In preparation for the Library of America’s forthcoming volumes of vintage American Sci-fi, they’ve put up an amazing online companion with reviews of the books, additional stories, essays on the historical context, and a gallery of great covers.
If you’re like me and are struggling to sit tight until the books are released, the web site will keep you busy for awhile.
Apropos of yesterday’s quote about the science job market, here are some key points that anyone interested in pursuing a science career should keep in mind:
1) The number of independent research positions in academia, industry, and government has always been less than the number of qualified individuals who desire those positions, but the scarcity of such positions is much more severe now than it was 30 years ago, particularly in the biomedical sciences1. Whether we have the right number of independent research positions is a different issue. The purpose of independent research positions in not to provide employment for people who want such positions, and so the fact that many people want independent research positions but don’t have them does not indicate that we need more of these positions. Continue reading “Being a science career realist”
My 2006 PhD was clearly timed to perfection:
“U.S. pushes for more scientists but the jobs aren’t there”:
A glut of new biomedical scientists that entered the field when the economy was healthier. From 1998 to 2003, the budget of the National Institutes of Health doubled to $30 billion per year. That boost — much of which flows to universities — drew in new, young scientists. The number of new PhDs in the medical and life sciences boomed, nearly doubling from 2003 to 2007, according to the NSF.
But that boom is about to go bust, because an equal number of permanent jobs failed to follow. One big factor: Since 2004, federal research spending across all agencies has stagnated relative to inflation, according to an analysis by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Although the injection of $10 billion in federal stimulus funds to the NIH from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 “created or retained” 50,000 science jobs, according to the NIH, that money is running dry, putting those positions at risk.
The lack of permanent jobs leaves many PhD scientists doing routine laboratory work in low-wage positions known as “post-docs,” or postdoctoral fellowships. Post-docs used to last a year or two, but now it’s not unusual to find scientists toiling away for six, seven, even 10 years.
Note the particular accuracy of that quote – post-docs are left doing “routine laboratory work”, as opposed to the oft-made but mistaken claim that a seven year post-doc is about training and gaining new skills that wouldn’t be obtained in any other setting.
I’ve been hopping around the lab like a short order cook on the line for lunch hour*, but I can’t resist noting the degeneration of Higgs Boson headlines:
The real scoop, at Scientific American:
In short, the results, although preliminary, point with a high level of confidence to the existence of a Higgs-like particle…
What do you think of people calling the Higgs the “God particle”? Continue reading “The science journalism game of whispers”
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Day is an official holiday in my house, and apparently in the UK this year (though they are claiming its for some chick named Elizabeth). According to the calculations of Larry Granillo, the inaugural Ferris Bueller’s Day Off occurred on 5 June 1985..
In honor of the 27th anniversary, I give you Ferris Club*:
The Finch and Pea 