Posts

May 20, 2013

+

6:22 PM | Linkage

The National Institute on Aging has a new blog, go comment and tell them we want funding data! Francis Collins was on Hardball discussing the sequester impact. "Independent Scientist" Perlstein covered in Science, bit titled "Going Rogue". Unfortunately. Impact Factor Distortions editorial The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) is unimpressed with Impact Factor [...]

May 17, 2013

+

8:41 PM | Umbrellagate

For me, last night brought awareness of a new low point in the dismal, embarrassing behavior of the rank and file of the Republican party in these fair Uuuuunited States. It was noticeably more depressing then usual because it was so tawdry and pathetic. No, not AP wire tapping. Not Benghazi. I refer to umbrellagate. [...]

+

7:10 PM | Reader Poll

Slightly NSFW so after the jump..... Feel free to expand upon your opinion of someone raised in the US to adulthood who is unfamiliar with this phrasing.

+

6:07 PM | Happy Bike-To-Work Day 2013!

Props if you rode today!

+

3:10 PM | Overheard at a Vendor Fair

"Oh, we know nobody is actually going to buy anything. We're just here to make connections with postdocs for down-the-road."

May 16, 2013

+

7:04 PM | Screwing over a junior colleague to make your point about Impact Factor is stupid

I generally like Stephen Curry's position on the Journal Impact Factor. For example, in today's confessional posting, he says: mostly because of the corrosive effect they have on science and scientists. In this we agree. He also posted "Sick of Impact Factors" and this bit focused on UK scholarly assessment. I enjoy his description of [...]

+

4:47 PM | Webcast on the FY2014 NIH Budget Hearing

Can be found here. Lots of cheerleading and nice talk. Can they back it up in the actual budget fight?

May 15, 2013

+

4:59 PM | Show me the money, Francis!

Later on Drugmonkey, we will be discussing this.

May 14, 2013

+

6:51 PM | Grant pressure amps up the scientific cheating?

Well this is provocative. One James Hicks has a new opinion bit in The Scientist that covers the usual ground about ethics, paper retractions and the like in the sciences. It laments several decades of "Responsible Conduct of Research" training and the apparent utter failure of this to do anything about scientific misconduct. Dr. Hicks [...]

May 10, 2013

+

9:28 PM | Advice on your Response to Prior Review of your NIH grant application in one easy sentence

from jipkin over at PhysioProf's pad: The attitude “I’m happy to debate” should be replaced with “I’m happy to explain”. and there it is.

May 09, 2013

+

5:44 PM | Perspective on the use of animals in research

We were just discussing the closure of the New England National Primate Research Center. One of the uncertainties about that decision of Harvard Medical School was where the approximately 2,000 animals of various species were to be placed. 2,000. Remember that now. Some of the news reporting also referred to the deaths of some of [...]

+

12:57 PM | Stay in touch with your POs for weird mechanisms

If you pursue some of the less popular NIH grant mechanisms, for goodness sake keep in touch with the contact PO. Just heard tell of "Oh, we're not going to be funding any of those in the near future". No, there was no NOT issued to warn those who were preparing applications. ICs can also [...]

May 08, 2013

+

7:03 PM | Open Thread

Entertain me people. I'm begging you.

May 07, 2013

+

8:03 PM | NIGMS FY2012 Funding Outcome Data

h/t PhysioProf

+

7:21 PM | BRAIN Initiative

I just watched part of a live stream [current link] of some meeting to brainstorm about what the $100M BRAIN Initiative should be. What at a disaster. Bunch of reinforcement that this is all about a bunch of senior dudes (mostly male dewds too) in neuron-recording neuroscience who used to make out like bandits from [...]

+

3:11 PM | Francis Collins is listening

He wants to hear about the impact of the sequester on your NIH funded research. Follow the #NIHSequesterImpact tag on the Twitters.

+

12:22 AM | Thought of the day

Why the heck am I still getting "please get me out of [insert non Western country here]" postdoc inquiries? Haven't they heard our funding situation is horrible in this country? Goodness gracious.

