Galveston

The trip to Galveston earlier this week was quite good. I went with Mohammed Farooqui (current Biology Chair), Hassan Ahmad (Chemistry), Scott Gunn (Biology’s pre-med advisor) and Michael Eastman (Dean of the College). Got to see some acquaintances, got to see a new campus (University of Texas Medical Branch), and got treated to a very good meal on the evening we arrived.

By far the coolest thing that happened, though, was that after meeting with several of the various recruitment people from the grad school and the medical school, we were slated to have a meeting with students from Pan Am who were currently on the UTMB campus for various reasons. I was expecting to see a dozen faces or so.

We walked into the room, and I estimate that there were about 60 students there. Scott said later that I looked genuinely surprised, and I was.

And they applauded when we walked in.

Now that was cool. When you're a university instructor, having a room full of students applaud you is a rare and fine thing indeed. I'm under no illusions that the major person they were applauding was Scott Gunn, who works like a dog to get students into medical school, but I’ll bask in reflected glory. (I am not proud.)

Otherwise how are things? I actually got to do a bit of lab work today, generating preliminary data for my NSF grant application, and managed to track a supplier for some animals that are important to the project I’m proposing for said grant application.

Budget cuts suck

After investing a fair amount of effort into writing a good little pre-proposal for the Texas ARP competition, I come in to find that late last night the whole thing got axed.

The email I received this morning explains: "The Advanced Research Program was cut from the state budget just before it was signed by Governor Perry at midnight last night (Sunday, June 22, 2003)."

No appeal, no recompense for the time many researchers spent preparing to submit. It's the Texas government's money, so they can do what they want. End of story.

Yeah, it's a pretty crap way to start the week.

But at least I have a trip to Galveston to look forward to this afternoon.

Jet set II!

I was still in a slight state of disbelief about going to Galveston next week when I got an invitation to fly to Chicago in August. The reason for this trip would be to attend the Executive Committee meeting of the International Society for Neuroethology. No pressing reason not to go... so I guess I'm going. This is going to make four plane trips in six weeks, three of which are science related.

In other news, I've been working hard on my NSF grant. I've spent the last few days on a description of the kind of university I'm at. This was a rather depressing exercise in some ways, since I was reminded again just how poor this area is. This county has an unemployment rate twice the state average; the country bordering us on the west has a jobless rate triple the state average.

Today, I've been working on the budget. So far, I've sliced off 8 months and US$78,610 from the version of the project that I submitted last year. Hopefully, reviewers will look at this and be convinced this is a "faster, cheaper, better" project than last year.

Joining the jet set!

The latest distraction from finishing my grants, manuscripts, and doing research will be a trip to Galveston in a week and half.

Why go there? It happens to be the location of the rather large University of Texas Medical Branch. In the past, my university, UTPA, has sent a lot of our student up there to go into medical school. But they also have a big biomedical research aspect, and we're trying to set up a "pipeline" for graduate students similar to what's in place have for medical students.

The other attraction for me to go on this trip is that there's a marine lab, and it would be good to see what's up there. And I know a couple of people in my field who work there, so maybe I'll run into one or both of them again.

As an added bonus, Galveston also happens to be the location of one of my favourite books by an author acquaintance of mine, Sean Stewart.

Money all gone (almost)

Spent part of the afternoon working my way through more enormous scientific catalogues. I now have just over $100 left to spend from my start-up money. It's surprisingly difficult; sort of the "spare change in your pocket" syndrome. What do you do, buy a stamp? Considering the cost of most scientific equipment, I'm not about to get anything major.

I also spent part of the day working on my NSF grant. I've discovered one good thing about going through this process for the second time. There's quite a few sections that don't need updating. Most grants, for instance, includea "Biographical sketch." That only needs minor tweaks, because where I got my degrees from isn't about to change. Of course, that's the easy bit. The hard part -- revising the proposal -- is still to come.

