| Hi folks, it's been a while, so I've been selective about the interesting reads. Perhaps this will make for a distracted Friday or a more interesting weekend. The GAO just released a study looking at the pay and benefits of grad students funded with federal dollars. And they concluded that NSF isn't collecting enough data to analyze their compensation and it looks like they're not getting paid enough, and recommends that they do something about it. It's nice to see civil servants looking out for us, as well as the vigor of our nation's scientific enterprise. Cetologists (is that what you call people who study whales?) had the chance to observe and capture quality footage of a sperm whale being born. And Elizabeth Kolbert wrote about it! It's even more interesting than you might expect. This happened over a couple years ago but the paper just came out, here it is. That's not a bad turnaround. [Also, as a matter of curiosity, does anybody directly submit a paper to Scientific Reports, or is this journal exclusively comprised of redirects from Nature that allows NPG to pocket absurd APCs?] Oh, look, pay-to-play open access is making science less accessible to the Global South. Shocker. When a sound artists remaigined the voice of an extinct dinosaur, what was she hoping to hear? The recent announcement of NSF Graduate Fellowships has more awardees than ever before, and they're not all going to quantum and AI. How about that! Here is the story in Science about these awards, and someone was kind enough to export the list into a google sheet. Don't be surprised to note that the fraction of students who did their undergrad at regional public universities, HBCUs, and other chronically underfunded institutions remains woefully low. The work to preserve the scientific enterprise is work to uplift science for everyone, and there's still lots of progress to look forward to. This is a fascinating deep dive into a zombie citation (hallucinated by AI) that took root and became well cited. The guy tracking this down was the purported author of this non-publication. Speaking of which, my own university system just released the findings of a comprehensive survey on AI in higher ed. Our system is paying ChatGPT for all students, staff, and faculty to have access to their latest robot. Whatever your take on this all is, these results are interesting. China is on track for being the biggest public funder of science within the next couple years. Why we should look beyond grades to spot potential in STEM. This is an editorial careers piece in Science. Science Magazine. I remember the days, not that long ago, in which I never could have imagined reading something like this in the pages of science. We're really moving the needle, folks. If you're looking to gain an understanding of the revelations involving Cesar Chavez, the statement released by Dolores Huerta herself is a critical element. [A few weeks ago I drove from LA up to Oregon. Along the way, I counted four different road signs for avenues and boulevards named after Chavez, which was quite something. Role models are great to have, heroes, not so much. "How I stopped believing in the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning consensus." I loves me a good science blog post, this one is by Markus Eichhorn. The blog is called Trees in Space, but whenever I read it, I can't help but say it in my head like "Treeeeees innnn Spaaaaaaaaace!" like the Muppet Show sketch. Peer-reviewed research about public engagement, climate change, and the role of hairdressers. And an experiment in salons! Great stuff. Concerned about climate change? Talk about climate change. There's a nice short story in the Smithsonian about the scientific computers of the early 1900s. All women, of course. [By the way, I was looking at the census records for the house I live in in Pasadena and it turns out that for decades, the owner was listed as an 'astronomical computer' who authored a bunch of major papers while working for the Mt. Wilson Observatory, which is the place where they discovered the expansion of the universe, among other amazing things. If she was a man, they would have simply called her a scientist at the time, which of course, she was.] After trying a bunch of approaches to sterilize Pablo Escobar's hippos (I mean they're great grandchildren or so of his hippos, but you get the idea), wildlife managers in Colombia have decided to straight up cull many of them. Which seems to be the only approach that to be workable. Sheeva Azma made a full list of the scientists who appear in the Epstein files, with links and context. The British Ecological Society compiled a list of Resources for Women in Ecology. Black women were disproportionately harmed by federal firings. Here's a solid piece of journalism about how some folks are doing, one year later. Yes, the White House shut down the National Nature Assessment. But everybody finished with the work and it's now available to us as The Nature Record. Kudos to all involved. This is a supreme – and highly citable – piece of work. I imagine you've heard that they're essentially taking apart the Forest Service. Here's a straighforward news article about it, and here's an appropriately biased and well informed interpretation of what's going on. The glimmer of hope in this, I think, is that they say they're not taking these steps until this year's fire season is over. (But what about next year's fire season?!) Anyhow, what is fire season anymore considering that a fire in the Angeles National Forest – in January – almost burn down my own home? A useful article on supporting physical, social, financial, and psychological safety in the field. Just the thing for developing a field safety plan. You know how the targeted ads sometimes seem like that our devices are eavesdropping on us And then they keep saying how it's just confirmation bias and coincidence? Apparently, at least sometimes they have been, and presumably are. Sad news: Hampshire College is closing. Notwithstanding its exceptional reputation and unique approach to undergraduate learning, I just looked it up and their endowment was "only" $26.5 million. Which for a good long while has been the danger zone for any SLAC. Oh look, a company where you can hire Well-Paid Maids to do domestic cleaning. They aren't sponsoring me for this (but they're welcome to!), I just think that it's cool to see this approach to a service industry. Meanwhile, regional publics can struggle in a "doom loop of declining enrollment." Oh, look, who is that well spoken and handsome Academic Senate Chair being quoted in the piece? This is an uplifting interview with Rebecca Solnit. "I’m an NIH whistleblower. The scientific community cannot afford to avoid politics" Guggenheims just got announced. Here's an analysis of the historical distribution of who gets Guggenhsims. The fraction going to the natural sciences has been shrinking, with those being redirected to the creative arts. And I'm totally okay with that. Faculty at which institutions have gotten the most since the turn of the century? Columbia, Princeton, NYU, Harvard, and UCLA. I'm less okay with that, as you might have imagined. The Union for Concerned Scientists has produced a toolkit for Staying Safe in the Public Eye, including a ranking of your risk level. Man, since Gretchen Goldman has taken the helm at UCS, they've been doing some great work. (Mine is a medium. I think it's useful to rank yourself, and if you're ranking on the low end, perhaps that could give you incentive to speak up in place of the marginalized people who are at risk simply for existing in their own skins. Also, if your risk factor is not low, have you thought about taking out umbrella insurance to protect yourself from frivolous legal assaults?) "Fourteen things our PhD supervisors got right and why it mattered." As always, the best advice isn't structured as advice, but as a narrative of experience that folks might decide is useful. This is good stuff, folks. Have a lovely weekend. |
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