Science Practice
clock | August 27, 2007There is a good reason why scientists in general despise MS Excel. It is cumbersome, non-common-sensical, and the stats cannot be trusted. The graphs are ugly. I am sure it took a lot of hard work to design Excel (and Word), but if I were Charles Simonyi, I would hide the authorship of those two programs as much as possible. Charles went to the Space Station, after all, paying for the ticket out of his own pocket, so there is something much more exciting (and safe) to brag about (not to mention dating Martha Stewart).
There are so many good pieces of software out there, many capable of…
clock | August 23, 2007There are some die-hards in the comment thread of this post on Evolgen who assert that the only thing that makes one an author of something is the act of writing, i.e., using writing materials to commit language to paper. Preferably English language... Thus, in their minds, there is something fishy about multi-author scientific papers, i.e., only the individual who crafted the sentences of the paper should be considered an author of that paper.
But...
Leonardo painted Mona Lisa. Leonardo is the "Author" of Mona Lisa. People who named it, framed it, marketed it, hung it up in The Louvre and…
clock | August 21, 2007Maxine Clarke:
In printing the statement verbatim every week as we have done, making it clear when it originated, we have hitherto assumed that readers will excuse the wording in the interests of historical integrity. But feedback from readers of both sexes indicates that the phrase, even when cited as a product of its time, causes displeasure. Such signals have been occasional but persistent, and a response is required.
Suzanne Franks:
Who needs outright discrimination? It's so much more pleasant and civilized to discriminate while pretending to be inclusive. It's just one tiny step sideways…
clock | August 14, 2007So, you look around to see if there is anything edible!
Of course, it's easy if you work with tasty animals....(just ask the guys in the next door lab who work on lobsters, crayfish and oysters...or wait until you get some brains out of quails and notice the plump breastmeat....just joking).
clock | August 11, 2007I have linked to and posted pictures of Eva Vertes from SciFoo before and you may ask: "Who is she? Why was she invited there?" The Wikipedia page I linked to earlier is a short stub and full of errors. So, to make it clear, see this page as well as comments on this talk she gave two years ago when she was 17:
clock | July 18, 2007Ruchira comments on the article in the Discover Magazine and their choice of seven most magical eureka moments in the history of science.
They are:
* Otto Lowei: discovering the chemical transmission of nerve impulses
* Rene Descartes: developing the Cartesian co-ordinate system of perpendicular lines and planes
* Nikola Tesla: designing the alternate current motor
* Edwin Hubble: discovering the existence of galaxies outside the Milky Way
* Robert Hooke: discovery of the cell as the building block of all living organisms
* Henry Becquerel: discovery of…
clock | July 16, 2007There is a long and interesting comment thread on this article on The Scientist blog. What do you think?
(Hat-tip: Tanja)
clock | July 15, 2007I missed this by weeks, but Dave asked a set of questions that I was pondering on, but found no time and energy to answer until now.
PZ, Janet, Martin, Chad and RPM responded (I am assuming some people outside SB did as well) and their responses (and their commenters') are very interesting.
1. What's your current scientific specialty?
Chronobiology, although I have not seen the inside of the lab for three years now. So, scientific publishing, education and communication - does that count?
2. Were you originally pursuing a different academic course? If so, what was it?
Yes, I went to vet…
clock | July 12, 2007Four excellent, thought-provoking articles all in some way related to the idea of Open Science. One by Bill Hooker:
Competition in science: too much of a good thing
and three by Janet Stemwedel:
Clarity and obfuscation in scientific papersDoes thinking like a scientist lead to bad science writing?OpenWetWare
clock | July 9, 2007I had a great pleasure recently to be able to interview Senator - and now Democratic Presidential candidate - John Edwards for my blog. The interview was conducted by e-mail last week.
As I am at work and unable to moderate comments, the comment section is closed on this post, but will be open on the previous post (here) where I hope you will remain civil and stay on topic. You are also welcome to comment on this interview at several other places (e.g,. DailyKos, MyDD, TPMCafe, Science And Politics, Liberal Coalition, the Edwards campaign blog as well as, hopefully, your own blogs).
I…
clock | July 2, 2007Books: "Rainbows End" by Vernor Vinge.
