Small World of Science
Topic: Science Workplace
Last week Jenni's parents and my parents met for the first time. We knew that both Jenni's Dad and my Dad were both at McMaster University in Hamilton Canada at roughly the same time. McMaster University had quite an impressive department, which included Bertram N. Brockhouse who won the Nobel prize in 1994 for his development of neutron spectrometer (or slow particle spectrometer). McMaster at the time was a good place to be in Physical Chemistry and Particle Physics as it had a synchrotron.

Back to the story ... Jenni's father, who was in the Physical Chemistry department, was friends with a certain fellow named Kho, who was in the Physics department. It turns out that my father's thesis project was to continue work initiated by the same Kho.

Now I have read that within certain circles, such as the Jazz community the interconnections between the members are tight, but here is an example of how the scientific community is also "connection rich".

Paperless Notebooks?
Topic: Science Workplace
As a scientist I spend a large chunk of time putting to paper all the things that happen in the lab everyday. But in the lab of the future, instead of notebooks, perhaps scientists will be keeping electronic notebooks ... OK confession, I've been keeping an electronic notebook for a year and a half using Microsoft Word.

But I just read in the July edition of Nature that spurred on by pharmaceutical companies, the time of electronic notebooks is at hand!

So are there any e-notebook programs, beside typical word processing programs? There are a couple of commercially available programs and at least one free one.

From a personal experience, I can tell you that the biggest plus is that my enotebook is neat, easy to search and is flexible enough to readily incorporate data straight into my notes (as long as it's digital data). Also the cut and paste feature allows one to easily incorporate info from the web or often used protocols.

I'll experiment with the freeware (see above) and update you on how it compares to MS Word.

Gates Foundation Awards
Topic: Science Workplace
As much as people love to hate Microsoft, we should all thank the Gates Foundation for spurring on technological advance to help the Developing World.

From an article in today's Science section of the NY Times:

... 43 projects were the winners of a competition announced by Mr. Gates two years ago to find new ways to attack the greatest health challenges facing people in poor countries; the contest attracted 1,500 proposals from 70 countries.

The projects, which will get five-year grants of up to $20 million each, are "very visionary and very, very high risk," said Dr. Richard D. Klausner, a former director of the National Cancer Institute who now runs the Gates Foundation's global health program. "But if any of them are successful, it will be well worth the investment."

In total $437 million in grants were awarded. So what kind of research are they funding? Well David Baltimore (head of Cal Tech ... where this guy is starting a lab) won a grant to develop stem cells that when injected into an individual can generate a super immune system, capable of fighting many diseases.

To see a complete list of the projects funded by the Gates Foundation, click here.

PhD Comics
Topic: Science Workplace
Was alerted to this by a friend of mine.

PhD (Piled Higher and Deeper) Comics.

Enjoy.

Other Scientific Travelers
Topic: Science Workplace
Well summer is finally here and I'll have to crack down if I'm going to publish my current results before others do.

But many other scientists (or ex-scientists) are off traveling and recording their observations and insights on a daily (or not so daily) basis on their own travel blogs.

For example, Sebastian, who use to work in the Flanagan Lab, is touring China before starting Dentistry School down in Texas, here's his blog: China Travel.

But it's not just Sebastian, Bil is reporting from his Scandinavian tour, and Tulula Tenant is describing her wildlife encounters from New Hampshire.

Science and the Wilderness
Topic: Science Workplace

Well this entry is coming to you from the Samesun Backpackers Lodge in Banff. Just came back from a hike to the Hoodoos (see image right), formed by the petrification of loose soil by limestone. As the cliff eroded over the centuries, loose soil melted away leaving behind these strange Giacometti figurines.

The Canadian Rockies are truly spectacular. Pushed skywards by the collision of the North American plate with the plate covering the Pacific ocean floor, the Rockies around Banff and Jasper were once shallow ocean beds themselves. Hiking up Tunnel mountain and Sulfur mountain, I found plenty of fossilized corral and other remnants of an ancient corral reef. Further west in Yoho National Park lies the famous fossils of the Burgess Shale.


Many incredible lakes are located in the mountains such as Lake Louise (left). Their strange turquoise-blue color, is the result of the glaciers that ffed them. I'm not sure what specifically gives the water it's vivid color but it has something to do with the "rock flour" found in glacial meltwater - if anyone out there knows, send me some info, thanks.

Since there is much compression in the North American tectonic plate around Banff, there are places where magma gets relatively close to the surface, super-heating parts of the water table. This hot water then dissolves minerals trapped in the sedimentary rock, such as sulfur or radium, and then due to elevated pressure rises to the surface. These "hot-springs" are then populated by tourists ... some looking for the fountain of youth ... I guess.

In fact workers of the Canadian Pacific Railroad discovered a sulfur-spring (see image right). To mediate the ownership dispute between several workers, CP Rail (a Canadian Government Corporation) bought out all of the parties, built a fantastic resort, the Banff Springs Hotel and created this giant National Park (i.e. Banff). Unfortunately some of the springs are inhabited by an endangered species of snail that feed off of algal mats (the brown floating islands in the picture on the right) and are sensitive to cosmetics worn by the would be human bathers. As a results many hotsprings are no longer open for bathing, but can be visited.

