Posts

October 18, 2012

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7:18 PM | The upside of scientific meetings

It's quite possible that the full-throated value of a scientific meeting for your science is only realized once you are a PI. It is not infrequent that I come back from scientific meetings all in a tizzy to do one of three things. 1) Put the hurry up on pumping out some data that we've [...]

October 17, 2012

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2:07 PM | SfN 2012: Professors behaving badly

I don't actually know Dario Maestripieri although I have read some of his scientific work now and again over the years. His areas of interest include primate social behavior as well as mating systems and reproductive strategies. Apparently his interest extends to the human primate. Professor Maestripieri has posted a rather idiotic observation about the [...]

October 16, 2012

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8:59 PM | Return of the A2 revision for NIH Grants?

According to a blog entry at Nature the NIH is reconsidering their policy limiting applicants to a single revision of an unfunded grant proposal. Good. They should do so. Unless, as I've said repeatedly, they can show that the increase in the percentage of grants funded on the first try is driven by genuine "first" [...]

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12:30 PM | Making your own equipment

The latest from Backyard Brains... When I walked up this year the rig seemed curiously sophisticated compared with past efforts... SfN must be on to these guys...no live roaches this year.... Anyway, their schweeetly fabbed plastic bits? They built it all themselves using a Makerbot. Tim claimed about a $2,000 cost for the bot. Niiiice

October 11, 2012

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5:30 PM | I know what if feels like to sports dope

The recent news about Lance Armstrong and his numerous teammates, who are now confessing to having doped, raises parallels to cheating in the profession of science. I suggest you read the linked stories which all contain a fair bit of excuse making from the confessed cheats. "Everyone is doing it". "I always wanted to be [...]

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12:48 PM | Are you presenting work at SfN 2012?

This is my annual no-promises request for you, my Readers, to turn the tables. I am interested in what you all have to say, scientifically. So, if inclined drop your presentation details here in the comments or send me an email. Drugmnky at the google mail. I might stop by.

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12:19 PM | Repost: Put NIH Row on Your Itinerary

As those of us in the neurosciences prepare for our largest annual scientific gathering, we should attend to a certain little task to assist with the odds of obtaining NIH grant funding. Part of that process is a long game of developing interpersonal relationships with the Program Officers that staff the NIH ICs of interest [...]

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12:49 AM | Thought of the Day

If your success as a lab depends on concealing the "real way" to do some technique then your science sucks.

October 10, 2012

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4:25 PM | Repost: Scientific Meetings, Networking, The Male Gaze and, well, um, Thingmabobs...

What with the 2012 edition of the Society for Neuroscience meeting rapidly approaching, I thought I'd return to this critical issue in meeting etiquette. This was originally posted Sept 11, 2008 on the old Scienceblogs version of DrugMonkey. __ Annual scientific meetings have many purposes. One of the most essential purposes that cannot be readily [...]

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4:21 PM | Poster presenting 101: Know your audience

Neuropolarbear has a post up suggesting that people presenting posters at scientific meetings should know how to give the short version of their poster. My favorite time to see posters is 11:55 and 4:55, since then people are forced to keep it short. If you are writing your poster talk right now, remember to use [...]

October 09, 2012

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3:38 PM | By hook or by crook

One of the worst feelings in science is to beat you head against the wall, trying to get your ideas funded, only to see multiple RFAs and PAs appear several years later. Or, to see someone finally get "your" grant funded. I have three suggestions for sanity. 1) If you've stopped fighting on Idea 1 [...]

October 08, 2012

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7:49 PM | Estimating the populations at risk for dependence on marijuana versus cocaine

The recent fax (yes, they still call it this despite it arriving via email attachment) from CESAR (Vol 21, Issue 40; October 09, 2012) puts us back on an occasional theme of this blog. They have adapted data from the latest update from SAMHSA's National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. This figure shows the number [...]

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1:06 PM | New Scientopians!

Thirty-seven Elephants, Giraffes, Baboons Transient Interactions Enjoy!

October 04, 2012

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6:42 PM | Where are you from? The Othering

From Kristin Booker at xojane: But at the end of the day, a simple answer should be sufficient, random stranger. If I decide to answer that question at all, I'm being nice. All further questions past the answer, "I'm Black," will now be met with one answer and one answer only: "I've answered your question." [...]

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12:02 AM | Grumpy

I dunno. I liked this manuscript I just reviewed okay but it wasn't super unusually awesome or anything. But I just had the strongest desire to rebut the Third Reviewer and the Associate Editor to the Editor in Chief. I thought they were being a bit too demanding and harsh. And the other two reviews [...]

