Discussed here in the Scientific American.
Read more...
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Why you (a scientist) should use Twitter in your work
Postgrads are people that have gone back to uni to do an advanced degree. We're not paid much, and we're nerds. Outside of our work at Uni, I like to think that we all have friends and family that aren't academics... or know one or two non-scientists, at the very least.
Despite this, we show an amazing divorce from mainstream culture, and especially from the way most people communicate with one another. Most of the postgrad students that work next to me are Generation Y. You'd never know it though - one is an avid fan of Radio National, another does craft in her spare time, and out of the twenty or so that I see most regularly, exactly one has a Twitter account that she opened without being paid to do so.
WHY? That's the question. There's no point in finding a cure for cancer if you don't tell anyone about it! In the Vet Faculty, where we work on animal health, it seems especially strange that we don't usually use mainstream communication channels to let animal lovers know what we've found.
Unfortunately, there's a very strong culture in science that drives home the message "If you can't prove it, don't say anything". This is a very damaging point of view, because it contrasts so strongly with the way the rest of our Western culture works. Earlier today, I read about some Patti Smith - or somelike her at least - you know, very cool and not, on the face of it at least, a complete idiot - getting injections of black sheep fetus to make herself look younger. WTF??? There was some deranged quote about how she thought it made sense that injecting young tissue would make her look younger. (Leaving my main topic on a tangent, but why did she not go on to think that it's going to make her black, or look like a sheep, or cause her to grow wool??? Maybe she really has done too much blow.)
Science has to compete with the fraudulent clinic that sold poor Patti this stuff. That means we can't wait until we're sure! We need to loudly and constantly declare "SCIENTISTS SAY: To the best of our knowledge, injecting yourself with sheep fetus is IDIOTIC and probably DOWNRIGHT DANGEROUS!". If, by some twist of fate, this turns out to be AOK, it's perfectly OK to update the message: "SCIENCE ADVANCES! Injecting yourself with sheep fetus is just fine and it DOES make you look younger!!!"
So, to answer the questions in the title directly:
Twitter: with messages of just 140 characters, young scientists can learn to keep it short and sweet. A laboratory Twitter channel would be the perfect place to put updates about equipment condition, who's around and who's away, new primers, that a protocol did or didn't work, that you found a piece of the puzzle, had mysterious results, or even that you've just got a paper published in a scientific journal...
REMEMBER: there's no point in doing science if you don't tell people what you found!!!
Read more...
Despite this, we show an amazing divorce from mainstream culture, and especially from the way most people communicate with one another. Most of the postgrad students that work next to me are Generation Y. You'd never know it though - one is an avid fan of Radio National, another does craft in her spare time, and out of the twenty or so that I see most regularly, exactly one has a Twitter account that she opened without being paid to do so.
WHY? That's the question. There's no point in finding a cure for cancer if you don't tell anyone about it! In the Vet Faculty, where we work on animal health, it seems especially strange that we don't usually use mainstream communication channels to let animal lovers know what we've found.
Unfortunately, there's a very strong culture in science that drives home the message "If you can't prove it, don't say anything". This is a very damaging point of view, because it contrasts so strongly with the way the rest of our Western culture works. Earlier today, I read about some Patti Smith - or somelike her at least - you know, very cool and not, on the face of it at least, a complete idiot - getting injections of black sheep fetus to make herself look younger. WTF??? There was some deranged quote about how she thought it made sense that injecting young tissue would make her look younger. (Leaving my main topic on a tangent, but why did she not go on to think that it's going to make her black, or look like a sheep, or cause her to grow wool??? Maybe she really has done too much blow.)
Science has to compete with the fraudulent clinic that sold poor Patti this stuff. That means we can't wait until we're sure! We need to loudly and constantly declare "SCIENTISTS SAY: To the best of our knowledge, injecting yourself with sheep fetus is IDIOTIC and probably DOWNRIGHT DANGEROUS!". If, by some twist of fate, this turns out to be AOK, it's perfectly OK to update the message: "SCIENCE ADVANCES! Injecting yourself with sheep fetus is just fine and it DOES make you look younger!!!"
So, to answer the questions in the title directly:
Twitter: with messages of just 140 characters, young scientists can learn to keep it short and sweet. A laboratory Twitter channel would be the perfect place to put updates about equipment condition, who's around and who's away, new primers, that a protocol did or didn't work, that you found a piece of the puzzle, had mysterious results, or even that you've just got a paper published in a scientific journal...
REMEMBER: there's no point in doing science if you don't tell people what you found!!!
Read more...
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Imagine being one of 100,000 fully sequenced people
What they say:
"The Personal Genome Project is an open-ended research study that aims to improve our understanding of genetic and environmental contributions to human traits. We are enrolling members of the public who are willing to share their genome sequence and other personal information with the scientific community and the general public."
Although I know some people will leap to point out the privacy issues that could come as part of this project, it seems like an incredible opportunity to contribute to our understanding of biology, way beyond the personal sacrifice of lost privacy about health data. And without having to work hard either! They're only requesting USA-ians at the moment, but I for one will be keeping my ears open in case this goes world-wide at some point.
"The Personal Genome Project is an open-ended research study that aims to improve our understanding of genetic and environmental contributions to human traits. We are enrolling members of the public who are willing to share their genome sequence and other personal information with the scientific community and the general public."
Although I know some people will leap to point out the privacy issues that could come as part of this project, it seems like an incredible opportunity to contribute to our understanding of biology, way beyond the personal sacrifice of lost privacy about health data. And without having to work hard either! They're only requesting USA-ians at the moment, but I for one will be keeping my ears open in case this goes world-wide at some point.
Read more...
Friday, May 15, 2009
Expand the gene pool
No, we're not advocating gettin' jiggy with it, instead we're talking about a new competition that is being run in conjunction with Evolution - The Festival, which is being held to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin.Join project Gene Pool, where you can creatively explore what evolution means to you either in any medium or by attempting to "mutate the ABC archives". We're not exactly sure what this means but, like evolution, who know where it might lead? Entries will then be naturally selected (ha, ha). Bad puns optional.
Read more...
Best and brightest (that's us!) kept dirt poor
A piece this week in The Age newspaper has revealed that this year's budget has done little to alleviate the financial woes of PhD students:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/clever-country-our-brightest-are-kept-dirt-poor-20090513-b3bz.html?page=-1
Read more...
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/clever-country-our-brightest-are-kept-dirt-poor-20090513-b3bz.html?page=-1
Read more...
Thursday, May 7, 2009
It's just a little bit of G-T-C-A...
Remember last year we posted about the "Dance your PhD competition"? How about going one better and adding some catchy lyrics to give you this year's hottest dance song? Ok that's an exaggeration but it really is a giggle... see it here. Turn up the volume and get grooving, labtastic people!If you come across any other great youtube videos we'd love to see them. What's one more item for procrastination in a PhD student's life?
Read more...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
