Jon Tennant spent time networking with fellow paleontologists on Twitter. Unbeknownst to him, this method of communication would ultimately lead to a new research collaboration and a published paper. Here he explains his story at the 2015 London Naturejobs Career Expo. Read more
We asked. You responded. They came in all shapes, sizes and colours. Some were seriously retro, others not so. But all were inspired choices. The #MysciLab was a brief glimpse into laboratories far and wide, as @NatureNews asked its followers “is your old lab equipment worthy of a museum? Or an art installation?” … Read more
Matt Shipman is a public information officer at North Carolina State University, where he writes about everything from forensic entomology to computer malware. He previously worked as a reporter and editor in the Washington, D.C. area for Inside EPA, Water Policy Report and Risk Policy Report, where he covered the nexus of science, politics and policy. He blogs about NC State research at The Abstract, and you can follow him on Twitter where he is @ShipLives. … Read more
To complement Social Media Week, the nature.com blogs team are publishing a series of posts about science and social media. Two of the posts focus on recent social media memes about science careers – the #IamScience hashtag on Twitter, and the ‘This is what a scientist looks like’ meme on Tumblr. Read more
Communities Happenings is a weekly post with news of interest to NPG’s online communities. The aim is to provide this info in one handy summary. Listings include tweetups and conferences that we’re attending and/or organising as well as new online tools, products or cool videos. We also occasionally flag up NPG special offers and competitions plus updates about NPG social media activities such as new accounts you might want to follow. Do let us know what you find most useful! Read more
Communities Happenings is a weekly post with news of interest to NPG’s online communities. The aim is to provide this info in one handy summary. Listings include tweetups and conferences that we’re attending and/or organising as well as new online tools, products or cool videos. We also occasionally flag up NPG special offers and competitions plus updates about NPG social media activities such as new accounts you might want to follow. Do let us know what you find most useful! Read more
Welcome to the blogosphere We would like to wish a warm welcome to a new blog which began on the Scitable blogging network this week. The Promethean Cell will track ongoing issues and research in the regenerative medicine fields and will occasionally be interspersed with anecdotes from a fledgling postdoc’s career. Ada Ao, a postdoctoral research fellow at Vanderbilt University, explains more about her new blog: Now that I’ve declaimed from my soapbox, what exactly will I blog about? The possibilities are endless. Recent discoveries in the stem cell field are incredibly exciting. This blog will encompass issues like basic … Read more
Many employers think that PhD students often lack ‘soft’ skills such as being able to communicate well, according to a new report from the UK Department for Business Innovation and Skills (see ‘Survey shows science graduates neglect career planning’ for other findings). One of the report’s authors, Robin Mellors-Bourne from the Careers Research & Advisory Centre, says a lot of employers are sceptical that PhD candidates will fit in. “They’re deemed almost to be too specialised,” he says. Christine McCary, the employment concerns chair of the US National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS) and a full-time PhD student at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, says the situation is similar in the United States. So what can you do to improve your soft-skill set? Read more