In many undergrad STEM courses, high-stakes exams — such as mid-terms and finals — determine as much as 60-70% of the student’s overall grade. However, this emphasis on tests may be inadvertently putting some students at a disadvantage. Read more
This picture of Garry Cooper was taken at as he spoke to a crowd of almost 60,000 scientists and supporters, during the March for Science on April 22 2017. It was submitted to Naturejobs as part of the #ScientistAtWork 2018 photo competition. Cooper tells Rebecca Wild about the story behind the picture. Read more
Ecologist Augusto Gomes is willing to wait for the right shot. This picture was taken underground in an ironstone cave, at Espinhaço mountain range, in a northern region of Minas Gerais state, Brazil. The entire area is a hotspot for biological diversity. Getting there involved 14 hours of travel. Taking the right photograph took another four hours. It was sent to Naturejobs as part of the #ScientistAtWork 2018 competition, which is open for entries until 31 March. You can find out more here. Read more
Rozanna Meijboom is one of three early career scientists to receive a new UK Medical Research Council (MRC) award in neurodegeneration to partner labs undertaking similar research at the US National Institutes of Health. She talks about her forthcoming trip to the US, where she will spend time with the team led by neurologist and neuroradiologist Daniel Reich. Applications for the 2018/19 awards are are now open. The closing date is 5 April 2018. Read more
Last year, we launched the first Naturejobs #ScientistAtWork photo competition. It was a huge success — we received hundreds of entries from all over the world, and spoke to the five winners here. Read more
The image was taken at 05:11 on the 10 February 2016, exposure time four seconds. Jupiter is in greyscale but it is beautiful nevertheless. Although the picture is static, everything about it suggests movement. Pale and dark bands run across the planet’s surface and merge; swirling like oil on water, like the grain in wood. To the bottom left, Ganymede – Jupiter’s largest moon – is visible. Read more
Imagine taking a helicopter over a fjord, across crevassed glacial surfaces, on top of the wildest country you could imagine — one of the most untouched areas in the world. The chopper lands, you jump out, throw your equipment on the ground, watch the pilot take off. You’re on top of the mountain, in the middle of the wilderness. It is silent. This is what Doug Benn, professor of environmental change, and his colleague Heïdi Sevestre do every day in their role as glaciologists. Read more
The 2017 Better Science through Better Data event in London, UK, hosted by Springer Nature and Wellcome, was a full day exposé of emerging open data practices, tools, strategies, and policies. Among the potential benefits of open data are replicability, reproducibility, and reusability. While open data is a relatively new hype, some evidence suggests that open data does indeed increase reproducibility. Read more
It is becoming increasingly clear that the current method of publishing scientific findings does not make the most of the vast amounts of data generated during scientific investigation. The message from the #SciData17 conference, held in London on the 25th of October, was that making data, code and detailed methods openly available will increase reproducibility, decrease redundancy and allow scientific discovery to advance at a faster pace. Funding bodies and journals are taking steps to encourage this kind of open research policy, and the decision to release datasets usually sits with lab heads or PIs, but there is a place for bottom-up change from students and postdocs too. Read more
