banner
You are not using a standards compliant browser. Because of this you may notice minor glitches in the rendering of this page. Please upgrade to a compliant browser for optimal viewing:
Firefox
Internet Explorer 7
Safari (Mac and PC)
twitter logo
Quick Link
The Writers
Recent Comments
Comment by Adam Greenfield in The Advantage of Being Cute
Feb 07, 2012, 5:55pm
Comment by jonesjames61 in How Like You are You?
Feb 05, 2012, 11:43pm
Comment by Brian Krueger, PhD in The rumors of my death ...
Feb 03, 2012, 3:18pm
Feb 03, 2012, 10:02am
Feb 02, 2012, 10:53am
Feb 02, 2012, 12:36am
Comment by jimbot in Is Sunshine Enough?
Jan 31, 2012, 2:24pm
Comment by SonicThreat in So Unbelievably Mad Right Now.
Jan 23, 2012, 1:32am
Jan 21, 2012, 1:03am
Comment by Francis De La Cruz in How people in science see each other.
Jan 13, 2012, 12:40pm
Jan 11, 2012, 2:26pm
Comment by JaySeeDub in Food Labeling
Jan 09, 2012, 8:44pm
Author: GirlPostdoc | Views: 777 | Comments: 7
Last by Namnezia on Nov 11, 2011, 8:00pm
Lately, I've been reading about salmon. Adult salmon swim upstream thousands of miles to return to the place they were born. Because their objective is to reproduce, they stop feeding, their stomach disintegrates, and instead all their fat stores go to producing eggs and sperm. Only the fittest salmon make it to the spawning grounds.

And I realized, postdocs are just like salmon.

photo Via Shuttershock

. . . More
Author: GirlPostdoc | Views: 336 | Comments: 6
Last by Amanda on Oct 21, 2011, 8:05pm
My officemate knowing of last week's hulabaloo left a piece of yummy German chocolate on my desk. Think hard because it may be as small as a stranger smiling at you, what act of generosity have you been the reciepient of today? 

You know I'll just keep asking until I get something resembling a response....

. . . More
Author: GirlPostdoc | Views: 144 | Comments: 0
If you folks are feeling generous, Donor's Choose could still use some help. There is another project that readers could get behind, it's to bring microscopes into the classroom. Its called, Request for Young Scientists' Tools of the Trade.

. . . More
Author: GirlPostdoc | Views: 606 | Comments: 2
Last by GirlPostdoc on Oct 14, 2011, 3:16pm


Good grief.

. . . More
Author: GirlPostdoc | Views: 260 | Comments: 4
Last by GirlPostdoc on Oct 16, 2011, 2:02pm
Lately before we go to bed, HippieHusband and I watch Animal Planet's 101 Dog Video's. I think, in part, because we both want to get a dog. But another reason is because we want to watch something that makes us feel happy before we go to bed. I had no idea there were so many different kinds of dogs. Last night, however, I decided to listen to something else - it was what I would call a "wisdom" talk. I needed some advice that I felt went beyond career advice.

. . . More
Author: GirlPostdoc | Views: 2343 | Comments: 4
Last by Shu Ito on Oct 13, 2011, 10:52am
After I received an email from RedBull, I spoke with several tenured and t-t faculty to get their opinions on how to deal with this.



. . . More
Author: GirlPostdoc | Views: 693 | Comments: 4
Last by GirlPostdoc on Oct 11, 2011, 9:43pm
Be forewarned, this is a rant.

. . . More
Author: GirlPostdoc | Views: 243 | Comments: 3
Last by Amanda on Oct 14, 2011, 12:51pm
Well I did it.  I wrote the crappiest piece of shiza manuscript I have in a long time.  But the reason I made myself do this is I have a perfectionism problem.   This was an experiment to see if I could find a way to overcome that challenge. 

Now I have what I like to call the pseudocode for a manuscript.  All I have to do is work on it just 1 paragraph or 1 figure a day (and/or 1hr a day) and pretty soon I'll have a manuscript worth sending to RedBull.  We'll see how it goes.....

So peeps did anyone else do a #madwriting fest?  Do they find it helps or hinders their writing (of any kind!)?

. . . More
Author: Nick Fahrenkopf | Views: 1950 | Comments: 1
Last by firsat on Oct 03, 2011, 12:12am
In case you haven’t heard, memristors are a big deal (see NanoLetters, ACS Nano, and Nature). So what are they and why are researchers in academia and industry so interested? Are they going to change life as we know it?

Scientists, at least folks like me working at the intersection of biology and technology, are really interested in memristors because they are a fully electronic component that act (broadly speaking) like neurons. That is, they have the capacity to “remember” based on the current that flows through them. So, just like you might develop muscle memory from touching a hot pan (and hopefully learn to pull your hand away fast) memristors can learn. What caught my eye recently was this article that touted protein based memristors. That is, an electronic component that can mimic biological circuits, using biological molecules. Woah.

So let’s back up. What is a memristor? The typical spiel is that memristors are the fourth fundamental circuit element besides the resistor, capacito . . . More
Author: GirlPostdoc | Views: 537 | Comments: 1
Last by Jade on Sep 21, 2011, 8:51pm
Life as a postdoc is hard, but I try harder to remember this.

. . . More
Author: GirlPostdoc | Views: 423 | Comments: 4
Last by Bill Feger on Sep 22, 2011, 3:38pm
Made it back home safe.  Got my fellowship application in on time - 2 hrs to spare.  Yeah me! 

