The history and development of science is littered with failures, so early-career researchers should embrace, rather than be afraid of them.

“Success is advancing from failure to failure without loosing enthusiasm.” – Not said by either Winston Churchill or Abraham Lincoln.

“The things I remember best from college were the questions I got wrong on the exams.” – Kathryn Yatrakis, dean of academic affairs, Columbia College.

These are two of my favourite quotes from Stuart Firestein’s (professor of neuroscience at Columbia University, NY) new book, Failure: Why science is so successful.

Science’s history is littered with failures. Without them, science woudn’t have advanced to the point it’s at today. And yet a negative connotation goes hand-in-hand with it.

In this final Naturejobs podcast of 2015, I speak to Firestein about what failure in science means, what the negative connotations are, why they exist, why they impact young scientists and what they can do to overcome them.