A Muslim teenager who made an electronic clock by hand was arrested this week under suspicion of terrorism. National Geographic was purchased by media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Public broadcasting television show Sesame Street partnered with premium cable channel HBO. And meanwhile, every week there’s another “I quit” story from someone leaving academia, citing […]
Richard Dawkins is at it again. This isn’t the first time he’s made inappropriate or offensive comments, and this infographic nicely illustrates the perpetual cycle of eye-rolling and submission as the people who call him out get fed up and ultimately disengage. What frustrates me so much about Dawkins is that […]
I’m at the Ecological Society of America meetings this week, so invited grad students Meghan Balk and Catalina Pimiento to write a guest post to coincide with Shark Week. Little did I know that this post would be so timely, with Discovery’s disastrous fake documentary on Megalodon! I hope you enjoy reading about these […]
The subject of retractions has been gaining a lot of steam in the media recently, with several recent studies (outlined nicely in this New York Times article) showing that retractions are on the rise, and misconduct and falsifying data are one of the most common reasons. Yesterday on Twitter, I […]
This is a quick update to say: I defend my dissertation tomorrow! I have a lot of thoughts about this, most of which I am unable to articulate because I am literally eating, breathing, and dreaming my dissertation, which means I’m finding it difficult to articulate anything that isn’t about […]
I’ve been following a number of scientist-journalist discussions in the last year in various places, including ScienceOnline2012, in the blogosphere, and on Twitter. Increasingly, I’ve come to suspect that there is often a profound lack of understanding of the respective professional cultures of scientists and journalists, which has important relevance to the […]
The Contemplative Mammoth 