I’m going to Kuala Lumpur in a few weeks! I’ve been accepted to present a poster at the 18th Biological Sciences Graduate Congress. At first I was a little skeptical about doing a poster and not a talk, but I think I will enjoy the poster sessions more than speaking in front of a groupRead More
Category: Misc
Anything else.
My short foray into human geography and sociology and what I’ll bring back to natural sciences
This week, I officially completed a graduate level course on geography and social theory. Having absolutely no background in geography or sociology, it was an interesting experience. What drew me to this module was that it combined spatial thinking with social thinking. With the disease research I’m hoping to do for my PhD, space isRead More
Advantages to starting a PhD program mid year (second semester/term)
When I was applying for this program, I wondered how different it would be to start in the middle of the academic school year. I wasn’t sure if it would have been strange or leave me at a disadvantage. Mostly it has felt the same, although in some cases you feel like you missed halfRead More
‘Bad Science’ infographic
We keep hearing more and more cases where ‘bad science’ gets uncovered. Here is a really cool infographic by the folks at Clinical Psychology. It goes along with some things I mentioned in a post about the role of ignorance in science. All of the incentives seem to be setting the system up for biasedRead More
What’s the role of “ignorance” in science?
Stuart Firestein was the guest speaker at this month’s Secret Science Club. His area of research is neuroscience and the olfactory system, but at this talk he discussed his ideas on ignorance and how it is important for driving scientific research. Ignorance, according to Firestein, is what drives science because discoveries do not happen asRead More
The most high profile conference I’ve ever been to
Today is the second day of the meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)’s advisory body, the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA), in its 16th meeting (SBSTTA 16). This body makes recommendations for implementation of the Convention. There is an estimated 600 people here, with delegates and parties representing aroundRead More