For more info on the Banff Springs Snail click here.

End of the Conference
Topic: Science Workplace
Well another conference over and my head is spinning. As usual I met lots of people and was introduced to many ideas. My new found (Japanese) competitors are very nice and their poster was very interesting. (Why are my competitors almost always Japanese). Unfortunately their results differ from mine - but we both agree why.

I'm now off to meet my parents for 3 days of trekking. I'll be back in civilization after that.

See you all then.

Mind Exercise in Banff
Topic: Science Workplace
So I've been here in Banff at the Conference for two days. I've climbed a mountain, gone to too many talks to remember, met too many people to recall and I've already lost too much sleep. But look at the view from the balcony where I'm staying (right), isn't it great!

Scientific conferences are very good educational experiences - you force yourself to go to many talks, all very peripheral to your own research, in the hope of meeting the important people, gaugging where the field in general is headed, and in my case learning the basics.

Equally important is presenting your own work and "getting feedback". I've just set up my poster and looking over to the next poster, what do I see? Almost the same experiments (well not quite). Tonight's poster session will be very interesting.

To be continued ...

Mentorship
Topic: Science Workplace
Prodded on by my father, I am reading David Wick's Infamous Boundary, an account of the history of Quantum Mechanics and of the EPR controversy.

In this fascinating book, there is a nice passage about mentorship ... for those of you not in science, a large chunk of a scientist's career takes place under the gaze of a supervisor (or mentor), whose role is to guide and teach their underlings. Some cynics may add that mentors also claim credit for their underlings' findings ... but let's not go there ...

From the Infamous Boundary:

In collaborations among scientists at various stages of their careers, it is generally the older scientists who choose the direction of research and legitimize or repudiate the ideas of their younger colleagues. Sometimes, of course, their conservatism stifles the younger scientists' creativity - but neither Bohr nor Born was conservative. The role of the youngsters, on the other hand, with their boundless enthusiasm, unformed epistemologies, and original techniques, is to break through the logjam in a blocked research program. It is for this reason that thoughtful older scientists like to work with younger men or women in their twenties or early thirties. Of course, it helps if they are geniuses, or at least very bright.

Awards in Science
Topic: Science Workplace
Well it has been quite a week in the Rapoport Lab. First Tom was nominated to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, then Pedro (a fellow postdoc) received a fellowship from The Jane Coffin Memorial Fund, and Bil received a fellowship from Burroughs Welcome Fund. Then late yesterday it was announced that Tom was nominated to the National Academy of Sciences, the most prestigious scientific organization in this country.

Now don't get me wrong, it's not every week that members of the lab get prestigious awards, let alone four awards!

So to all of you, congratulations!

Fortey's Life, In Praise of Discovery
Topic: Science Workplace
Just finished a great book, Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth by Paleontologist Richard Fortey.

Despite it's rather ponderous sounding title, the book reads more like a travel diary. Moving through history, Professor Fortey touches on the general sequence of events that mark evolution. He touches on Trilobites (of which he is an expert), the mystery identities of Conodonts and Graptolites, Ammonites and other major species that once covered the globe and now fill the fossil layers. There is one passage where he describes his stint in Spitsbergen, an island above the arctic circle rich in trilobite fossils, which he explored as a graduate student. There he describes the feeling of discovery, a feeling that many scientists have felt at least once in their lifetime:

The excitement of discovery cannot be bought, or faked, or learned from books (although learning always helps). It is an emotion which must have developed from mankind's earliest days as a conscious animal, similar to the feeling when prey had successfully been stalked, or a secret honeycomb located high in a tree. It is one of the most uncomplicated and simple joys, although it soon becomes mired in all that other human business of possessiveness and greed. But the discovery of some beautiful new species laid out on its stony bed provokes a whoop of enthusiasm that can banish frozen fingers from consideration, and make a long day too short. It is not just the feeling that accompanies curiosity satisfied -- it is too sharp for that; it arises not from that rational part of the mind that likes to solve crosswords, but from the deep unconscious. It hardly fades with the years. It must lie hidden and unacknowledged beneath the dispassionate prose of a thousand scientific papers, which are, by convention, filleted of emotion. It is the reason why scientists and archaeologists persist in searches which may even be doomed and unacknowledged by their fellows.

Awards to Uplift Science's Profile?
Topic: Science Workplace
So in yesterday's NY Times there is an article about how the Kavil brothers are launching new scientific awards. From the NY Times article:

Starting in 2008, and every other year afterward, the Kavli Foundation will be sponsoring three prizes worth $1 million each in the fields of astrophysics, neuroscience and nanoscience. By comparison, last year's Nobels were worth about $1.3 million each.

"The point is to create visibility for science," Mr. Kavli said.

Sorry Bil, I guess structure biologists are not good for visibility!

So is this a wise way to spend money?

