I need a secretary

How I feel at the moment.

Danger!! Danger, Will Robinson!!!

Get Your Cyborg Name

The yardwork part is debatable...


Cyber-hat tip to Drugmonkey.

This and that

I heard this morning that my late Nanna's house was sold. She passed away earlier this year. I knew the house was on the market but hadn't really thought about it in depth. It's actually quite sad - I have some fond childhood memories of that old place. The fig tree in the backyard, the lanes out the back and on the side, the "old house" smell*... Sigh.


On a brighter note, I'm off to a smallish six day meeting this Sunday. Lots of good people will be there. My goals (you should always have goals, otherwise why attend?) are to:

i) get feedback on my new major research project - progress has been slow but steady,
ii) get feedback on my new major research project's bride, which is showing signs of life,
iii) catch up with old friends/collaborators,
iv) make new friends/collaborators,
v) score at least two seminar invites, and
vi) not make a fool of myself.

Goal vi) might be the hardest.


And finally a quote from my supertech: "Cloning always works. One day."






* Or was it an "old person" smell?

Do Science Scouts have a secret handshake?

After reading DrDrA's post I couldn't resist going over to the Science Scouts site to see what badges I could award myself...



The “I somehow convinced someone to part with a lot of money for science” badge (LEVEL II).

Haven't quite made it to Level III yet...


The “non-explainer” badge (LEVEL I).
It's been this way since grad school. Or even before. I'm trying hard not to earn Level II...


The “has done science whilst under the influence” badge.
Let's be honest now, who hasn't?


The “works with acids” badge.
This one's a bit of a gimme for anyone doing benchwork. Of course I did once dissolve part of a bench using acid...


The “I’ve set fire to stuff” badge (LEVEL III).
I did train as a physical chemist.


The “statistical linear regression” badge.
A necessary evil.


The “I’m a scientist who is fundamentally opposed to administrative duties” badge.
Another gimme.


The “has frozen stuff just to see what happens” badge (LEVEL III).
The irresistible lure of liquid nitrogen...


The “talking science” badge.
Of course!


Now I really should go do some science...

Silence is the enemy (Do what I say, please) [Updated]

Please go read CPP's latest post. Then go here and here and here. Click until your fingers bleed.

[Updated link to Isis' post on Silence is the Enemy]

Tagged for the covers meme...

Prof. Anon. was nasty kind enough to tag me in the current covers meme. It's taken me a while to respond because I simply cannot think of a well done cover that someone else hasn't already used... But I do have a stinker of a cover for you.

Rolf Harris does Led Zepplin's "Stairway to Heaven"!

Don't know who Rolf is? He's an Australian entertainer who used to have his own variety show. He sings, paints, and plays the didjeridoo and wobble board. No, not the fitness wobble board, this thing. Anyway, he's playing one in the following video so you'll get the idea.



Rolf butchers "Stairway to heaven"

This was performed on an Australian comedy show called "The Money or the Gun." They had many performers come on and do "Stairway to Heaven." Eventually these were all released on an album. Yes, an album with 22 performances of "Stairway to Heaven."


So now on to something completely different. Since I couldn't come up with a cover I really liked, I'm going to attempt starting a new meme...

How about a song that describes your career as you see it, but without actually mentioning the career explicitly?

I'm in academia, so I present to you the following:


Harvey Danger and "Cream and Bastards Rise"

The version on the "Little by Little" album is much, much better. You can download it for free from the band's web site.

Ultimate proof that evolution is real

If this doesn't convince you we're closely related to the apes, I don't know what will.

Challenge grant haiku

Twenty thousand grants.
Overload the reviewers.
NIH. Turkeys.

Blog on, blog off

I was very disappointed to read about Damn Good Technician being forced to shut down her blog. Apparently her superiors in Big Pharma weren't overly impressed with what she had to say. This event has had others wondering about the prudence of continuing to blog or to outline their personal rules of blogging.

It's got me thinking too. My first post to this blog was on September 22, 2005. In four and a half years I've blathered on about politics, spam, making tenure (or not), teaching, obesity, grants, vending machines, ipods, plagiarism, research, and a plethora of other nonsense. There are plenty of clues sprinkled throughout as to whom I am and where I work. It wouldn't take much to find me.

And so I've been considering shutting things down. After all, who needs the hassle that would follow from my colleagues and superiors figuring out I was blogging about them? Just not worth it.

Thus dear readers, I bid you adieu.









Screw that. I have almost 10,000 hits. You didn't really think I was going stop now did you?

Dear Reference Letter Writer

Thank you so much for your letter of reference for the student who applied to our NSF REU program. It was so very informative. Knowing that the student's favorite activity is reading will truly aid our decision process. So much more than the information we requested, such as their research potential, ability to work with others, or even classroom performance. I can fully understand why you have given them the "strongest possible recommendation."



And of course you clearly understood that no apologies were necessary for sending in your reference letter two months past the deadline.

