nothing personal, but it just doesn't work for me.
Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?
I'm sorry, but there is no interesting scientific research outside of my discipline. The evo and the devo are the way to go. If I were starting over, there are things I would do differently and skill sets I'd try to acquire that would give me a better handle on the research, but do something else? What?…
apalazzo | June 13, 2006OK time for an irreverent answer to Scienceblog's question of the week.
If I had infinite time and money I would like to figure out HOW TO INCREASE THE NUMBER OF HOURS IN A DAY.
Between work, the World Cup, eating and sleeping I have simply have no time to read the literature (scientific and non-scientific). I must admit that I did find time to work on my banners ... however my blogroll is still way out of date.
So as a result I think the # of posts over the next month will drop ...
So be it. Forza L'Italia.
evolgen | June 12, 2006'Dem fools is asking us this:
"Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?"
I guess "novelist" isn't an acceptable answer as it's not an "area of scientific research". Well, that and I've never really wanted to write novels. But never really wanting to do work hasn't stopped me from putting in a little bit of effort to get this far. So, if I wasn't wasting my time doing what I'm doing, what would I be doing?
I'm not going to stray too far from my discipline. I took classes in chemistry…
retrospectacle | June 12, 2006As a newly-minted ScienceBlogger, now I get to chime-in on all the fun "Ask A ScienceBlogger" questions. This week's question is:
"Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?"
As an undergrad, I had a pretty hard time choosing a major. This wasn't due to my lack of finding something I liked to do, I just didn't want to choose between a lot of fascinating fields. Finally I settled on what I considered the "final fronteir" in medical science: neuroscience, and neither time nor money (…
dmunger | June 12, 2006This week's Ask a Scienceblogger inquires about our other research interests:
Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?...
We talked about this one over the weekend, considering all the important lines of research we could have gotten involved in: solving world poverty, curing cancer, stopping global warming. It's all quite overwhelming. Besides, we've just gotten comfortable with this gig, where Greta serves as the fountain of knowledge about things cognitive and I'm its editorial…
scientificactivist | June 11, 2006Each week, Seed magazine poses a question to all of its ScienceBloggers. This week's question, from reader Jake Bryan, is:
Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?
My current work is in protein structure, but there are plenty of other scientific areas that I'd like to explore. Based solely on scientific interest, I would have to go with behavioral genetics. The field of genetics really came into its own in the second half of the 20th Century and captured the imaginations of people…
jlynch | June 9, 2006This week's question is:
Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?
I'm going to force myself to choose something totally outside the biological sciences and go with some area of physics. In high school and college in the '80s, I was good at physics, particularly stuff like thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, and traditional mechanics. There was a beauty to it - an appreciation that I think I got from my father (who was an engineer) from an early age. Unfortunately my mathematical…
jstemwedel | June 9, 2006It's time for another spin of the "Ask a ScienceBlogger" wheel! The question this time is:
Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?
You may recall that I chose to leave chemistry for a career as a philosopher of science. Near the end of my time in chemistry, I was pretty anxious to leave the lab behind -- preparing solutions, calibrating (and repairing) pumps, washing glassware, etc. So I'm actually a little surprised at my own answers to the questions, since I find myself drawn…
razib | June 9, 2006This week they ask:
Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?
Cosmology. Transcendence.
razib | June 6, 2006Chad's response to this week's Ask a Science Blogger pointed to two issues which I think need some clarification.
First, that brain drain might be good for the species in that it distributes the "wealth" of human capital around. This is not a trivial or baseless argument, but, The World Bank has done a study, and it is important to note that the impact of the "brain drain" on "donor" nations differs as a function of size. In other words, nations like China and India lose a relatively small percentage of their intellectual capital, while nations like Guyana lose a lot. So the key is…