Ah, power... or the illusion of it, anyway

And the results of the latest summer meeting are in. Universities are run by committees, and this one is a search committee for hiring new faculty. When our department chair asked, "Who's going to chair this committee?", I suddenly had a whole bunch of fingers pointing at me...

It looks like almost a done deal, and I'm going to be Chair of the search committee. Bwa-hah-hah-haaaaaaa... Today the search committee, tomorrow the world!

;;;;;

Most recent twist on the ABS symposium I'm organizing. I reckoned I'd scored a coup would I got the editors of a fairly major journal in my field to agree to publish talks from this symposium in a special issue. But last night, one of my contributors said he had other things to write that took higher priority, and might not be able to do it. Not what an organizer is wanting to hear with less than two months to go...

I've contacted one of the journal editors, and hopefully will be able to work out a timeframe that will let everyone get their papers in.

The evil that tweens do

Went out to a barbeque restaurant tonight that we'd passed by once or twice. Should have passed by a few more times. Mediocore food I can take. But tonight was the night I learned that karaoke in the hands of 10 year old girls can induce almost physical pain.

They could not – I'm sorry – carry a tune with a fork lift.

I know they’re just kids. I understand letting them go up and have a go... once. But they did another one. And another. You find yourself thinking, “I never knew just how long ‘Complicated’ goes on...”

The most tragi-comic moment was in the third song, where these little kids were singing I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman and hitting this line about, “wanting to find the woman in me...” “Argh! You're not going to find a woman in there for another five or six years yet!”

End rant.

In or out? Who gets to do what in a grant proposal

Although I mentioned the other day that I have to get to work on my next NSF proposal, I am also working on a short "pre-proposal." Think of a pre-proposal as a micro-proposal to write a big proposal (this sort of thing would drive lesser men mad...). This one will be for ARP. ARP is strictly a Texas thing, unlike NSF.

The latest wrinkle in writing the ARP pre-proposal is that this group is very picky about who can be listed as an investigator on the grant. Unfortunately, one of my colleagues, Virginia Scofield, falls into the "exclude" category. This meant I had to redescribe what she was doing quite significantly and change all the "we"s in the text to "me"s and a few "I"s.

Fortunately, all involved in the project are more concerned about getting the money to do the science and not adding lines on a CV.

Dojo poems

That darn Neil Gaiman always finds the best websites. Of course, as a New York Times bestselling author and winner of major SF, fantasy and horror awards, he has the help of a few more readers than me. Neil pointed out a webpage with a poetry generator, and I couldn't help but see what it did to this journal...

A.lot
more you use this nervous
system. This
lab to all problems, judging from
how deadlines sneak up a particular grade like
it worked well, although
I had been there will probably take
the infinite credulity of
that, will
probably take the queue!
Funny how weird or something.
to raise his grade,
not Irrelevent recommendation: Down
to my calendar
and while I
was rapidly running
out
If there yet.

I cheated a bit and remove a little formatting stuff. But I quite like "the infinite credulity of / that, will / probably take the queue! / Funny how weird or something."

Top of the queue!

Funny how deadlines sneak up on you.

Just looked at my calendar and realized I have about one month before the next NSF deadline. That's the big one I have to shoot for in my field, lots of work, so that's just become my #1 priority.

Starting tomorrow. It's after 5:30 pm, so I think it's quitting time for now.

Meetings?

Yeesh. I had a meeting this morning that took up my whole morning (but was worthwhile as I got a glimpse at a large collaborative research project that our Research office is trying to put forward), I have a meeting tomorrow morning that will probably take the whole morning (but should be worthwhile as it concerns a large grant application that would benefit the entire college our department belongs to), and I have a search committee meeting Monday morning (but should be worthwhile because we might be able to figure out ways of attracting more applicants for our upcoming positions). Three meetings in six days (and two of those days are the weekend!).

Still, I can help but wonder? If I'm not getting paid, why do I have so many meetings to go to? I think I must just be too nice or something.