Off I go then

I'm off on vacation for the next two weeks. Woo hoo!

It starts with my little brother's wedding this weekend where I'm expecting something along these lines:



See you all in a couple of weeks!

Twitterererer.. er

Twitter has been getting all sorts of publicity recently. Which has got me wondering. What do you call someone who uses twitter?

Free Web poll for your Web site - freepolls.com

Applying to an NSF REU site [Updated]

There's an interesting discussion going on over at Isis's palace regarding the personal statement essays required by many REU sites as part of an application. I run such a site. Following are some thoughts on how (and perhaps how not) to apply to REU sites.

A summer spent at an REU site can be a wonderful experience that can help you decide whether a career in scientific research is for you. Or a career in science in general. That's what the REU program is all about. It's not for padding your CV. Only apply if you're serious about working through the Summer. Working hard. At the end you will have learned a lot. And maybe earned a stellar reference letter or two that will help get you into grad school or where-ever you want to be next.

Keep in mind these sites get a lot of very good applications. It's very competitive. Here the acceptance rate is below 10%.

Choice of Sites
There are oh so many sites to choose from. Choose carefully. Don't spam them with applications. We can see right through that kind of thing.

Apply only to those sites you are truly interested in. And have the background for. Majoring in mediaeval music probably won't be seen as a big plus at that physics site you've applied to.

And don't think you need to attend a site at an Ivy league school. I'm at a state school. Former participants from the site I run have ended up grad students at some of the best schools in the country.

Criteria Used

First, you MUST be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. That's an NSF rule. Can't be bent or broken. Don't bother applying just because you have work authorization. It's not enough. If you're not a citizen you need a green card. Nothing else will do.

Have a decent GPA. I'm afraid anything under 3.0 just isn't looked at. If you're below 3.2 you need a really good explanation for why this doesn't reflect your true potential. We get a lot of applications with GPA's greater than 3.8. It's very, very competitive.

That pesky personal statement essay thingy needs to be good. Truth is, if everything else is stellar you might get away with a poor essay. But by stellar I mean so good every site you apply to calls to offer you a slot with double the stipend of everyone else. Plus accommodations in a five star hotel. That good. You're best bet here is to a) avoid the long list of relatives who have died of assorted diseases you wish to cure, b) avoid the cutsey story about falling in love with the chemistry set you got on your third birthday, and c) tailor your letter to the site you're applying to. Tell us why you want to spend your summer HERE. And read Isis's advice.

Prior research experience. Had a whole bunch? Great! Good for you. Too bad we probably won't take you. The REU program is aimed at giving research experiences to students who have few, if any, opportunities to do research. A little prior research experience is okay. A lot means you might not get an offer. Not all sites conform to this approach, but I have been assured by other REU PI's that not doing so can have serious consequences for the site. For example, not getting the grant that supports it renewed...

And then there are the...

Letters of Recommendation

I cannot overemphasize the importance of your letters of recommendation. These can easily make or break your application. They need to be good. They need to be sent on time (this year I received one a month to the day after the deadline - way after we had sent out offers). They need to be good (did I say that already?). They need to be substantial - two sentences saying you're the best student since the last one they wrote a letter for won't cut it. And they need to be from people who can really say something about your potential in science. Not from relatives (yes, had one of those... Mom was very proud of her little boy). Not from your favorite English professor (I've received many - they're mostly useless*). Not from the manager of the store you've been working in part-time (okay, those are a bit better than useless, but still not great). You will be accepted into an REU site based on your scientific potential. That is what these letters must address. And most of all, they need to be good.

[Update] How We Choose

I forgot to talk about this bit. It's kind of important.

So given the above, how do we choose which applicants to make offers to? I can't speak for other REU sites, but here we try to take a balanced approach. Setting aside criteria like belonging to an under-represented group (a big deal for the NSF), our perfect candidate would be the following: someone with a 4.0 GPA, from a small college, no research experience, professing a unquenchable desire to attend grad school, with stellar letters of recommendation.

We've only ever had a few applicants like that (we've had many come very close). So how do we choose? Well, someone with a 3.8 GPA from a small college would be ranked higher than a 4.0 from an R1 institution (plenty of potential research opportunities). High grades in science courses are more important than high grades in non-science courses. Stellar recommendation letters will trump GPA's to a point. Lack of research opportunities will also trump GPA's to a point. A clearly expressed desire to pursue a scientific career (research or otherwise) ranks high. In the end, it's somewhat subjective. It has to be.

Contacting the Site

It is perfectly okay to contact the REU site you've applied to to make sure all your materials have arrived. Or to find out where they are in the sorting/ranking/making offers process. It is not alright to have someone else contact the site on your behalf. Especially not your Mom. Trust me, that leaves a very, very bad impression.

