Yes, me too. It's been a fun run and I've made a bunch of new blog friends. Brian, I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but in the end LabSpaces hasn't worked out for me. I wish everyone here all the best, and will continue reading and commenting. You can find me at my new home over at http://scientopia.org/blogs/blather/. Hope you'll come visit.

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This months blog theme is something along the lines of the first and/or most influential paper in our scientific careers. I had to think long and hard about this. Not about the paper in question - I knew immediately which paper was the first big influence in my career. More about what this reveals about me. I have no illusions about the thin veil of pseudonymity. Anyone who really wanted to figure out whom I am could likely do so with a little internet sleuthing. Telling everyone which paper was the first big influence on me might make that process a lot easier. Also, there is some slim chance that someone reading this who knows me in real life but not as a blogger will put two and two together. If you do figure it out I'd appreciate it if you didn't let everyone else know.

Despite the above caveat, this is the paper that had a big influence on me very early on:



Yes, I have a background in computational chemistry, although that's not what I do now. And yes, that is the Edward Teller. And no, I'm not that old. This was considered a very old paper when I first read it. It predates my birth. By quite a lot.

This paper was the first descripti . . . More

Spurred on by posts by PlS and DrugMonkey...

There is but one rule for this meme: Post the link and first sentence from the first blog entry for each month of the past year.

Here they be:

January- 2010 already. How did that happen?

February- This week I sent three of these off to surplus.

March- Hmmmm, apparently I was too busy to blog in March.

April- I am occasionally asked to review manuscripts for a journal in my field that has a storied past, but over the last decade has fallen out of favor.

May- So the funding downturn is finally beginning to catch up with my department.
< . . . More

And I'm sure Jane D. will like this too...

Swann bowls England to innings win

The best team won.

By a lot.

Bugger.

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The other day as I was walking to work, as is my want I was listening to a podcast. This particular one was from Science magazine. In this particular episode one part was about some recent work in quantum physics. In quantum physics there's this strange phenomenon called nonlocalilty. My very limited understanding of this is that you can have two separated objects that are somehow linked such that changing the quantum state of one instantaneously causes a change in the other. Einstein famously referred to this as "spooky action at a distance." Well, apparently some physicists have managed to come up with an explanation for this using Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. If you want to read about it, the article can be found here (you'll probably need a subscription...).

The point of this post however is not to make my head explode trying to understand such things, but rather is more to do with how these physicists supposedly came to . . . More

CoR and PlS think they know music. Bah! say I.



. . . More

I've been pleasantly surprised by the amount of attention my post on putting together a TT job application packet has received. There are a couple of comments I'd like to address and figured a new post was the better way to do it.

Let's start with comments from the science blogosphere's resident gadfly*, Comrade PhysioProf. I had writtten:

One Nature first authorship plus three middle authorship papers likely won't outweigh four first authorships in decent (society-level?) journals.The number of authors on a paper can be important too. Personally I would rank a first authorship on a publication with 2-4 authors total in a society-level journal higher than a first authorship on a publication in Cell with 10+ authors (some may disagree with me on this).

To which CPP replied:

This is absolutely false for job searches in the biomedical sciences at elite institutions.

Emphasis on elite added. I'm not at an elite in . . . More

Over in the Groups section of LabSpaces there's this Career Networking group. NatC started a discussion there titled "Make it memorable." He asks:

Gerty-Z just wrote a blog post describing 600 applications for a junior faculty position. What strategies do you use to make your application memorable (in a good way)?

I wrote a longish reply that I thought might be of interest to the general readership. So here it is (tweaked and embellished):

I've served on a bunch of search committees and there are two things I come away with every time. First is that there are a lot of people out there who appear incapable of putting together a decent CV/research plan/teaching statement. Second, how the hell did I get a job? Seriously. In many ways it's a crap shoot...

