A look back at a very dramatic year.
Continue readingAuthor: Brooke Morriswood
Great scientists, great moustaches VII (a Movember posting)
The latest in TIR’s annual celebration of some great minds and the great moustaches that went (just) before them. Links to instalments I-VI can be found at the end for real moustache aficionados.
Continue readingScientific supply chains
Attracting international scientists should be used to complement a domestic science base, not compensate for its deficiencies.
Continue readingA riposte to the Red Queens
Mr Smee finds a home (a riff on preprints, peer review, and undergraduate research)
I don’t usually blog about my actual research, but this week one of my last papers was published, a characterisation of the protein TbSmee1 in the unicellular eukaryotic parasite Trypanosoma brucei (here). “Mr Smee” has had a long and painful genesis, and in many ways the story of this paper is the story of my own research group, and one I definitely plan on telling at a later date.
For now though, the paper is worth highlighting because I think it illustrates a number of features of contemporary publishing dynamics, peer review, and the importance of frontline research to undergraduates.
Continue readingJess’ last day at university
Jess is on a break: the first 30 days
A new direction (the switch to MedComms)
MySciMoment – Ko-Fan Chen 陳克帆
Ko-Fan Chen is a lecturer in Neurogenetics at the Department of Genetics and Genome Biology, University of Leicester (UK). He also runs a research lab to understand sleep. Here, he describes the moment ( his #MySciMoment) that set him on the path to a research career in academia.
Continue readingScience and narcissism (an interview with Bruno Lemaitre)
TIR talks to immunologist Bruno Lemaitre, a key figure in Toll research, about science, academics, narcissism and narcissists. He is an observer and commentator on the dark side of success in scientific research.
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Total Internal Reflection 