Category: Follies of the Human Condition

Freestyle PhD

Hip-Hop Summit / Live Rap Battle Recording
Santa Barbara, California

My freestyle rapping skills leave much to be desired. I tend to focus on rapping to my dog and never with an audience. Most of my lyrics rhyme with dog:

Hey little Bud-dog
why you sitting there like a log
why don’t you take a seat
then maybe I’ll give you a treat.

I’m guessing I would get creamed in a classic freestyle rap battle. Now I know why! Turns out my executive level functions are too robust and won’t allow my brain to free associate effectively. That’s the only thing that’s stopping me. 😉 Continue reading “Freestyle PhD”

Doing Science on the “Fiscal Cliff”

Sequestration. It’s a dirty word for anyone whose job or paycheck relies on Federal funding. Scientists are particularly vulnerable because research plans tend to extend beyond just a few months. Often federal grant money is spent early in the funding period and a sudden budget cut could mean personnel cuts. The Budget Control Act of 2011  hoped to reduce the deficit by $1.2-$1.5 trillion dollars over the next ten years. As an insurance policy, the act included sequestration; meaning, should the committee fail to make a plan, a drastic, across the board cut would be enacted January 1, 2013.

So far, the committee has been unsuccessful in devising a plan to reduce the deficit. After the November election, Congress has been in a flurry trying to formulate a plan both parties support and get it approved in time. Continue reading “Doing Science on the “Fiscal Cliff””

Boring, soul-crushing routine tasks are unavoidable in science

Aspiring scientists need to know that a science career is not an exception to the universal requirement for routine drudgery that applies to all real jobs:

Back in my freshman year of college, I was planning to be a biochemist. I spent hours and hours of time in the lab: mixing chemicals in test tubes, putting samples in different machines, and analyzing results. Over time, I grew frustrated because I found myself spending weeks in the lab doing manual work and just a few minutes planning experiments or analyzing results. After a year, I gave up on chemistry and became a computer scientist, thinking that I would spend less time on preparation and testing and more time on analysis. Continue reading “Boring, soul-crushing routine tasks are unavoidable in science”

ENCODE, Astronomy, & the Future of Genomics

The ENCODE media fail was epic enough that it totally dominated the discussion when the results were released to the public. Now our collective fury has abated1, I’d like to talk about, not what ENCODE did, but what it might mean for how we conduct genomic research in the future.

ENCODE produced an unprecedented amount of data with unprecedented levels of reproducibility between labs. This data will be useful to researchers around the world for year to come. To do so, however, it commanded tremendous resources and marginalized the concerns of independent researchers. Can we harness the data collection power of these collective projects without destroying the creativity and risk-taking of individual scientists in the crucible of collaborative compromise? Continue reading “ENCODE, Astronomy, & the Future of Genomics”

Keep the Thread

The Damm Family in Their Car, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 1987, By Mary Ellen Mark

I got a notice in my inbox the other day that the NIH was implementing a pilot program for us intramural fellows called “Keep the Thread”. The program will be tested first for labs on the NIH campus and depending on the outcomes, it may be recommended to all institutions who employ post-doctoral fellows.  In a nutshell, it is a program to offer flexibility to post-doctoral fellows if they need to take time away from the lab for a variety of reasons (new child, care for a family member, personal emergency etc.). It is not to replace the normal 8 weeks of leave for a new child. It will offer a variety of options like telework, flexible scheduling or temporary effort reduction. Both women and men will be eligible for the program. While trying to create a solution for a well-known problem, this program raises a lot of questions. Continue reading “Keep the Thread”