Okay, how do you stand out? Often it comes down to quirks (and sometimes jerks) in the department you're applying to. Do your homework - how would your research fit within the department? You don't have to spend hours on this, but it earns you brownie points if you put something in your cover letter about this. Do you strengthen a particular area within the department? Do you bring new techniques that people there would benef . . . More

Watch.



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Now I understand! I think...



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Since Namnezia can post bad jokes...*



A rabbit is sunning himself outside his house when a fox comes along and tells him that he is going to eat him for lunch. The rabbit explains that the fox cannot eat him because he is working on his dissertation, the subject of which is the superiority of rabbits over foxes and wolves. The fox laughs, but the rabbit persuades him to come into his house and examine his dissertation with the understanding that if the fox did not agree that the title was correct, he could eat the rabbit for lunch. The fox follows the rabbit into the house and never emerges.

A few hours later, the rabbit is sunning himself when a wolf comes by. The above scene repeats itself with the same result.

Later in the afternoon a squirrel comes by and comments on the satisfied look on the rabbit's face. The rabbit explains that he has just completed his dissertation on the superiority of rabbits over foxes and wolves. The squirrel is skeptical but agrees to follow the rabbit into his house to examine the dissertation. In the house is a computer on which appears the completed dissertation. On the floor on one side of the room are the bones of a fox. On the other s . . . More

Have a grant that's just been unfairly trashed by some illiterate, drooling neanderthal of a numbnuts? Comrade PhysioProf has some advice for you.

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As promised, the nipple shirt returns.



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From the title of this post you're probably thinking that I'm going to write about the glut of postdocs out there.

I'm not.

I have a junior colleague who started his tenure-track position here about a year ago. He's a personable colleague and someone I think could do very well. Since starting here he has landed a prestigious award from a foundation. This isn't a large grant - about $100k direct costs per year for four years - but still a great start.

Here's the thing. I've recently found out he has four postdocs in his lab. None have fellowships. So he's paying all of them out of his foundation grant and start-up funds (which are around the average for someone in the molecular biomedical sciences at a large state school). Even is we assume all four postdocs are fresh out of grad school, and given we pay a minimum of 90% of the current NRSA rate, that's about to $180k a year he's paying out in salaries and benefits.

I should note he runs a lab that does a lot of molecular biology and protein characterization work. This is not cheap stuff to keep going.

At the current rate I think he'll be out of money in at best two years (remember he's already been here a year and spent money setting up . . . More

Listen up. As of this moment the Oh! Rats! project on Donors Choose is short just $88 with six days left to raise it. That's awesome folks! Really awesome.

But...

They still need $88. Who wants to be the one to put them over the edge?

Give.

Give some more.

Give until your eyes bleed.

And then some.







With luck the nipple shirt will be back next week. It's still at the cleaners after GR's "effort" in it...




[UPDATE]

Woohoo! You guys did it!!!!! They're fully funded.

Now there's this cool Whodunnit? project that could do with some help...

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Let me start by thanking those who have contributed to Donors Choose, whether through my page, someone else's at LabSpaces, or elsewhere. You rock!!!!!

Recently a friend sent me a link to a YouTube video that has got me thinking about education in general, and science education in particular. If you scroll through some of the science-related projects on Donors Choose you'll find a great many of them are aimed at getting kids excited about science. A great many kids find science, and the canned educations they currently receive, boring. Any efforts to present science as it truly is, exciting, is well worth funding. So watch the video below (sorry, no nipple shirt). Then go find a Donors Choose project that aims to make science exciting and give.

Give until your eyes bleed.

Oh, and my favorite line in the video? By the time they get to Washington they've lost it completely.

*This entry contains a YouTube video*

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Watch:



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I knew that title would get your attention.




Just can't resist an expensive, sugar-laden coffee drink, can you?




Hopefully you haven't had to resist syphilis...







Now watch this (somewhat NSFW):



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I'm posting this early because a) I'll be traveling soon, and b) I'm ready to...

