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MPK’s research notebook- Reaction norms for larval viability in Drosophila pseudoobscura November 7, 2011
- Results November 7, 2011
- LRG lab meeting (November 7, 2011) November 7, 2011
- Genotype-by-environment interaction figure November 7, 2011
- Model November 7, 2011
- Woltereck November 7, 2011
- Introduction November 7, 2011
- Questions needing answers November 7, 2011
- Daphnia November 7, 2011
- About November 7, 2011
- My CiteULike
- Density Dependence Slows Invader Spread in Fragmented Landscapes Jonathan Levine
- Names are key to the big new biology
- Community ecology: stasis, evolution or revolution?
- Assessing rapid evolution in a changing environment
- Adaptation genomics: the next generation
- A Bacterium That Can Grow by Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus
- Low-altitude airbursts and the impact threat D Crawford
- Aging in a Long-Lived Clonal Tree Sarah Otto
- Using Environmental Correlations to Identify Loci Underlying Local Adaptation Jonathan Pritchard
- Mathematics Is Biology's Next Microscope, Only Better; Biology Is Mathematics' Next Physics, Only Better Joel Cohen
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Category Archives: academia
Do scientists have a real job?
The following conversation transpired recently at the doctor’s office, Doctor: So what do you do for a living? Me: I am a researcher at the university. Doctor: Oh, so you don’t have a real job! I am still torn about … Continue reading
Kids rattling the ivory tower of academic research
A unique and truly remarkable paper appeared in Biology Letters today. It is remarkable for several reasons but the two most striking reasons, to my mind, are that the research was performed and the paper was written by 25 school children between the … Continue reading
Posted in academia, kids, science
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My first rejection letter
Came across my first letter of rejection for a submitted manuscript. Dr Mario Pineda-Krch Department of Theoretical Ecology Ecology Building S-223 62 Lund Sweden Dear Dr. Pineda-Krch Your manuscript “On the potential for evolutionary change through meristematic cell-lineages” has been … Continue reading
Posted in academia, humour, manuscript, Torbjörn Fagerström
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The benefits of doing math for a living
Notwithstanding a previous post, I love doing academic research. Until now, my main argument for why my job is so great is that I get paid to do what I love. A recent study has, however, added some unexpected icing … Continue reading
Posted in academia, jobs, math, Mathematical biology, science, statistics, theory
2 Comments
Alarming cuts in evolutionary biology at Leiden University
This alarming development was circulated today by the President of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology, Isabelle Olivieri: I would like you bring to your attention the following situation. Because of reorganization in some Dutch Universities and money cutting in … Continue reading
Posted in academia, evolution
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Top ten most annoying things in academic research
10. Not being able to get past the “To read this story in full you will need to make a payment” page 9. Lack of funding 8. Bad papers published in top journals 7. Getting scooped 6. Bad science happening … Continue reading
Running an academic lab Google style
What can the academic research lab learn from Google’s corporate philosophy when it comes to creating a productive and intellectually stimulating research environment. It’s well known that the work environment at Googleplex does not resemble your typical corporate environment. After … Continue reading
Posted in academia, Google
2 Comments
Disembodied university professors
Ken Robinson takes a somewhat unconventional view of academic researchers in his great TEDTalk. I like university professors, but you know we should not hold them up as the high watermark of all human achievement, there are just a form … Continue reading
Posted in academia, TED
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The lab is moving
So the holidays are over and the new year starts by moving the entire ADM (Animal Disease Modeling) lab to the UCD campus. Until now we have been located way off-campus; sans seminars, other labs, and academic life in general. … Continue reading
Posted in academia, CADMS
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Crunch…
Just a quick note to all of you out there that are expecting something from me, e.g. email responses (yes that’s you Ben), manuscript reviews (yes that’s you Andy), responses to blog posts, or checks. Just wanted to let you … Continue reading
Posted in academia
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Tablets as a teaching tool
Daniel Kaplan, a Mathematics & Computer Science prof from Macalester College gave a great talk about Using R for Introductory Calculus and Statistics. Aside from being a entertaining and funny speaker he used his tablet pc in a innovative and … Continue reading
