Broken dreams

Posted on 13 Sep 2017 by Karen Kaplan

By Paul Smaglik

US postdocs are less satisfied with their lives than are the general public and people in some developing countries, according to a recent survey. Of the survey’s 190 participants, 30% said that they would not recommend postdoctoral training for their peers, and 20% said that they changed their career goals during their postdoc.

{credit}Keron Greene{/credit}

The survey, published this month in F1000Research, an open-publishing platform, reflects a deep disenchantment with the US postdoctoral programme, perhaps because so many postdocs initially hope that their training will result in tenure-track positions that don’t materialise. While the number of postdoc positions has tripled since 1979, the number of available tenure-track positions has not increased to accommodate them. In the United States, 65% of all PhD holders pursue postdocs, but only 15-20% of those attain a tenure-track position (Nature, 2015; 528 (7580): 22–25). Continue reading →

TechBlog: HiPiler simplifies chromatin structure analysis

Posted on 11 Sep 2017 by Jeffrey Perkel

For my recent Toolbox on 3D genome visualization tools, Nils Gehlenborg at Harvard Medical School clued me into two interesting pieces of software. One, HiGlass, was included in my article; a related tool, HiPiler, was not. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth talking about.

Continue reading →

Multidisciplinary research: pros and cons

Posted on 11 Sep 2017 by Jack Leeming

By bringing together experts from different disciplines we can find the solutions for today’s global challenges. Having spent a year in a multidisciplinary research group, Mit Bhavsar shares his thoughts on the advantages and disadvantages of multidisciplinary research in science.

The increasing popularity of mixed scientific disciplines like mechatronics, bioinformatics, biomedical engineering and biophysical chemistry is evidence of the importance of multidisciplinary. And, based on the number of multidisciplinary conferences taking place around the world, it seems that many policymakers agree that bringing scientists from a variety of different backgrounds together is a crucial part of fixing the world’s problems. Continue reading →

Sports science: An athlete-researcher’s experience

Posted on 08 Sep 2017 by Jack Leeming

Koji Murofushi’s career has been a mix of tradition and innovation in sports science. He shares his thoughts on a new training approach.

By Tim Hornyak

Sports science is the study of the body as a performance machine. Its specialties span biomechanics and psychology, and demand for its experts is growing. Whether it’s helping everyday people with their physical wellbeing or training elite athletes to react faster endure longer or jump farther, sports scientists and performance consultants are playing an increasingly important role in exercise and competition.

Evidence of growing demand for sports science mavens can be seen everywhere from new university programmes such as the University of Michigan’s Exercise & Sport Science Initiative, launched in 2016, to mass media events. In one example of the latter, before Irish mixed martial artist Conor McGregor went up against boxing champion Floyd Mayweather in a much-hyped showdown in August, he trained at the UFC Performance Institute, a $12 million facility that opened earlier this year in Las Vegas. McGregor used altitude chambers to improve aerobic capacity and ran on an underwater treadmill to build endurance. That may have helped him go more than nine rounds with Mayweather, the overwhelming favorite and eventual winner of the bought. Continue reading →

TechBlog: Mike Goodstadt: A circuitous route to bioinformatics

Posted on 05 Sep 2017 by Jeffrey Perkel

{credit}CNAG-CRG{/credit}

Most coders come to bioinformatics by one of two routes. They’re either biologists skilled in programming, or programmers with an interest in biology. Mike Goodstadt, the programmer behind the genome-visualization tool TADkit, took a different approach.

In the early-to-mid 1990s, Goodstadt was a student at the University of Bath in the UK. His course of study: Architecture. Continue reading →

Productivity for researchers: 9 brilliant tips

Posted on 04 Sep 2017 by Jack Leeming

Are you great at procrastinating? Do you wish you could get more done in a week, or just do things ‘better?’ Here are some helpful hints and tips for your research workflow!

By Stacy Konkiel

At Altmetric, we provide actionable insights into the online engagement surrounding published research. In early 2017 we asked researchers to share their favorite productivity tips and tricks for tackling their to-do lists, in the hope picking up some ideas ourselves and sharing their wisdom with the wider community. Here are some of their top recommendations.