Okay folks, you may or may not be aware of Donors Choose. This is a very cool charitable organization where K-12 teachers (generally from public schools in very impoverished areas) can submit requests for things they need to better teach their students. Requests range from sophisticated equipment, through basic school supplies, down to chairs (yes, simple chairs!) and even food (one in seven in the US live below the poverty line - there are a lot of hungry kids). One can argue ad infinitum about whether or not it's an individual's responsibility to help provide such things, but that's not what this is about. Clearly the education system in this country is broken - school systems can't provide some of the most basic things (chairs for eff's sake!). Society (that's you!) needs to step up.

Starting October 10 and running for a month there's this Science Bloggers for Students Challenge running. A bunch of science blog collectives, including LabSpaces, plus some individual bloggers are competing to see who can raise the most for Donors Choose. The prize? A lot . . . More

Do the "act of God" clauses in insurance policies apply to atheists?

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Damn. I left it to the last minute to write this and almost all the good alternatives are taken. International espionage. Rock star. Fishing boat captain. Broadway dancer. Ninja. Radio DJ. Dinosar hunter. Pirate... I could have been any of those.

Well, maybe not a Broadway dancer.

Or rock star.

And my older brother already is a pirate, so that's taken.




Actually it's hard to imagine being something else. Despite all the trials and tribulations along the way, I love being a scientist in academia. I look forward to going in to work (almost) every day.

Nonetheless, here are some of my thoughts on alternatives:



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The time I spend reviewing as a function of proposal score (NSF ratings) can be summarized by:



Of course most proposals are in or near the Good category...

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Oh dear.

I haven't gotten very far with the stack of proposals I need to review for my upcoming review panel meeting, but guys, you're not doing so well.

Let's have a look at what we have so far, shall we?

1) A proposal that does not address the Broader Impacts (BI) criteria. At all. Look, I know these can be a pain, but ignoring them? Not going to work. Read the NSF's Grant Proposal Guidelines (GPG). Or at least skim the review criteria bit. You can't be  funded if you don't do a decent job on the BI's. Doesn't matter how good your science is.

And your science isn't that great.

If you need help with BI's, have a look here. And here.

2) A proposal with a central hypothesis along the lines of "I hypothesize grass is green."* And then you outline a series of experiments, some in excruciating detail and others with no detail at all, that don't even test the patently ridiculous hypothesis...

3) A proposal . . . More

Prof-like Substance has a really nice summary of the real costs involved in giving someone (e.g. a grad student) a raise. This is in response to a discussion over at DrugMonkey's. Go read both posts.

In his post PlS points readers at the NSF's funding info page - anyone even fantasizing about applying to the NSF should have a look there. In the comments section to PlS's post, lylebot pointed out:

The link to the NSF funding info page is interesting, but I’m not sure I understand where the numbers are coming from. It gives funding rates of 20-40% for programs that I know are much lower.

I added the emphasis.

That's a great point. I "know" from my experience on NSF review panels that the funding rate is much lower than 20%. And yet that's not . . . More

Pondering Blather was born.

In honor of that, here's something I wrote on September 23, 2005:

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This is for PiT and anyone else currently stuck in a vortex of suckitude.




One can never go wrong with Rolf. Enjoy!






And another. If you're at work you may want to close your office door before listening to this one...

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It's been one of those kind of days. A morning taken up by a dissertation oral defense and an afternoon reviewing an NSF grant proposal.

Not that either of those things are in and of themselves bad. I generally enjoy the thrust-and-parry nature of the scientific discourse at a defense. And reviewing a good proposal is a joy. However...

Some things just make for a grumpy Odyssey.

To whit:

1) Graduate students who reach the oral defense part of their dissertation journey and don't understand significant figures.

Really? You got a measurement of 1057.237 with an error of +/-3? You sure about that? You're upset I'm giving you a hard time about this? It's not like we hadn't talked about this at your last two committee meetings. And I don't give a rat's arse that the software you use spits out that many decimal places. The software can't improve the precision of the data you feed into it.


