Blogs
It has been a time of special events on Nature Network’s blogs. Four bloggers ‘celebrated’ Homeopathy Awareness Week. Ever the crystallographer, Stephen Curry admirably belittles the so-called ‘memory of water’ by describing the complex structures and mechanisms needed to achieve true molecular memory in the immune system. Richard Grant jocularly labels the empty airspace above Europe at the start of the week as homeopathic skies, showing the ‘memory of air flight’. Austin Elliott, meanwhile, presents us with a teaser. He links to two papers, both of which offer quantum mechanical descriptions of homeopathy. One is genuine, one is fake; each has been linked to by proponents of homeopathy to back up claims. Can you work out which one is a spoof? Finally, Kausik Datta grabs some copies of the journal Homeopathy before launching into a series of broadsides against the pseudoscience he calls the ‘mother of all quackery’.
In other celebrations, Heather Etchevers highlights Earth Day by linking up an inspiring TED talk by Edie Widder concerning the life aquatic and the beautiful bioluminescent animals deep under the oceans. Viktor Poor, meanwhile, provides a neat cartoon to coincide with DNA Day.
The Elucian Islands blog is the first true group blog on Nature Network, covering scientific endeavours in the virtual world of Second Life. This week’s post, by Antimon Kupferberg, describes a 3-D model of the human body to help people understand the position and function of internal organs.
Eric-Wubbo Lameijer continues his excellent series on scientific training and talent. If you’re not following this blog, correct that now. This week, Eric-Wubbo examines how ‘smart’ you need to be to do science, and the relationship between intelligence and IQ.
Finally, Lauren Blair returns to Nature Network with some sound advice on applying for postdoc fellowships. Here’s one of six tips:
4) Be confident in your aims. I submitted my fellowships when I first joined the lab and one whole aim was based on a suggestion from my mentor. I did not feel comfortable with it and that was very obvious to the reviewers. It was a very weak aim. If you don’t feel comfortable with it, leave it out, even if your PI pushes it. This is your fellowship (unless your PI writes it and then I guess anything goes).
And finally
A quick update on the blog software. Many users have reported a slow lag time when leaving comments on blogs. We’re pleased to say that the issue has now been fixed behind the scenes and should be rolled out next week – check the feedback forum for an update when it does come into effect.