One of the great advantages of blogs is the opportunity they offer to react quickly to developments in science, the news, the courts, and so on. Considering I’m discussing the way a science paper was covered in the news three weeks ago, this blogpost misses that ideal of topicality by some distance – but I think it’s an interesting little example so I’m posting it anyway. A little while ago, the auditory cortex was in the news. For an auditory [read on...]
While standing outside a party the other night, basking in the eerie glow of a moon halo, a good friend of mine who has a penchant for skepticism of science turned to me and said, “You realize that science works on an honour system, right? If a scientist makes some stuff up, more often than not, no one’s ever going to find out.” Usually comments like this from him are my cue to stand up and be the champion to [read on...]
I fear I have turned into a naïve idealist. I’m concerned about the increasingly blurred line between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ actions of big corporations, and saddened that science lies at the heart of it. [A disclaimer: I am aware that there are a plethora of companies who strive for success strictly through ethical practices, and I am not anti-business]. An obvious example is the science of killing people. I might say I think we’re spending an insane amount of public [read on...]
Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for others… there is no reason to go on being foolish forever. – Bertrand Russell There is a pervasive belief in science that unless you’re an obsessive workaholic you can’t be successful — there is overwork for some and scientific starvation for the rest. Further, there is a glorification of the singleminded pursuit of [read on...]
Labelling tiny plastic tubes and doing a lot of washing up – that’s how I summed up the daily grind of the lab bioscientist in my last post. Now that I’m back in a lab coat and safety glasses on a daily basis, let’s see how accurate my memory of the lab was with an account of what I got up to at work today. Today, started slowly. In general, I’m very much a morning person. I work best in the [read on...]
It seems that us Nerds are becoming a rather nostalgic bunch. Change is very much in the air. Adding to those changes, I have recently left the never-ending pursuit of knowledge that is academic science for the never-ending pile of submitted manuscripts that is academic publishing. It’s a bit too early for me to ramble on about the new world I’ve come to inhabit – I’m still getting used to the presence of windows – so I’ll leave my thoughts [read on...]
I recently took a 60 minute, multiple-choice problem-solving test, in which, realistically, once you have completed all the background reading and scanned over the provided tables and charts, you have about 1.5 minutes per question. It appears there is an assumption that problem-solving is ingrained in the very DNA of scientists and engineers. Perhaps mine is faulty, or missing, for, when confronted with the problem of finding “the difference, in percentage points, between the December profit margin and the average [read on...]
In the last week there have been some alarming reports about the effect magnetic fields can have on unborn babies. Apparently ‘power lines’ and ‘electronic gadgets’ and ‘pylons [are] linked to babies’ asthma’. Really? I mean, really? Behind the scary headlines is a scary paper. It wasn’t misrepresented, or blown out of proportion. That’s really what it said: ‘high maternal MF [magnetic field] levels in pregnancy may increase the risk of asthma in offspring’. And the lead author himself is [read on...]
We’re a motley bunch of nerds at nerd hyphen alert, evident not least in the various ways that we have each tottered through – and largely left – the world of scientific research. Among our number, one has completed a PhD but decided to pursue academia no further, another has temporarily suspended (his second) PhD research pursuits to develop other related interests, whilst the most legitimate career scientist of us all is now a undergrad studying the vagaries of econometrics and [read on...]
A few days ago, possibly compounded by a longer-than-usual working week, my PhD fears finally transcended their usual realm of waking hours and pushed their grabby tentacles into my dreams. This, perhaps, is to be expected at some point, but I venture that poorly-understood diseases might just top the anxiety-inducing list of things to study. In addition to the general feeling of inadequacy (well-documented by PhD Comics), there is a growing feeling that, the more you learn about a disease, [read on...]
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