2) Mentors who can't keep their mouths shut during an oral defense.

Honestly, if you'd opened your mouth to answer a question directed at your student one more time I would have shoved my copy of the dissertation so far down your throat you'd be constipated for a year. You have your PhD. Sh . . . More

There are many, many topics I could choose from regarding things I wish I knew, or knew more about, before joining the faculty here at Big State U. Managing lab personnel and lab finances. Grant writing. Writing manuscripts. Teaching. Committee work. How bad the departmental coffee is. When not to speak up at a faculty meeting. Managing my department chair. And so on. But that's not what today's post is about.

Today I'm wishing I knew before I started my faculty position that

The Freakin' Data Fairy Has
The.
Worst.
Sense.
Of.
Timing.

Ever.


Summer? No teaching. Almost no committee work. Very, very few commitments outside of the lab.

No Data Fairy.


Now it's Fall and I'm being tag-teamed by the Grant Review and Preparing New Lectures Goblins and the Committee Meeting Boogie Monster. I have a month in which to review thirteen (13!) proposals and put together twelve new lectures.* I'm being constantly pummeled.

Now the Data Fairy decides to dump on me.

I mean really dump on me.

And not just data, but awesome, earth-shattering** data. From multiple fronts.

I'm drowning in the good stuff.

And I don't have the time to process it.

Damn . . . More

Last Saturday Evie put up a cool post on Flight 101. This seemed like an appropriate follow up...

I know it's all over the intertubes, but in case you've missed it: There's this low-cost South African airline called Kulula Air. They have this plane called "Flying 101." Go check it, and their other planes, out.

Somehow I can't imagine a US airline having this kind of sense of humor... . . . More

So yesterday Gerty-Z had this little panic attack. She's concerned about making tenure. One could make fun of the fact that she's only two months into tenure-track (TT), but that wouldn't be fair. You see, she's not alone. I, and I suspect many others, have gone through the exact same thing.

THE. EXACT. SAME. THING.

Generally some time in the first year of TT. And again later in the process. Maybe more than once.

G-Z has a list of things she's anxious about in her post - "The Gerty-Z list of tenure clueless-ness-es.*"

I was going to write about some of these in a comment, but quickly realized this would make for a very, very long comment. So I wrote this post instead.


The Gerty-Z list of tenure clueless-ness-es.

1. I am sitting here, writing a grant and paper. It is not going well. If I can't even do this, how am I not screwed? I feel like I'm not a very good writer in the best of times. These are NOT the best of times.

Say what?!?!? You have stuff to write a grant AND a paper on? And you're only two mon . . . More

Go look here. Go on, I dare ya!!!

Just be sure to come back this way now and then... . . . More

I will be sitting on an NSF review panel a few weeks from now. I thought I would use this as an opportunity to describe how the NSF review panels I sit on tend to run.

Let me start by pointing out that this is all based on my experience with panels in the BIO Directorate, that NSF Program Officers (PO's) have a lot of leeway in terms of how these things work, and that I am aware that other panels have different modus operandi.

Pre-Panel Selection
The panels held this Fall, including the one I'm on, will be dealing with proposals that were submitted for the July deadlines/target dates. Between then and now the PO's have been busy sorting those proposals into the right areas and finding reviewers. These are distinct from panel members. An NSF proposal is typically sent out to anywhere from two to six (maybe more) reviewers prior to panel formation. These will submit their reviews via the FastLane system before the panel meets.

Panel Selection
To the best of my knowledge there are no "standing members" on NSF BIO review panels. Regulars, yes. Permanent members, no. The PO contacts prospective panel members based on the portfolio of proposals under review. The goal is to have a panel of ~15 people whose collective expertise covers the entire . . . More

There is a recent piece in the The Scientist titled "I Hate Your Paper" that outlines the problems with the current peer review system and describes some of the alternatives that have been suggested. This has been discussed by Orac, which was followed up on by DrugMonkey.