Report from the meeting of the Ecological Society of America in San Jose
I am attending the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) in San Jose. I have never been to a meeting of this magnitude before, some of the impressive stats are: 5 days long, around 3000 participants, 20-30 … Continue reading
Posted in academia, Alan Hastings, ecology, meeting
8 Comments
The art of manuscript mashing
Carlo Artieri of The Musings of a Mad Biologist has a post today about Manuscript mashing!, i.e. the art of actually writing a manuscript. The post provides a candid description of how one can (or, in my opinion, should) go … Continue reading
Posted in academia, manuscript, writing
2 Comments
Open-Source Science
This is not exactly new but it is still highly relevant. In the July 24, 2006 issue of the Chemical & Engineering News there is a story about a Open-Source Science project operating in true bazaar mode. The project, called … Continue reading
Posted in academia, epidemiology, open science, science, Science Foo
5 Comments
Academic biology job wiki
Many moons ago my friend Ryan Sensenig brought to my attention the existence of the academic biology job wiki. This is a wiki page where academic job applicants can post vacancies for jobs they have applied for and get feedback … Continue reading
Posted in academia, jobs
4 Comments
Exemplary retraction of high profile paper
The Scientist picked up the up the PLoS retraction story (see the previous post Show me the code). It’s nice to see all the involved parties getting credits for what they did. One can only hope that this event has … Continue reading
Posted in academia, PLoS
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It’s time to reward good mentors
To most academic fledglings (i.e. graduate students and postdocs) finding a good mentor is both a difficult and one of the most important early career task, or as Adrian Lee, Carina Dennis & Philip Campbell put is in their Nature’s … Continue reading
Posted in academia, postdocing
3 Comments
Can blogging land you a sweet job?
The concept of landing a sweet job by virtue of blogging has never crossed my mind until I came across the fate of Bora Zivkovic (yes the same Bora that published The Open Laboratory: The Best Writing on Science Blogs … Continue reading
Posted in academia, blog, Bora Zivkovic, jobs
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Write, write, write…
The Ten Simple Rules for Fledgling Academics that I discussed in a post a few days ago actually omits one critical rule which may even be considered the most important rule of them all. A rule without which one is … Continue reading
Posted in academia, manuscript, postdocing, writing
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Academic blogging going main stream…, soon!
The big news in academic blogging the last few days has been the publication of biologist-blogger Bora Zivkovic‘s book The Open Laboratory: The Best Writing on Science Blogs 2006. Although I picked up this story from the Nature Nautilus blog … Continue reading
Posted in academia, blog, Bora Zivkovic
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Spies in the academic bazaar
The Editor’s blog of Nature Network Boston picked up a news story entitled FBI tells scientists: watch out for spies! (original story is on the Boston.com web site). “Federal agents are warning leaders at some of the region’s top universities … Continue reading
Posted in academia, closed science, open science, science
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Show me the code
An email came this morning to one of the mailing lists I subscribe to. It goes like so, Dear Colleagues, This to inform you that we must retract Hall, B.G. and S. Salipante. 2007. Measures of clade confidence do not … Continue reading
Posted in academia, computer simulations, PLoS, Sally Otto
6 Comments
Ten Simple Rules for Fledgling Academics
Over the last two years PloS Computational Biology has been publishing the Ten Simple Rules series by Philip Bourne. So far they have covered… Ten Simple Rules for a Good Poster Presentation (TSRfPP) Ten Simple Rules for Making Good Oral … Continue reading
Posted in academia, PLoS
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Postdocs who blog
The blog Genomicron recently had a posting about Professors who blog based on a story in teachLearning. Some of the reasons for why profs blog given by the original article are, “…offers an alternative outlet to academic journals.” “…creates a … Continue reading
Posted in academia, blog, postdocing
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Where did all the skeptics go?
The Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) hoax has been around for a while and people seem to get away with it all the time. In my statistics class I used this as an example of the pitfalls of the lack of critical … Continue reading