Went into the lab today and saw RedBull for the first time in two months. Our conversation went like this"

"Hey RedBull. Just came by to say, hello and I'm back!"

"Oh okay.  Your priority over the next two months is to get that analysis on the Alphabetum done and turned into a manuscript." 

Not even a 'hello how are you' or 'welcome back'. Seriously? Well, at least it's not forever.  In fact, if I have it my way, I could be doing something else next year.
 

. . . More
Author: Jade | Views: 902 | Comments: 1
Last by jellybabe on Nov 25, 2011, 10:15am
Anyone with strong bioinformatics skills looking for a job with a fantastic energetic new PI at the University of Arizona?

Today I spent time with a friend and new PI at the University of Arizona talking about her metagenomics projects. She's been advertising for an opening for a computational biologist for quite a while.  She tells me that she can't find anyone to fill this position because they are in such high demand and there are so few people who have the skills so they are all getting jobs fast. She is looking for a postdoc or would even support a grad student for their PhD if they wanted to do the work.

Apparently a research associate with bioinformatics expertise can get a job in industry for as much as $90K a year, making it hard to find qualified candidates who want to work in academics labs.

So if you are looking to increase your marketability with a highly valued skill set in popular demand, then computational biology looks to be the way to go.

And if anyone is interested in the position at U of A, email me.

. . . More
Author: GirlPostdoc | Views: 388 | Comments: 1
Last by Jade on Sep 09, 2011, 8:16pm
In a culture where women are already experiencing devasting effects because of the sex ratio bias, the Chinese government goes ahead and does this.

. . . More
Author: GirlPostdoc | Views: 241 | Comments: 1
Last by Jade on Sep 07, 2011, 5:41pm
This about sums it up. Wouldn't you say?



Thanks to brilliantly smart-ass responses to completely well-meaning signs.

. . . More
Author: GirlPostdoc | Views: 525 | Comments: 4
Last by Dr. Girlfriend on Sep 12, 2011, 1:39am
I am having an amazing time working as a visiting postdoc at BigEasternU. It has made me appreciate what I need as a postdoc to thrive. The biggest factor is the nature of the PI.



. . . More
Author: Jade | Views: 2422 | Comments: 13
Last by Jade on Sep 07, 2011, 1:06pm
Last week the biotech community in San Diego suffered a tough blow as many positions were eliminated as part of a plan to save $20 million dollars in the hopes that Life Tech will please their investors. People who lost jobs included veterans with the company, many who were loyal and hard-working to the almighty borg of biotechs, sacrificing their nights, vacations, and weekends to promote the success of an organization that never sleeps.

Life Tech was formed out of a merger of two companies; Carlsbad-based Invitrogen and Foster City-based Applied Biosystems. The acquisition of ABI by Invitrogen in 2008 resulted in the $6.7 billion dollar company renamed Life Technologies, which holds some of the hottest IP in the world, including lucrative patents on PCR, qPCR, and market domination in Human ID/forensics. With a portfolio this powerful, how could they fail?

Life has not reported how many people were sent home last week and they have not updated their numbers on the State Employment Development Department website which tracks company layoffs, according to the . . . More
Author: GirlPostdoc | Views: 1675 | Comments: 5
Last by Spiny Norman on Aug 22, 2011, 11:34pm
Hermitage at Scientopia has a carnival on women in science. But it's sans bebes. She elicited questions and sent them to us. Here are my answers.

1. When you were looking for your post-doctoral position, how (if you knew) did you know that your PI would treat you fairly?

. . . More
Author: Nick Fahrenkopf | Views: 1392 | Comments: 0
One of the research scientists at my college forwarded me a Nature article he thought I’d be interested in. This was the same guy who wanted to know how you feed DNA, so I was wary, but I took a look anyways. Now here I am breaking one of my only blogging rules and am writing about my own research. The paper came out in July in Nature titled “An integrated semiconductor device enabling non-optical genome sequencing” – it is open access too so take a look (after you finish reading here of course!)

. . . More
Author: GirlPostdoc | Views: 32548 | Comments: 12
Last by Francis De La Cruz on Jan 13, 2012, 12:40pm
This bit of genius is brought to you by Matushiq Sotak.



. . . More
Author: Dangerous Experiments | Views: 975 | Comments: 3
Last by Dr. Girlfriend on Aug 09, 2011, 3:45pm
For those of you unfamiliar with me, here is a little bit of my background. I recently graduated in December 2010 with my B.S. in Chemistry. I did undergrad research and worked at an environmental lab after college. After about 5 months, I ended up in academia as an organic geochemistry technician at a very large prominent college in Oklahoma.

In the beginning, I was ecstatic and flattered that all my hard work landed me such an awesome position. As the weeks went on, I struggled trying to find my niche in this odd dynamic of a team. Firstly, I am the only American girl in the lab. I did bond with the other male technician and my lab manager but getting to know the postdocs was a whole other ordeal.

See, we get visiting postdocs every 3 weeks. Right now there are 6 here for their 1 year postdoctoralship. This is unfamiliar territory for me because I’ve never heard of that many in one department. They are all foreign as well. However, this is not a problem. I lived in Italy for 6 months and am very respectful and enamored by other cultures. Slowly but surely I won the hearts of the Brazilian, the Pollack and Frenchie. I want to share with you some things I learned regarding foreign colleagues and how my work environment is so much better now.

10. D . . . More
Friends