Latest

21
Aug

Deadline awareness for everybody

I and my family are now up in Oregon to experience the total solar eclipse. Which will be amazing. This
3 min read
18
Aug

Recommended reads #110

This, I think, is ingenious and next-level stuff: Designing malware to hack bioinformatics software by coding it into the DNA
2 min read
14
Aug

Requiem for a sabbatical

I haven’t had any service or teaching duties on my campus since May 2016. That ends today. I know,
3 min read
07
Aug

What are best ways to learn R?

Over my year of sabbatical, I planned to become comfortably proficient with data manipulation and analysis with R. I’m
4 min read
04
Aug

Recommended reads #109

A quick guide to effective grassroots advocacy for scientists. Why I don’t ask students to write the thesis statement
3 min read
31
Jul

The campus free speech issue isn’t about free speech

When toxic hatemongers* want to speak on our campuses, they don’t have an intellectual discussion in mind — they merely
4 min read
24
Jul

What’s up with preprints?

image from prepubmed Preprints are not a standard practice in biology. Nowadays, most papers that get published in peer-reviewed journals
3 min read
21
Jul

Recommended reads #108

Wow. This opinion piece written by a scientist, who is a whistleblower working in the Department of Interior, is both
5 min read
17
Jul

The writing curse of negative data

Summer is sometimes a contemplative time for me. It used to be long hours in the field would give me
4 min read
10
Jul

Safety in the field

Here is a reminder: safety comes first. I recently heard some reports from a student who was working with lab
2 min read