It's 2025 - What happened to science, politics and journalism? Well, you know I'd be intrigued. After all, a person whose taste in science fiction I trust (my brother) told me to read this and particularly to read it just before my interview with PLoS. So, of course I did (I know, it's been two months, I am slow, but I get there in the end).
'Rainbows End' is a novel-length expansion of the short story "Fast Times at Fairmont High" which he finished in August 2001 and first published in "The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge". The novel was written…
clock | June 28, 2007Stem-Cell research is easier in some places than others.
Help us locate exactly where.
When is the North Carolina/Triangle community going to try to push hard for state funding of stem-cell research? Or have I missed something?
clock | June 27, 2007Nature News just had an article announcing a new social networking site for physicians and biomedical scientists called Prometeo Network. Another one to check out and add to the ever-growing list of such new sites.
clock | June 27, 2007Here is some chemistry of bisphenol A, but what is really interesting is this article about Fred vom Saal. It is quite revealing about the way industry produces bad science in order to protect its financial interests:
"The moment we published something on bisphenol A, the chemical industry went out and hired a number of corporate laboratories to replicate our research. What was stunning about what they did . . . was they hired people who had no idea how to do the work."
Several of my grad school buddies worked on some aspect or other of neuroendocrinology, including environmental endocrine…
clock | June 26, 2007The Union of Concerned Scientists has picked the 12 finalists in their cartoon contest and it is now your turn to vote for the best one.
While I personally prefer the TomTomorrowesque #9, I think that the simpler cartoons, e.g., #2 and #10, may 'frame' the issue the best (i.e., making it simple and not limiting itself to just one or two topics, e.g., global warming). You take your own pick...
clock | June 25, 2007A few days ago, Nature launched its newest Web 2.0 baby, the Nature Precedings.
It is very interesting to see the initial responses, questions and possible misunderstandings of the new site, so browse through these posts and attached comments by Pedro Beltrao, Timo Hannay, Peter Suber (and again), Kaitlin Thaney, Jean-Claude Bradley, Guru, Egon Willighagen, Deepak Singh, ChemSpy, Putting Down A Marker, Maxine Clarke, Bryan Vickery, Clarence Fisher, David Weinberger, AJC, Euan Edie, Tim O'Reilly, Dean Giustini, Peta Hopkins, Eric, mrees, Sally Wyman, Michael Jubb, Alex Palazzo, Marie, Corie…
clock | June 7, 2007A paper in press in Current Biology (press release here) looks at mitochondrial DNA of mammoths and advances a primarily environmental cause for the mammoth extinction. Razib explains why such a black-and-white dichotomy is unhealthy.
Looking at a different hypothesis, also environmental, for the mammoth extinction (comet impact), Archy places the black-and-white dichotomy in the historical context and tries to figure out why the environmental hypotheses are so popular nowadays, while extinction at the hands of human hunters is not a popular idea any more.
clock | June 6, 2007Yesterday, PLoS-ONE celebrated the publication of the 500th paper (and additional 13). Here are some quick stats:
1,411 submissions
513 published paper
360 member editorial board and growing
19 day average acceptance to publication
600+ post publication comments posted
I am assuming that the remaining 898 manuscripts are in various stages of the publication process: rejected, in review, in revision, or in the pipeline to appear on the site any day now.
The very first paper was published on December 20, 2006. The 500th paper is this one "Climate Change Cannot Explain the Upsurge of Tick-…
clock | June 5, 2007Social Science and Humanities bloggers have been doing it for quite a while, but natural scientists have largely been very reluctant to do this. Now, with approval of his PI, Attila Csordas will start posting parts of his Dissertation on his blog. Stem cell research - mmmm, nice! Sure, the actual data may never appear there, but this is a big move forward anyway.
Most useful is the view of Nature that he reprints on his blog on what actually constitutes 'previously published' work, i.e., what not to do if you want to have the paper published in their journal. I'd really like to see…
clock | May 29, 2007Remember back in November, when everyone got excited about JoVe (the Journal of Visulized Experiments)?
Well, it is not alone in its niche any more. There is now another site similar to that: Lab Action.
Of course I homed in onto videos of scoring lobster aggression and Drosophila aggression, but there is quite a lot of other stuff there. It is pretty much like a YouTube for science so feel free to post your contributions.