Declining an Offer

Finally, let's say you're one of the chosen few and receive an offer from one or more REU sites. But you've already committed to another site (or internship). Please, please, please don't wait to decline. As noted by FSP recently, too many (i.e. more than zero) students leave declinations until the last minute, or worse, "forget" to decline offers. If you do this you may well be screwing another student. Someone who really, really wanted to get into site A, but had to accept an offer from their second or third or fourth choice because the acceptance deadline arrived before they received an offer from site A. Even if you're not screwing someone else (and you'll never know if you did), it's just plain common courtesy.




* The letters, not the English professors.

New blog alert

Go check out Professor Anonymous.

The NIH wants to be the NSF!

New announcement from the NIH - apparently they're going to use some of their stimulus money to fund...


Wait for it...


Undergraduate students for the summer!

The announcement reads remarkably like one for the NSF REU program. The application doesn't look too onerous. And it's on paper, not grants.gov (I wonder why? <--- sarcasm). If you have some enthusiastic undergraduates who want to work for you, here's your chance to get them paid for ($10/hour - a bit below the NSF going rate of $10.60/hour). Just keep in mind that they can be a lot of work up front. And a lot of fun.

Gratuitous self citation

I'm currently reviewing a manuscript where 38 of the 65 cited papers were written by the senior author. And ~30 of those are at best tangentially related to the manuscript under review... I have never come across such a egregious case of gratuitous self-citation. Have you?


Somehow I don't think this manuscript will see the light of day. At least not in its current form.

Happiness...

...is a full and productive lab.

So far this year I've snatched supertech from the jaws of dysfunction, picked up a very good grad student, started a new and talented undergrad, and am working with a very bright high school student.

The lab is humming along.

So much so that I've had to suspend the weekly beatings.

That's my boy!

We went to a family event at my girls' elementary school last night. While there I was in the corridor with my son who wanted a drink from the water fountain. After he had finished drinking a teenage girl walked up to get a drink. Without missing a beat my son, with an impish grin, asked her where she lives...



Did I mention my son is two-and-a-half? The future will be interesting.

Oh dear...

As of this moment, my blog is the top hit for Google searches using:

"how many papers needed for tenure"
"papers needed for tenure"
"papers for tenure"

and number two for:

"how many papers for tenure"

Not that I care that people find my blog that way (I get 4-5 hits a day from people using those searches - and might even get more now with this post). It's more concerning that there are that many people who think they can find the answer on the internet.

Oh, and for those who find this post using such a search, read this.

Judging presentation skills scale [UPDATE 2]

It's been a while since DrugMonkey reposted this meme, but the seminar I had to endure today reminded me of it and inspired me to invent my own scale for judging presentation skills. Not the science being presented, but the skill with which it is presented.

Herein I present Odyssey's

Presentation Impact Scale Summing Offending Factors Factor*,

hereafter shortened to PISSOFF.

It's very simple really,

PISSOFF = sum(Offending Factors)/(Total Number of Slides)

where Offending Factors are determined by, but are not limited to:

• Total number of slides exceeding number of minutes allotted for presentation (Offending Factor = [Total Number of Slides - 0.9*(Minutes Allotted)]²)
  
• Number of slides in presentation speaker skips over during presentation
  
• Number of figures the speaker does not refer to/explain
  
• Number of tables (or other sections) with text too small to read
  
• Number of tables with too much text to read
  
• Number of times speaker flicks backwards and forwards through slides in order to find the one he wants to talk about
  
• Number of slides that have nothing to do with the topic being presented
  
• Not addressing the audience (+10 to 20 depending upon severity)
  
• Mumbling (+10 to 20 depending upon severity)
  
• Assuming everyone in the audience is familiar with the background of the topic (+10 to 20 depending upon severity)
  
• Presenting more than one story (+20 for the first additional story, +40 for the second, +1000 for the third and subsequent stories)
  
• Speaker waving the laser-pointer around like a madman (+5 to 10 depending upon severity)
  
• Use of yellow on a white background (+10 per instance)
  
• Use of red text on a blue background (+10 per slide)
  
• Using canned Powerpoint backgrounds (+10 for simple backgrounds up to +40 for complex backgrounds)
  
• Use of canned Powerpoint background that is animated (+200)
  
• Excessive use of animation (+10 to +50 depending upon severity)
  
• Speaking with their back to the audience (+20)
  
• Number of "in case they ask that question" slides appended to the end of the presentation
  
• Running over the allotted time (add 10x[Number of Minutes Over]²/(Minutes Allotted))
  
• Speaker appears bored (+100)
  
• Use of the phrase "this is really fascinating work, but I don't have time to tell you about it", or anything similar (+20 per instance)
  
• Figures/movies that don't work because the speaker didn't bother to try them out beforehand (+10 per instance)
  

Feel free to suggest more Offending Factors. I know there are many, many more - I'm too brain-dead to think of them right now.

The PISSOFF scale runs from zero for an excellent speaker to greater than one for a speaker who should never, ever be asked to present again.

I estimate yesterday's speaker would have a PISSOFF score of about 0.9...




* Yes, yes, I know it sounds horribly redundant etc.