Summary of the #BeginScights series across the NPG blog networks

Thursday 26th July saw the launch of SciLogs.com, a new WordPress-based English language blog network which is also the new home for the Nature Network bloggers. To celebrate, we coordinated an NPG science blog network festival focusing on the theme of “Beginnings”. Taking part were bloggers from SciLogs.com, from Nature Education’s Scitable network and from the Scientific American blog network, plus guest bloggers on nature.com’s Soapbox Science blog. So, what #BeginScights did we discover over the past week?

Soapbox Science

On Soapbox Science we focused on first time experiences in science or beginning new stages of your scientific career. To start the series, Suze Gage (who is also a SciLogs.com blogger) gave us two “bunches of fives” – 5 reasons why blogging is great and 5 tips for newbie bloggers:

“You can be controversial. No editor means no softening your polemic for house style. Although this should come with a warning. Get your facts straight.”

Next, Michelle Wynn shared some advice on writing your first science paper including cautioning against taking reviewer feedback personally:

“At first, some comments may be upsetting but, in my experience, reviewer comments serve to strengthen the paper. ”

What about learning how to network at conferences? Jon Tennant encourages being open and friendly to start conversations about your research:

“If you’re presenting a poster, don’t stand guard like Cerberus. Invite people to come and talk about it.”

Continuing the conference theme, Jonathan Lawson outlined 6 lessons he’s learned from being on the other side of an event: as the organiser. He notes the importance of choosing your co-organisers wisely:

“Having a good team of people supporting you helps you stay ahead of the game and to research your suppliers thoroughly so you can get a good deal on everything for the conference.”

SciLogs.com

Aptly, the focus of the #BeginScights posts on the SciLogs.com network was on blogging and communication. Suze Gage cross-posted her Soapbox Science piece on why blogging is great, while Stephan Schliem discussed his personal experiences of being a science blogger for the past five years:

“Because I enjoy writing and also discussing these topics with others I was stupid enough to set up my own blog – “stupid” because I was in the middle of my PhD period then, where one would expect not to have too much spare time for other activities.”

Finally, Pete Etchells describes the events that made him realise that he wanted to be a scientist, elegantly underlining the importance of a persistent curiosity and a desire to ask questions about the world:

“To me, I don’t know are perhaps the three most useful words that a scientist has, because of the four words that tend to follow them: so let’s find out.”

Scitable

Scitable, Nature Education’s blog network for scientists, tackled the #BeginScights theme mainly from the perspective of biological beginnings. Ada Ao explained how you might culture placental stem cells for DIY research projects (not a simple task!) while Taylor Burns described a recent paper on how thoughts may form – by studying spontaneous behaviour in fruit flies. To complete the series, Audrey Richard outlined three possible ways in which viruses may have arisen:

“The virus‑first hypothesis supposes that viruses are relics of pre‑cellular life forms. The reduction hypothesis, on the other hand, states that viruses resulted from the reduction of unicellular “modern” organisms (Bacteria, Archaea, Eukarya) to parasitic forms while the third one, the escape hypothesis, suggests that genetic material escaped modern cells at some point and became parasitic to persist over time.”

The full list of contributions can be found at the end of this post.

Scientific American

The largest of the NPG networks, that hosted by Scientific American, tackled #BeginScights with a big bang of 14 blog posts! One of the scientific beginnings discussed was how bacteria learned to use oxygen:

“So even now, when you breathe, it’s ancient bacteria inside your cells that process the oxygen. The only part of the human cell that does oxidative-respiration is the mitochondria. “

On a more personal level, Kate Clancy sensitively (and scientifically) discussed when beginnings don’t necessarily go as hoped: miscarriages.

“The beginning of pregnancy, which if you want to be pregnant is a joyous moment, is also fraught with tension. Most of the advice newly pregnant women receive is about denial: no caffeine, no alcohol, no raw fish or raw milk or tuna or swordfish or deli meat or unwashed fruits or vegetables.”

Rebecca Wragg Sykes discussed how a scientific career may be punctuated by a succession of new beginnings and that these don’t always follow a pre-determined timetable:

“I’d been feeling decidedly unfortunate since finishing up my PhD in 2010 as I began to realise that my expectations of “what happened next” were somewhat naïve in their timescales. It became obvious that it takes on average at least two years after graduating to get a postdoc or academic position.”

Finally, Melissa C. Lott shared news that could signal a new begininning in the climate change debate:

“The discussion surrounding climate-change has reached a precipice, with one of the world’s most respected skeptics public conversion. This weekend, Professor Richard A. Muller publically acknowledged that his analysis of the data shows that climate change is real – and that humans are almost entirely the cause of it.”

Read on to the summary list below for all of the #BeginScights posts from the Scientific American network.