This weekly Nautilus column highlights some of the online discussion at Nature Network in the preceding week that is of relevance to scientists as authors and communicators.
The Nature Network week column is archived here.
T. Ryan Gregory highlights an astounding study concluding that the cost of the grant application and peer-review process in the Canadian Natural Science and Engineering Council outweighs the cost of the research itself. Cath Ennis comments: “It’s not just a simple financial analysis, but also an account of the problems inherent in science, including the leaky pipeline; problems attracting students into research; low salaries and poor job security; the problems faced by scientists (especially women) who want to have a family; scientific fraud; short sightedness; political interference; overreliance on grant dollars as a sign of research productivity and excellence; lack of emphasis on good teaching; the paperwork and time costs of preparing and reviewing grants; university funding cutbacks; patents; lack of innovation.”
A new blogger at Nature Network is Jim Hendler, one of the inventors of the Word Wide Web, or in his own words, “the first blogger representing this new field of Web science. Like the Web itself, where social, scientific, and engineering sites are linked together without respect for disciplinary and methodological boundaries, the scientists studying the Web needed to be significantly more deeply intertwined.” A blog well worth following.
Although many people agree that we need author identifiers for scientists, details of how this should be implemented are not clear. Martin Fenner has listed some of the issues, and asks readers of his blog to take a few minutes and answer the questions for yourself in this poll. The invitation is extended to readers here.
Katherine Haxton invites science bloggers to contribute to May’s Scientiae carnival, with a “snapshot” theme. For more details and how to contribute, see her Nature Network blog post. Or are scientists too dull for this kind of thing? See what Lee Turnpenny has to say on that topic.
Elizabeth Moritz decides to read Darwin’s great work The Origin of Species — sparked by Gregory Petsko’s assertion in EMBO Reports that not many contemporary biologists have done so. After reading Professor Petsko’s and Nature Network users’ advice and opinions about whch edition to read, you may decide that music is more your scene than reading. Never fear, Matt Brown brings news of two concerts in this summer’s Proms (Royal Albert Hall, London) with a Darwin theme, from outer space through to bird and insect life. See Matt’s post for the dates and booking information.
Further science-related blog reading and online discussion can be enjoyed at:
Nature.com’s science blogs index and tracker
Nature Network’s many blogs and forums