May 06, 2013

+

7:16 PM | Stupid CV tricks: Does a lack of middle authorships mean you are a jerk?

Frequently commenter miko offered this up for consideration: Being only ever first (or last) might make you look independent but also might make you look uncollaborative or, more likely, that no one likes you. Fascinating remark. Have you ever heard anyone say this for real? Not in terms of mere publication numbers, I've heard that [...]

+

6:49 PM | Rubber....meet the road. NIH Grant edition

It is all very well to read the tea leaves and to make inferences from what Program Officials are telling you, published paylines, the gossip at writedit's blog and your anguished colleagues. But nothing like a little judicious searching at RePORTER and / or a review of SILK listings to let you know just what [...]

May 04, 2013

+

2:07 PM | Thought of the Day

Listed-third author gets to refer to it as a second-author-paper when the first two are co-equal first authors, right?

May 03, 2013

+

6:08 PM | Never, ever change a bit.

This is hilarious We are talking the summer of love and music like Jefferson Airplane, something like that. "I never liked them. They had one good song: 'White Rabbit.' But it was better than [sings], 'Are You Going to San Francisco' That blows."

May 02, 2013

+

5:53 PM | Rockey posts better numbers to assess the "too many mouths" hypothesis

A new post at Rock Talking has responded to queries raised by many, including YHN, about their prior depiction of applicant and application numbers. My skepticism was based on my own myopia, given the types of investigators that I am around and know the best. This surprised many of us on the Twitters. I don't [...]

+

3:29 PM | A well regulated pre-school militia

Is most assuredly necessary for the security of a free State My First Rifle They even come in "girl"! What could possibly go wrong?

May 01, 2013

+

4:52 AM | Now you, too, can have five Cell papers a year!

Just keep your postdocs supplied with DeerAntlerSpray.

April 30, 2013

+

2:43 PM | Query for my readers on SBIR/STTR grant review

Anyone out there ever reviewed SBIR or STTR grants for the NIH? Any thoughts on what seems to be most important, common pitfalls and the like? Any thoughts on how the review discussion tends to differ from standard R01 review? I have essentially zero experience with these mechanisms and some reader was asking.....

+

6:12 AM | I wonder what happened to that lab?

Many years ago when I was a much younger scientist, reading through the literature was occasionally frustrating. I'd come across a lab working on some question of interest and wonder why they just.....stopped, almost before they got going. Often the authors in question never returned to the published literature and I would wonder what happened. [...]

April 25, 2013

+

6:27 PM | Harvard to close their New England National Primate Research Center

Harvard has decided not to seek to renew NIH support for their New England National Primate Research Center, established by Congress in 1962. The Center has operated with a so-called "base grant" from the National Institutes of Health underpinning the not-inconsiderable costs of housing thousands of nonhuman primates and the usual grab bag of investigators' [...]

April 24, 2013

+

5:32 PM | The Obama Administration's 2013 National Drug Control Strategy

The ONDCP has been twittering up a storm about the release of the latest National Drug Control Strategy document [ PDF ]. The website touts five bullet points: Prevent drug use before it ever begins through education Expand access to treatment for Americans struggling with addiction Reform our criminal justice system Support Americans in recovery [...]

April 19, 2013

+

10:29 PM | NIAID publishes their FY2013 paylines

NIAID is one of the NIH ICs that actually publishes a payline. According to their website, as of April 19 the R01s from experienced investigators will have a payline of 8 percentile. The payline for new investigators will be 12 percentile. By way of comparison these were 10%ile and 14%ile in the prior two Fiscal [...]

April 18, 2013

+

5:23 PM | Eve Marder on the vagaries of life.

Eve Marder has an opinion piece up in which she discusses the "luck" involved in career outcomes. Our present world is filled with great angst. Our junior faculty are writing too many grant applications for not enough money. Our postdocs rightfully feel that they are in purgatory, not knowing when and if there will be [...]