I’m pleased to report that Advanced Studies has made a list of 100 Best Blogs and Websites for Innovative Academics. We try!
Slate has a great piece about the crippling stasis of corporate IT culture here. One of the things that I really value about George Mason University, is my freedom to use a Mac, to use Firefox, and to use Google Calendar. The contrast with the State department under Secretary Clinton as described in the Slate piece couldn’t be starker:
During a town hall meeting for State Department workers last month, an employee named Jim Finkle asked Hillary Clinton a very important question: “Can you please let the staff use an alternative Web browser called Firefox?” The room erupted in cheers. Finkle explained that he’d previously worked at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, where everyone enjoyed Firefox. “So I don’t understand why State can’t use it,” he said. “It’s a much safer program.”
Science Insider has the story. Money quote:
Asked about NIH’s intramural program, he is “resistant to the idea that [the program] is in need of some sort of dramatic redo” but is pondering whether to create a pool of intramural money that, like NIH’s Common Fund, could be used to fund crosscutting research quickly.
This is really interesting. We periodically hear the meme that somehow the intramural program is in trouble. I’ve always suspected it’s partly driven by envy (intramural scientists don’t have to apply for grants like those of us in the extramural community). But Collins standing up for the intramural program is refreshing and the idea of a rapidly deployable intramural pool is great.
Jim
It’s no secret to loyal readers that I’m an avid reader of the blog Effect Measure which generally deals with public health issues such as swine flu. But today’s blog entry over there really nails an important issue about how science is published and what “good scientific taste” is really all about. As an editor of a 100+ year old journal myself, I take umbrage at the notion that the only good science is that published in the likes of Science or Nature.
Clive Cookson’s enjoyable feature in today’s Financial Times deals with synthetic biology–and Craig Venter remains at the center, just as he was during the height of the human genome project.
Here’s a start on reading for the Fall–Benedict Carey’s piece in today’s NY Times about memory.
What researchers are finding is that there is no single “identity spot” in the brain. Instead, the brain uses several different neural regions, working closely together, to sustain and update the identities of self and others. Learning what makes identity, researchers say, will help doctors understand how some people preserve their identities in the face of creeping dementia, and how others, battling injuries like Adam’s, are sometimes able to reconstitute one.
I spent my last week at the MBL taking a break from blogging–and taking in as much science as I could. We took the scenic route back to Washington, heading across Connecticut on old US-6 and then on to Scranton and Harrisburg and finally into Washington. I think we avoided the worst of the traffic and certainly all of the famed tolls on the coastal route along I-95.
Sometimes you just have to hand it to the Old Gray Lady (i.e The New York Times): they still do some of the very best science journalism around. Here’s a great article written by Benedict Carey on the ability of the human brain to produce (in some cases life-saving) hunches.
Read it and enjoy.
Jim
It was an eleven hour haul up interstate 95 yesterday–just lots of traffic. We did one interesting less well-known detour heading north at New Haven to Hartford before heading east again on ancient US Route 6 to Providence. That should give you an idea of what the main US east-coast north-south artery was like.
