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Tag Archives: Biology
Big ideas from the famous Guarda, Switzerland course in evolutionary biology
Why is it so hard to come up with a big idea and a way to test it? What if you could choose any idea in any system, then plan an experiment unlimited by funds or manpower? What is your … Continue reading
What to do when a postdoc isn’t working out
Your postdoctoral years should be glorious. You’ve proven yourself with a Ph.D., showing you can master your field and find something new to solve, often in collaboration with an adviser, solve it, write it up, and publish it. You have … Continue reading
Posted in Collaboration, Managing an academic career, Postdocs
Tagged academic freedom, Biology, ideas, postdocs, Research
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The problem with describing author contribution
Did you ever read the author contribution box on a paper you have contributed to with horror? Did you not realize you were hardly a part of the study, that someone else is claiming the idea, the analysis, or all … Continue reading
Posted in Collaboration, Ethics, Publishing your work
Tagged authorship, Biology, credit, Publishing, Research
4 Comments
Why aren’t you an evolutionist?
We have ecologists, economists, sociologists, and biologists. We have Marxists, capitalists, artists, and psychologists. We even have the tongue twisting physicists. Why don’t we call ourselves evolutionists? Well, one of us does, D. S. Wilson. Think what you will of … Continue reading
Guest post on the tenure talk by Liz Haswell
The Unique Nature of the Tenure Talk Here is Liz Haswell‘s take on talking for tenure. The Tenure Talk. If your department has these, you’ve known it’s on the horizon for years—but it can be terrifying once you actually start … Continue reading
Posted in Life in a biology department, Seminars, Tenure
Tagged academia, Biology, communication, force, Liz Haswell, molecular biologists, plants, Research, seminar, tenure
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Did you forget about books?
Did you forget about natural history, the story of the earth and its inhabitants in all their particulars? Yes, particulars, for it is in the details that the most wondrous stories lurk. Have you learned the specifics of even a … Continue reading
Posted in behavioral ecology, Field work
Tagged Arthur Cleveland Bent, Biology, books, field biology, natural history, Smithsonian Institution, Texas
2 Comments
How to get a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, a SURF
If you aren’t going to change your life by studying at a biological field station, there are few better things to do with an undergraduate summer than research. One of the more interesting programs is called SURF, Summer Undergraduate Research … Continue reading
Posted in Grant proposals, Research, Undergraduates
Tagged Biology, Colleges and Universities, Education, fellowships, National Science Foundation, NSF, Research, Research Groups and Centers, Research proposal, REU, Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, SURF, Undergraduate education, undergraduate research, Washington University in St. Louis
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Where are all the women speakers? Too much fast thinking?
Beginning tomorrow here at KITP is a meeting entitled Cooperation and the major evolutionary transitions. It runs for 5 days and has 37 speakers. From the look of the program, there will be more biology than there has been among … Continue reading
Why I like the separation of academic departments and colleges
One of the best things for creative scholarship is to feel you are in the company of others also striving for understanding and clarity. That company is often best if it is quiet, even dead. This is because we need … Continue reading
Sociobiology 