A quick tip of the hat this week from TIR to Nature Communications. In an editorial published on September 12, they have announced that from now on they will list (on an opt-in basis) all preprints undergoing review for publication in the journal. The move is an important step in the ongoing change to the way that priority of discovery is determined in research. Continue reading
What do good scientific research and hardcore pornography have in common? Continue reading
With the reproducibility crisis in science showing no signs of abating, it’s never been more important to clearly communicate how rigorously your data were obtained. Here’s TIR’s short guide to technical replicates, biological replicates, independent experiments, and what they do and don’t tell you. Continue reading
TIR will be on holiday the next couple of weeks. While we’re away, here’s a selection of literary treats (mostly, but not wholly, science-based) to keep you engrossed wherever you are. Best wishes for a long and enjoyable summer to all our readers!
It’s a shame that the prevailing emotion upon acceptance of a paper tends to be relief rather than elation. Continue reading
Stress is a near-constant feature of life in academia, but that doesn’t mean it’s automatically a bad thing.
Earlier this week, TIR’s most popular post – “The cell biologist’s guide to fine dining” – went past 10,000 views. A big thanks to everyone out there for reading it, commenting on it, sharing it, and in one outstanding case, for taking 5 minutes out of a Gordon Conference presentation to read excerpts from it (!). Much appreciated.
There’s lots more to come from us here at TIR, so please keep coming back, sign up for e-mail alerts (at the top of the page), and put the word out to your friends and colleagues if you think they’d be interested in what we’re doing here. We’ll continue reflecting on things…
Cheers,
Brooke & Oliver
It’s widely accepted that there is a logjam in the academic career stream. There are too many postdocs for too few faculty positions. The average age for achieving full independence is rising, and the postdoctoral period has gone from being a second apprenticeship to an indefinite stay in limbo. One proposed solution is contraceptive – that we should train fewer PhDs. It’s wrong.
Moving is part of a modern scientific career. Nor is it uncommon to have a partner of a different nationality, to live and work abroad for years at a time, and to use a second language (often English) as a working language.
Science and the arts are often portrayed as polar opposites, but the truth is that they’re far closer than many of their practitioners even realise. Continue reading
Total Internal Reflection 