The United States National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is an “honorific society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare”. Set up by none other than Abraham Lincoln himself, the academy publishes a prestigious scientific journal, called the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, better known as just “PNAS” and available at www.pnas.org. This publication is part of a supposedly elite club of high-profile journals – Nature, Science and PNAS (NSPNAS) – that many scientists from all around the world, strive to publish in. Now, there are those that think the world would be a better place if we concentrated on what scientists have to say, rather than where they say it. But currently, life doesn’t always work that way. Better journals, usually tend to have better reviewers and these are often the most important places to publish results. (more…)
October 24, 2008
PNAS envy?
October 14, 2008
Open Access Day: Why It Matters
Today, Tuesday the 14th of October 2008, is Open Access Day. Like many others, this blog post is joining in by describing why Open Access matters – from a personal point of view. According to the wikipedia article Open Access (OA) is “free, immediate, permanent, full-text, online access, for any user, web-wide, to digital scientific and scholarly material, primarily research articles published in peer-reviewed journals. OA means that any individual user, anywhere, who has access to the Internet, may link, read, download, store, print-off, use, and data-mine the digital content of that article. An OA article usually has limited copyright and licensing restrictions.” What does all this mean and why does it matter? Well, in four question-and-answer points, here goes… (more…)
October 10, 2008
PhD studentships at EMBL-EBI, UK
Any budding biomedical scientists out there, interested in doing a PhD, take note: The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) – European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) is having an open day on Monday 3rd November 2008. According to their website the EBI is “happy to welcome all Master students to this day”. Some talks at this open day include:
- Welcome and Introduction Cath Brooksbank
- PhD opportunities at the EBI Nick Goldman
- PhD experience at the EBI – computers, cells and cookies Heidi Dvinge
- 1000 genomes project Paul Flicek
- The truth about Systems Biology: Nicolas le Novère
- Small molecules: Christoph Steinbeck, see SteinBlog
- Extreme Informatics Matt Wood see homepage and Green is Good blog
The EMBL-EBI lies in the 55 acres of landscaped parkland in rural Cambridgeshire that make up the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus. The Campus also houses the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, making it one of the world’s largest concentrations of expertise in genomics and bioinformatics. See also PhD Studies in Bioinformatics at the EBI. If you are interested in attending, sign up at the registration page before the 20th October.
See also PhD Opportunities at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge.
October 9, 2008
While My Keyboard Gently Weeps
I look at the world and I notice it’s turning
While my keyboard gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my keyboard gently weeps
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
oh oh, oh oh, oh oh
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
yeah yeah yeah yeah.
- George Harrison (1968) While My Guitar Gently Weeps
September 29, 2008
BBSRC UK Roadshow, Autumn 2008
The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is on the road this autumn in London, Manchester, Bristol, Glasgow and Cambridge. Potential applicants, grant holders and any other interested parties are strongly urged to attend and learn about BBSRC’s plans for the future including new procedures and new Committee structures. The road shows will also provide an opportunity to meet the new members of the BBSRC Senior Management team.
From an original email sent by Alf Game, Deputy Director of Science and Technology Group. See BBSRC Roadshows.
The BBSRC has revised its future strategic priorities and the way in which they will be delivered through responsive mode peer review and is holding a series of road shows “Enabling the Delivery of Excellence with Impact” at various locations across the UK. (more…)
September 12, 2008
Blogging Professors: Big Boffins with Blogs
I’ve been hunting all over the interweb looking for Professors that have blogs. While it would be a good thing if there were more, (see the science blogging challenge 2008), there are surprising amount of big boffins that already blog. I should say that by big, I mean (full) professor. By boffin I mean a person practicing science including biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, engineering and hell, even computer “science” and the “dismal science” of economics too. By blog I mean, a web-log or a lab-log which is personal, frequently updated (with web feed) and allows comments. Here is my collection of big boffins with blogs, with a little help from friendfeed.com [1]. It is ordered alphabetically by surname and I hope it gives a flavour of some of the bloggers out there on the Web. If you know any more, please let me know. (more…)
September 4, 2008
Famous for fifteen people
The artist Andy Warhol once said:
“In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes”.
This well worn saying has been quoted and misquoted in hundreds of different ways in the forty years since Warhol first coined it [1].
Bad Scientist Ben Goldacre, in his keynote speech* at Science Blogging (sciblog) 2008, highlighted one of these deliberate misquotes, which he attributed to NTK.net (Need To Know: Britain’s most sarcastic high-tech weekly newsletter). It goes a little something like this:
“On the internet everybody can be world famous for fifteen people“.
This wonderful expression captures the nature and scale of science blogging on the internet today in a nutshell. Personally, I think it also sums up much of the spirit of the Science Blogging 2008 conference as well. In total, around eight groups of fifteen people, attended the conference. It was physically impossible to talk to all of them in one day, especially since I had to slink off early at 7pm, but I did manage to meet the following people: (more…)
August 27, 2008
Science blogging at the Royal Institution, London
Nature Publishing Group are organising a workshop on science blogging, this Saturday 30th August 2008 at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London. Why would you care? Because there are:
- Lots of interesting people…
- …talking about a range of interesting subjects …
- .. in a distinguished venue that has recently been refurbished. It is also home to the fantastic Christmas lectures and much more besides.
To cap it all, I think it will be great fun too. So if you’re going, see you there. If you’re not, it is never too late to publish your fantasy science funding entry. Much of the conference will be televised and blogged, making it available online too.
August 26, 2008
Open Notebook Science in Manchester
Organic chemist Jean-Claude Bradley is currently touring the UK. He is doing various talks up and down the country, including one in Manchester on Friday September 5th 2008 at the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre (MIB). So, if you’re interested in novel uses of web technology, including Open Notebook Science to facilitate drug discovery, come along and join the fun. The abstract for his talk on Open Notebook Science using free and hosted tools can be found over at myexperiment.org which is sponsoring this event.
Creative Commons licensed picture of Jean-Claude Bradley (aka Horace Moody) in Second Life by Hiro Sheridan.
update see Jean-Claude Bradley’s presentation on slideshare:
August 22, 2008
If Science was an Olympic Sport…
A fictional scene from the future: The Olympic games, London 2012. A new candidate sport is on trial, joining skateboarding, rugby and golf at their debut Olympic games. It is challenging discipline called Science, a sport more ancient than Olympia itself. The crowd awaits eagerly in the all new Boris Johnson Olympic stadium. It has taken more than 2000 years just to convince the International Olympic Committee that Science is worthy of being an Olympic sport. The big day has finally arrived but the judges are still arguing about how to award the medals to scientists. Despite all the metrics involved, it’s all very very subjective. The games go ahead anyway, and there are lots of exciting new events: (more…)
O'Really? 