It's Memorial Day in the US: unofficially the (non-astronomical) start of summer and officially a day to remember US soldiers who have died in wars.My family is swarming with active and retired soldiers and sailors, some of whom have spent substantial...
The Glow of the Lagoon Nebula
The Glow of the Lagoon NebulaGas and dust condense, beginning the process of creating new stars in this image of Messier 8, also known as the Lagoon Nebula. Located four to five thousand light-years away, in the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer),...
Too Broad for Impacts?
A recent article in naturenews (Nature, 26 May 2010) discusses NSF's "broader impacts" criterion for proposals and notes that the definition of "broader impacts" is so broad that many PIs are confused. Although NSF does provide a handy list of examples,...
Arts and/or Sciences
At various times and for various durations, I have been in departments that were in academic units that included or did not include the liberal arts. That is, I have been at universities in which some or all of the science departments are part of an...
Some Dreams are Bad Dreams
Today I was perusing online some of the 2010 commencement speeches given thus far; skimming transcripts, watching some videos. I am particularly fond of the videos because they capture the energy and excitement of graduation ceremonies more than a transcript...
Retract?
An FSP reader has a conundrum.Imagine that you find yourself in this situation (anecdote condensed and edited from the original e-mail): A friend and co-worker has lost his/her job. You think this person has been treated unfairly, but you don't know...
CERCular Reasoning & Excellent Men
The purpose of the Canada Excellence Research Chairs program is "to attract Canadian and international leading scientists" in critical areas of research: "environmental sciences and technologies; natural resources and energy; health and related life...
Vole upstages President Obama's Rose Garden Press Conference
The headlines read: "Rodent Scurries Past Obama in the Rose Garden".The vole has been described as a gate crasher and upstager, because the critter has definitely caught our collective attention. That may be true, but in actuality, maybe it was...
Research Opportunity Paradox
Many universities have summer internship programs for undergraduates from their own institutions and/or other institutions. In recent months I have read/heard the following from various people with varying levels of power over and knowledge about these...
BigU
For the first two years I was in graduate school, I shared an apartment with a math grad student. We had both come to the BigU after graduating from a small liberal arts college, and, in graduate school, we shared the opinion that BigU, despite its reputation...
Blogging While Brown Conference Twittercast
Join The Blogging While Brown Conference organizers, attendees, and presenter tonight, Wednesday, May 19, 2010 for a Twittercast. It will be a chance for fellow conference attendees to discuss objectives, answer questions and connect. It's also...
Good For You
When reviewing an NSF grant proposal, the choices for rating the overall proposal are: Excellent : Outstanding proposal in all respects; deserves highest priority for support. Very Good : High quality proposal in nearly all respects; should be supported...
Stay At Home
What % of faculty in your department have stay-at-home spouses?How should you classify those faculty whose spouses stayed at home while the kids were young and then went back to work? I would not include them in my own count of stay-at-home spouses....
Falling Short
Salary compression and general issues of salary inequity are perennial issues in the departments with which I have been associated over the years. These are challenges for department chairs and other administrators who need to balance economic reality...
Group Write
** Note: I'll be roaming around with limited internet access until sometime Sunday. I will moderate comments when I can. **Last spring, I wrote about my efforts to get a group of people to work on a collaborative writing project. I tried a wiki for the...
Soul Nebula
Soul Nebula (4/2/10)This WISE mosaic is of the Soul Nebula (a.k.a. the Embryo Nebula, IC 1848, or W5). It is an open cluster of stars surrounded by a cloud of dust and gas over 150 light-years across and located about 6,500 light-years from Earth in...
It's Not About You
At a conference earlier this year, I went to some talks on a research topic that is only sort of related to what I do. That is, I am not directly involved in any of the research presented, nor are any of my close colleagues, but I'm moderately interested...
Where the action is in black hole jets
The object known simply as 3C 279 is rather distinctive for several reasons, in spite of the rather unassuming name. For one thing it's an active galaxy – that is, it has a supermassive black hole at its center, and that black hole is sucking in surrounding...
On Record, continued
If you know well in advance that your conference/workshop/seminar talk will be recorded and distributed widely, does this influence the content of your talk?For example:Would you be more likely to present old (published) work than the latest (unpublished)...
Professors With Boundaries
Of course I have heard (a lot) about that wondrous website, ratemyprofessors.com, but I have not been tempted to examine its contents. I think I looked at it briefly about 10 years ago when it first came into existence, but I didn't find it particularly...
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