I personally don't mind that some rich philanthropist is throwing his money at some big shot scientists ... and they have a point that right after the Nobel announcement a couple of scientists, and their work, are exposed to the world (well at least for 24 hours) ... but wouldn't the money be better spent on some program that really reaches out to people. Perhaps general interest in science, and the natural world in which we live in, would then lasts more than for the couple of days each year when the Nobel prizes are announced.

But then again big ceremonies, and old traditions, where people are given some honor such as "God's representative on earth" do a good job of penetrating the attention span of the masses.

Link to the Kavli Foundation.

Postdoc Survey
Topic: Science Workplace
Here's a link to a recent survey of postdoctoral fellows done by the Sigma Xi Society.

The survey's authors claim that institutions that have a "structured postdoc program" produced happier postdocs.

Postdocs were poorly paid (median salary $38000/yr), likely to be foreign (54%) on temporary visas, lacked childcare (26% had access vs. 30% no childcare) and subsidized housing (14% had access vs. 50% did not). 53% of postdocs were dissatisfied with the amount of time they can devote to their families (40% are satisfied). 44% agreed that their work had impacted (I assume negatively) their decision to have a child.

Basically postdocs are highly skilled, highly educated workers that are exploited without much support.

Fortunately despite all this 69% of postdocs were generally satisfied with their postdoctoral experience. Moreover 61% of postdocs would encourage prospective individuals in joining their current lab as a postdoc.

So why is this?

- Academia is a pyramid scheme. There is a huge excess of grad students and postdocs all lured into academia with the promise of professorships. Problem is the jump from postdoc to professorship is steep (about 100 applicants per job). This is because postdocs are cheep. An easy way to solve this? Pay postdocs more.
- There is a "rite of passage" type attitude in academia. Many professors were underpaid unappreciated postdocs and feel that the current crop of postdocs must pass through this as well. This type of self inflicted wound in academia is not helpful.
- Academics generally like their jobs. As a result plenty of people are willing to work for less. Universities and other research institutes exploit this and give postdocs scraps. Postdocs are treated essentially as cheep labour rather than future scientists.Perhaps providing better support (financially and otherwise) would actually improve postdoc productivity and generate better principal investigators.

In summary postdocs are better off now than they were before ... but we have a long way to go before postdocs get what they deserve.

Biomedical Research and Singpore
Topic: Science Workplace
So is Asia the future of science? Maybe.

The country making the greatest headway is little Singapore. It ranked 1st by the World Economic Forum in "Information Communication Technologies". In 2003, eighth graders from Singapore rank first in math and science according to the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study

And the little country has impressive economic and development statistics according to the latest UN Human Development Report.

So how is Biotech doing? Well Sydney Brenner headed the Fugu Genome Project with the help of Singapore research facilities. Since Fugu has less junk in its DNA than most other species, it allowed for the quicker identification of genes, many of which were also in the Human genome, but overlooked by the Human Genome Projects.

Anyway ... Dr Sydney Brenner was appointed as chairman of Singapore's Science And Engineering Research Council (SERC) Board. Besides a huge science park, Singapore built what they are calling "Biopolis" (seen on the left), a center combining basic research and Industrial/Pharmaceutical development. Money for all this has been pooled from private and public sources. The driving idea is that the promotion of science and knowledge industries is the path to economic success.

So will Singapore's biomedical gamble work? So far so good.

More about biomedical sciences in Singapore.

Biomedical Science in Montreal
Topic: Science Workplace
What is happening to biomedical science back in my hometown (Montreal)?

Well a few years back the government of Quebec proposed to build two "Super-Hospitals"; one for the English, under the supervision of McGill University, and one for the French, to be administered by University of Montreal. As a result all the current McGill hospitals such as the Royal Victoria hospital (where i onced worked - seen here on the right) would close.

The location and the plans for the English-Super-Hospital are ready, and have been ready for a couple of years - so why is the project on hold? Because of the language politics of Quebec, they refuse to start building the English hospital before they build the French hospital.

So why are the plans for the French Super Hospital not completed? Wrangling, whining ... the typical response to change in Quebec. There is a dispute as to where the hospital would be built. The premier Charest and the project are unpopular (Globe and Mail article). Instead of moving ahead, everything is just hanging out there. I wish that they get their act together. If they keep shying away from bold new projects and ideas, I am sad to say that the brain drain will continue for many years to come.

Back from the departmental retreat
Topic: Science Workplace

(Thus explaining the lack of entries over the past few days)

Most people think of scientists as recluses, afraid to contact, connect and socialize. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact part of the great thing about the endeavor we call science, is the high number of interactions that compliments the bemch work. Scientists are always talking chitchatting and discussing their own, and others, work. Ideas get discussed and get spread. Usually the ideas are shot down - scientist are tough critics. But if they survive the experimental tests, models are made and knowledge takes a step forward. One nice example is retold in The Double Helix (although those two did shoot the breeze in lieu of sitting at the bench a bit more than the typical science worker).

Over the past two days my drive to continue probing has been almost fully recharged. Now I just need some sleep ....

Lab Cartoons
Topic: Science Workplace

At our weekly department "happy hour" someone posted up cartoons dedicated to the biomedical community. They're available from the Promega web site.

Enjoy ...