...and now for some R-E-S-P-E-C-T
28 Nov 2008 1:03pm GMT R-E-S-P-E-C-TFind out what it means to meR-E-S-P-E-C-TTake care ... TCBvia Pharyngula.
Research dollars per paper
28 Nov 2008 8:09am GMT In this week's Science, Rui Sousa from UT San Antonio points out, how absurd it is to evaluate researchers by the amount of money they spend, rather than on their productivity, in other words, the research dollars they spend per publication: No prestige should be attached to the level of funding that an investigator has managed to secure. The most basic of truths must be emphasized: Money is a means, not an end. We do not do science to get money. We get money to do science. Funding cannot be a...
Darwin relative at Gatsby workshop
26 Nov 2008 10:37am GMT Last night, at the workshop dinner in the Trattoria Verdi, I got to know Horace Barlow, 86-year old great-grandson of Charles Darwin. As the most experienced researcher at the workshop, he is very noticably revered by the other participants and captivates with his sharp mind and wit. At the same time, Horace's scientific family tree shows one of the problems in science today: it's a snowball system where only very few trained scientists get to find a job in the profession they learned. So it...
Second day at Gatsby workshop on simpler cognition
25 Nov 2008 1:10pm GMT This day started with the talk by Alex Kacelnik on choice and decision-making in starlings. This was again a very interesting talk and contained a lot of theoretical considerations about decision-making after showing a series of very cleverly designed experiments. For instance, he told us that choice may be a computation of behavioral actions with different latencies (when the choice is forced by a stimulus). These theoretical considerations were derived from modelling the experimental data....
LabTimes article online
24 Nov 2008 10:11pm GMT I just noticed that my LabTimes article about new innovations in science communication in general and JoVE in particular has just come out:Go and read it and let me know what you think (PDF download).