Nature.com blogs – a collection of blogs from editors and other staff at NPG

As part of their regular Windback Wednesdays series, over the last month the Nature Jobs Blog have been digging into their archive for advice on how to negotiate a pay rise. Follow them on Twitter and Facebook for their #WindbackWeds updates and share your advice too.

This week’s Soapbox Science guest post is by freelance writer Ben Thomas. He looks at how the status of women in science is still in need of continuing effort:

Women already established in STEM fields, meanwhile, need the support of male and female colleagues – especially superiors – to help ensure that they’re getting a fair shake in terms of board representation, citations and so on. For all these reasons, contributions at a variety of educational and hierarchical levels is necessary if STEM fields are to reap the long-term benefits of change.

To catch up on this week’s NPG blogging content you can read our weekly roundup, published each Friday. This week’s content includes International Women’s Day, bees, brain science and why circumcised men experience significantly lower levels of sexual pleasure compared to those uncircumcised.

Scitable – Nature Education’s network of science blogs

A long-lost submerged continent was discovered in the depths of the Indian Ocean two weeks ago. Some have linked it to the fantastical land of Lemuria. As Scitable blogger Khalil A. Cassimally describes though, there is some truth in the claim.

SciLogs.com – an NPG network of science bloggers 

Scientists are using DNA sequencing to track poaching in the African savannah. In an attempt to help authorities to curb illicit trade in elephant ivory, scientists are developing tests that combine genetics and statistics to match ivory DNA sequences to within 500-1000 km of the originating elephant’s habitat or the poaching hotspot. More about this here.

Blogger Jalees Rehman asks how you curate science. With so much scientific content available online, how do you choose what to read and what not to? “We all have developed our own personal ways of how we curate scientific content. We scan the table of contents of our favorite journals or receive email alerts from the journals, we may rely on scientific meetings and colleagues to inform us about new scientific developments or we browse science blogs.” Do share your strategy on Jalees’s post.

And here’s a roundup of last week’s science stories by curator Malcolm Campbell and a [roundup] of last week’s posts on SciLogs.com.

SpotOn London – an annual conference hosted by NPG

This week, a special issue of Nature looks at how science remains institutionally sexist. The issue acknowledges the gender gap and what’s being done to bridge it. At November’s SpotOn London conference, we looked at some of these issues with a session dedicated to women in science. Preparing for the talk we hosted a collection of blog posts on the SpotOn site with contributions from Athene Donald and the FemaleScienceProfessor, to name a few. You can see a summary of these posts, including a collaborative document with useful resources, here.

SpotOn NYC – a monthly discussion series in NYC co-hosted by NPG

This month’s event will take place on Thursday 14th March and is on, Communication and the brain to tie into Brain Awareness Week. You can join in online by watching the livestream and the video archive will be available on the website for you to watch afterwards. We will also be hosting a repeat viewing of this event on the Friday at 12.30pm UK time. Keep an eye out for related blog posts in the run up to this month’s event, we’ll be tweeting on the #BeBraiNY and #SoNYC hashtags.