October 01, 2012

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6:39 PM | Too MUCH effort on your NIH Grant?

Oh, this is a good one. @boehninglab asks: Has anyone heard of study section tanking a grant b/c of too much % effort listed (in particular, 40%)? @drugmonkeyblog #NIH I have no specific recollection of such a thing but it does tingle a slight chord of my memory. Suffice it to say that I am [...]

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3:45 PM | Editorial Boards

Obviously it is an academic career credit to be selected as the Editor in Chief of a journal, no matter how humble that journal may be. And I would tend to say the same for Associate Editor appointments, i.e. those positions with the authority to manage review and make accept/reject decisions. The role of Editorial [...]

September 28, 2012

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2:46 PM | Ponder

It is possible that I am even more motivated to write that grant, finish up that paper or take an experimental run at a project when the competition is someone who is personally a jerk.

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12:17 PM | Accomplishment

I recently completed a streak of 32 days in which I got my behind out for a run of at least 1 mi per day. This followed another streak earlier in the year in which I made it 24 days. The earlier one, in particular, was sustained through a social media reinforcement meme (#RWRunStreak). Sustained [...]

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12:08 PM | Analysis II

...those who take the listed-second, alleged co-equal contribution author slot are like abused children or battered spouses with Stockholm Syndrome. It is going to require professional help to bring them back to reality.

September 27, 2012

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4:16 AM | Analysis

Junior scientists who have spent many formative years in GlamourMag pursuing laboratories suffer from the academic equivalent of Stockholm syndrome. It is really not kind of me to front their illusions all at one go.

September 26, 2012

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6:03 PM | "Alternate careers" is just a way for NIH to get themselves off the hook

The always perspicacious Biochemme Belle noted that Francis Collins, boss of the NIH, is suggesting that they need to take steps to de-stigmatize the idea of alternate careers. I.e., careers outside of the traditional academic, grant funded, professorial-appointed track. At the NIH, we’re in the middle of analysing whether we have the right quality and [...]

September 20, 2012

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5:39 PM | Some citations are more equal than others...but this is invisible to the bean counters

As everyone enjoys themselves predicting their h-index using this new tool, it returns us to talking about the measurement of science and the bean-counting of citations. For those who are new, citations of your academic papers are good, the more you have the better and all of this is well over 90% dependent on factors [...]

September 15, 2012

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1:21 AM | Middle income

Romney has really done it this time. Stephanopoulos: Is $100,000 middle income? Romney: No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less. Where the middle is approximately the 96th-98th percentile apparently....

September 13, 2012

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3:58 PM | PLoS ONE and stupid CV tricks

One of my first posts on the academic CV noted that you should actively manage how it *looks*. Meaning that more is better, yes, when it comes to publications. But beyond that, that you should have some idea of the expectations for your field. Especially when it comes to first-author vs. multi-author collabs, senior author [...]

September 12, 2012

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6:23 PM | ISI includes meeting abstracts now?

In the past, the ISI Web of Science appeared only to include those meeting abstracts that appeared in an actual print journal. That is, some academic societies will publish the text of the abstracts from their annual meeting in a Supplement to their captive journal. I've recently noticed that ISI now seems to include presentation [...]

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3:34 PM | Start your CV right now, noob grad

Some Tweep just gave me syncope. If you are in graduate school or above, start your Full Monty CV. Right now.

September 11, 2012

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4:45 PM | Transgenerational effects of exogenous cannabinoid exposure

A paper in the October issue of the Journal of Psychopharmacology will be of interest to my readership. It looks at the consequences of exposure to an exogenous cannabinoid agonist Byrnes JJ, Johnson NL, Schenk ME, Byrnes EM. Cannabinoid exposure in adolescent female rats induces transgenerational effects on morphine conditioned place preference in male offspring.J [...]

September 09, 2012

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2:03 PM | Limiting citations is unscholarly journal practice

Potnia Theron observed that journals which impose limits on the number of citations that can be included in a manuscript are getting it wrong. I agree, totally ridiculous. If the manuscript is egregiously overcited, the editorial and review process can handle it. The drawback of such policy is palpable. It necessarily will prioritize particular papers [...]

September 07, 2012

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12:49 PM | Marc Hauser's excuse making for faking data

From the CHE: In the statement, Hauser calls the five years of investigation into his research “a long and painful period.” He also acknowledges making mistakes, but seems to blame his actions on being stretched too thin. “I tried to do too much, teaching courses, running a large lab of students, sitting on several editorial [...]