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 which 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!
Science Online London Tickets
This year’s Science Online London will take place on Sunday 11th and Monday 12th November and we’d love for you to join us! Now celebrating its fifth year, Science Online London is an annual two-day conference hosted by nature.com for anyone interested in how science is communicated and carried out online.The first batch of tickets went on sale on Friday and sold out in a matter of hours. The second batch will be released on Wednesday 12th September at 3pm UK time via our Eventbrite page. Stay tuned, as the programme will be released soon.
August’s SoNYC
On 20th August, we hosted the thirteenth installment of the monthly Science Online NYC (SoNYC) discussion series, held in collaboration with the New York Academy of Sciences. The topic for discussion was the science PhD – Does the current PhD system need revamping to better equip researchers to continue in academia or to pursue other careers after graduating?
You can find a Storify collating the online conversation here.
We live-stream each SoNYC event to give as many people as possible the chance to take part in the debate. You can check out this month’s livestream, or take a look at our archives where you can view the previous meetings.
Preparing for the discussion, we also ran a series of guest posts on Soapbox Science hearing from a mixture of contributors about how the current system works, where the gaps are, which additional skills they think PhD courses should incorporate and what their personal experiences have been. You can find a summary of every guest post, here. Finally, you can also follow the online conversation on Twitter using the #PhDelta hashtag.
This month’s SoNYC – The $1,000 genome is here – are we ready?
Ion Torrent has claimed that its latest sequencing machine can produce a human genome for under $1,000. Are we ready to handle and understand the flood of data that will be coming out of this and similar machines? On September 20th, at Rockefeller University, the SoNYC panel will discuss the trajectory of DNA sequencing technology, and look at other techniques that are in development, and might contribute to our big data glut. The panel will also consider whether we have the right tools to understand the information these technologies are generating, and what we might need to take full advantage of the era of cheap genomes.
The Panelists:
- Ronald Crystal, the Chairman of the Department of Genetic Medicine at Weill-Cornell Medical College, who has had his genome sequenced and analyzed it himself.
- Matthew Herper, who covers genome technology for Forbes.
- Virginia Hughes, a freelance author who has written about her experience with the 23andMe genotyping service.
- Manish Ponda of Rockefeller University, who has experimented with other -omic type analyses.
Antibodypedia on Facebook
Regular readers will know NPG has been collaborating with a website called Antibodypedia since December 2011. Last week they passed a significant milestone with the listing of its half-millionth antibody. This week we they have launched their Facebook page – so if you’re a scientists who uses antibodies as part of their research, make sure you check it out and “like” it to keep up to date.
More NPG Facebook pages
As well as the new Antibodypedia Facebook page, you can also receive updates from the main nature.com Facebook page, Nature News and Comment, the Nature Reviews journals, Nature Medicine, Scientific Reports,Nature Communications, Nature Climate Change and the portal sites Nature India and Nature Middle East. Finally, don’t forget to check out the pages for Nature Education (who host the Scitable blogs), NatureJobs and SoNYC, the monthly discussion series we run in NYC.
Science Tweetups and the Open Lab Anthology
Science Tweetups are great fun and they also provide an opportunity to meet local scientists and communicators for a casual evening of chatting in the pub.
For those in New York City, the next #NYCscitweetup will fall on Tuesday 18th September from 7pm at rebarnyc – more details on their Facebook page. All are welcome and keep an eye on the hashtag for more information. They’ll be celebrating the publication of the Open Lab anthology and there will also be readings and signings from some of the authors. Spread the word!
If you’re at the other side of the Atlantic, keep an eye on the #camscitweetup and the #ukscitweetup hashtags for details of their next events.
#30DayGreen
Starting yesterday, September 17th, Scitable are asking their bloggers to volunteer in a 30-day recycling challenge. The gist: Make a serious commitment to recycling, and whatever that means to you. AND write about it!
Check out Paige Brown’s blog post expalining her inspirations behind the challenge:
As I drove to school one morning last week, which happened to be “trash” day, I realized that I didn’t see a single recycling bin on the streets, at least in front of the residential houses. My own recycling bin, which the city so conveniently will pick up for me along with my street-side trash bin, often sits collecting spider-webs. But why? Why am I so lazy, throwing everything into my “landfill” trash bin without a second thought?
Finally, follow #30DayGreen for updates.