Transformative research is not easily predicted

Staying in the game

A new opinion piece comes out with a bold suggestion: curators of museum collections should be coauthors on papers resulting from the use of their collections. Here is a blog post that looks favorably on this idea. (I think this is a bad idea in about 14 different ways, maybe I’ll write a post about this. Maybe.)

Huh. Someone copied Beall’s list and made their own website with it, with an attempt to update it as new predatory publishers pop up. Your mileage may vary, of course.

Fine-tuning summer research programs to promote underrepresented students’ persistence in the STEM pathway.

Time to stop using the phrase “science literacy?”

The next paper from the SAFE13 study has come out, about sexual harassment and safety of some conducting fieldwork. They found that hostile environments and negative experiences affect the professional trajectories of women researchers, and provide specific information that we can act on to fix this situation.

Please read this article in Science Magazine, which explains why the work to document sexual harassment in the field is so critical. The story opens with this anecdote about a researcher working in a distant field camp in Antarctica: “Marchant repeatedly shoved her down a steep slope, pelted her with rocks while she was urinating in the field, called her a ‘slut’ and a ‘whore,’ and urged her to have sex with his brother, who was also on the trip.”

Do you have trouble interacting professionally with women that you find attractive, maybe try The Rock Test?

Are you are around someone who has trouble passing the Rock Test? This is for you: We Don’t Do That Here. This is super useful, tuck this in the back pocket of temporal lobe for the next time a casual misogynist ends up in your vicinity. Guys, it’s our job to do this.

How do you design a good insect hotel?

A 10-year old interview with a fruit fly guy is making the rounds, because he a) just got a Nobel Prize and b) had a lot of choice gripes about the funding and training environment in science today that explained why he chose to leave science.

The Nobel Prize has 99 problems, and gender is one.

The absurdity of the Nobel Prizes in Science. This is a really cogent piece and I’m betting if you read it, it might really make you reconsider things.

This paper in arXiv is a personal account of an astrophysicist who trained with one of the new Nobel Laureates, whose detailed story vividly describes how her work was stolen from her.

Google and Facebook have failed us.

But while we are on the Nobel Prize, let me just gush about Kazuo Ishiguro. Never Let Me Go it just rocked my world.

Death at a Penn State Fraternity. This is both a tragic story and an epitome of journalism.

The Mind of John McPhee, an equally exceptional piece of journalism.

How the elderly lose their rights. This also is amazing journalism, and this story is insane.

It looks like the big publishers have finally decided that it’s worth it to go after ResearchGate, which has been an effective mechanism to circumvent paywalls.

9 University of Wisconsin students respond to new anti-protest policy

Darwinian sexual selection and the politics of beauty

The high cost of academic reimbursement

Los Angeles, through the eyes of Tom Petty.

Have a great weekend!