There is no doubt that the current peer review system has some major problems. I won't defend that. However, some of the so-called "alternatives" seem to me to be prone to the same, if not worse, issues. Let us not forget,

Peer review in any shape or form is done by people.



Yes, reviewers can be snarky, unreasonable, stupid, vindictive and/or lazy.
And editors can be snarky, unreasonable, stupid, vindictive and/or lazy.

So can authors.


I've certainly been on the receiving end of what I consider to be completely unreasonable reviews.
As a reviewer I've probably written reviews that the authors have considere . . . More

We put so much effort into crafting our hypotheses. Carefully collecting our data. Collating. Analyzing.

Considering. Pondering. Thinking.

For hours. Days. Weeks. Months.

Even years.

Finally sculpting.




Behold you unwashed masses! We present to you a thing of great beauty and wonder-

A new hypothesis!


Bow down and worship it's awesomeness!!!






Is it any wonder that some scientists have such a hard time discarding their pet hypotheses? Or refuse to discard them at all, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that they are wrong?

I'd be willing to bet we all know someone like that.

Understandable.





But not excusable.

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The recent thematic posts here at LabSpaces.net on the work-life balance, plus a timely series of posts on obtaining tenure just started by DrDrA over at Blue Lab Coats prompted me to write this. It's something I've been thinking about on and off for a while.


How much do you need to want tenure in order to get it?

The answer is obvious, right? A lot.

But how much is "a lot"?

When I was a postdoc and while on the tenure-track (TT) I met several senior faculty who wore the divorces they went through while on TT as badges of honor. Their answer to the above question was clearly "more than anything else". To which I had (and have) one response:

BULLSHIT

Thankfully such senior faculty are going the way of the dinosaurs (although some do still exist).

I have never believed this. And neither should anyone. One shouldn't sacrifice family, relationships and/or having a life on the altar of tenure. It's simply not worth that much.

Okay, so that's easy for me to say, I have tenure. And obviously everyone's situation is going to be different. . . . More

I was laying low hoping to avoid it...

But then I got tagged by biochem belle.

So the meme goes-
1. Sum up your blogging motivation, philosophy and experience in exactly 10 words.

2. Tag 10 other blogs to perpetuate the meme.


Come late September I will have been blogging for five years. That's an eternity in blog years. I honestly don't remember why I started. I remember my initial post (alright, the one after I posted "woohoo, I have a blog... now what?"), was about spam.

My blogging has evolved over the years. At first my audience consisted solely of friends and family. Over time, as I discovered, read, and commented on, more science/academia-related blogs, my audience grew to include the authors of those blogs and some of their readers. At the time Brian Krueger, Overlord of the Universe LabSpaces offered me a blog here I was contemplating the fact that my blog really was developing a solid focus on science/academia/funding set of foci. So I moved.

Even though Brian wouldn't give in to my demand for a blog-powered espresso machine.


So why do I continue to blog? Because of the community.
< . . . More

While I get my stuff organized, here's a post from my old digs (originally posted Jan. 22, 2009). The title comes from a Google search that led someone to my blog. "How many papers for tenure?" and variations on the question are the number one Google search terms that lead people to my old blog. "Sweet Loretta Fat thought she was a cleaner" is number two...

__________

How Many Papers for Tenure?

The title of this entry comes from a Google search a recent visitor to my blog used.

Good question.

I can't answer it.

The only people who can give you some kind of answer to this are senior faculty in your department (and possibly college), and yourself.

But you absolutely must know the answer very early in the tenure-track process. Preferably before you officially start your position. At the very latest six months in.

So how do you find out how many papers you need? You need to do two things:

1) Ask. Ask early and often. Ask the senior faculty in your department. If you've met some, ask senior faculty in related departments within your college (e.g. within medicine, or within arts and sciences). You may not get a straight answer. You may get several different answers. Hopefully you will get some kind of ans . . . More