Blogs

Stephen Curry has a new hobby, stargazing. Using a recently purchased home telescope he snapped this impressive image of the moon:

For the first time in my life I gazed at the crated, pitted surface of our silent satellite, thrown into sharp relief along its shadowed edge. No amount of reading or studying, I suddenly discovered, had prepared me for the amazing intimacy of that encounter. I called my children to come outside and share in the lunar glory.

Turning to more Earthly matters, Elizabeth Mortitz started a conversation about how a change of surname (upon marriage) can lead to difficulties for female scientists.

I have known several women who have grappled with the decision to change their last names or not at different stages of their scientific careers and no one seemed sure what to do. That’s why I’d love to get feedback from the blogosphere of what others think and/or have done and the consequences (if any).

The subsequent conversation attracted more comments than any other post this week.

Elsewhere on the blogs, Martin Fenner provides some well-considered views on unique author identifiers, Henry Gee discusses new revelations in the tetrapod fossil record, and Eva Amsen describes a couple of exceptionally geeky Christmas gifts.

Forums

This year, the Royal Society celebrates 350 years of existence, making it one of the oldest learned societies in the world. As part of the anniversary celebrations, the RS are holding a one-day conference on the future of science in the UK. Ahead of that meeting, they’re looking for comments and opinion from scientists on a range of issues vital to the health of research. Please visit their Nature Network forum to join in the discussion and help shape the important debates that will take place later this year.

And finally…

Made any New Year’s resolutions? Chris Surridge has put together a list of ‘I will nots’ that every author (and editor) should read. For example:

I will not try to guess the identity of referees.

bq. You might get it right sometimes but you will also get it spectacularly wrong which just makes you look paranoid. In any case what the referees are saying is more important than that spat the two of you had at a conference in 1995. Trust me; everyone else has moved on.