;;;;;

Am also still trying to sped the last of my start-up money. Thought I had it under control when I walked forms over to Dean's office. Had Dean's secretary, Gloria, tell me, "You can get these faster if you use this form." Decided fast is good, so went back and got told by our secretary, Dora, "No, you can't use this form, you have to use that form" (which is the one I'd walked over with in the first place.

I left while the two secretaries got on the same page and to fume over the frustrations of working in a bureaucracy and pull at my hair. Quietly.

I think I have the right forms now. Hopeful that someone will spend money for me soon.

Can't talk -- spending money!

Realized the other day that with the end of the financial year approaching, I was rapidly running out of time to spend the last of my start-up money. So I've spent yesterday and today combing though technical catalogues.

Think this is easy? Consider that one technical catalogue on my desk, the VWR catalogue weighs in at a whopping 2,500+ pages.

I have no problem spending money, but spending money in a hurry always worries me.

I will soldier on, however, bouyed (or is that distracted?) by the music coming through my computer speakers (Big Sugar, if you're curious).

More blogging in the news, academics this time

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article up titled, “Scholars who blog.” The overarching question asked is whether blogging is simply an ephemeral bit of intellectual fashion that will disappear in a few months. Heaven knows the Internet is famous for such things. (Internet users of a certain experience will remember “the age of Gopher,” which immediately preceded the explosion of the Web.)

And no, this blog didn't get mentioned. [pout]


;;;;;


Today is the first day of summer session, which means students are back on campus. That is not necessarily a good thing for me. I had one of my students from last semester who needed a particular grade in one of my classes to graduate -- and didn’t get it. So he came into my office asking if there was something he could do to raise his grade, like an extra paper or something. “An extra paper” seems to be some sort of student stock solution to all problems, judging from how many students have asked me about this. But from my perspective, if I do something to help out one student that I don’t make available to all the rest... not very fair to the rest of the students in the class, is it?

Nonetheless, while I am happy to stick to my principles, it still really sucks to be the one to have to say, “No, I’m sorry, I’m not raising your grade” (not in so many words, mind you), which translates into, “No, you can’t graduate.”


;;;;;


A few entries back, I mentioned my theory about the infinite credulity of the human brain. To give credit where it’s due, that particular line of though may have been prompted by a comment by Teresa Nielsen Hayden. In her blog, said succinctly, “Folly is fractal. The more you look, the more of it there is.”

Who ya callin’ “small”!?

This article is a rather standard account of SARS research. I think it’s quite amazing that they list how, in three months, SARS has gone from nonexistant to a completely described virus whose entire genetic code has been sequenced and whose origin has been pinpointed...

...and then they title the article, “small victory.”

The petty part of me is shouting, “What the #311 else do you want?”

Why I’m sometimes short on details...

I was thinking that my discussion of what I was doing – and will be doing a lot more of in the coming months – may sound a bit murky. Short on detail. Just what am I doing in this lab with that lobster I brought in yesterday?

I'm aware of that, and while I'd like to be more forthright, there are a few reasons why I0Æm not.

Ultimately, my research is meant to be published in journals. One of the basic rules of journals is that they don't take papers where the results have already been published, and for most, that includes reporting on the web. Like in this journal.

There's also the problem that science is a competitive business. Now, I am not in one of the most competitive fields – far from it – but the fact remains that I'm one person just starting a research career with no grant (yet) to buy things and no students to help out. If I blab what I'm working on and what I suspect, it's possible (though unlikely) that another researcher who is currently funded could jump in, set a couple of Ph.D. students, and get the paper out before I could say boo. It's one of those things that you just don't want to have happen, because priority matters in science, just like it does in mountaineering. (Quick – who led the second team to reach the top of Mt. Everest?)

These are just a couple of factors that prey in the back of my mind. As much as I want to go all out to tell people what cool stuff it is that I do, I'm just too chicken about where I am in my career right now to be assured that I'll get it done first.

;;;;;

Speaking of science communication, this story makes some interesting points about media coverage of science controversies. Should one “maverick bucking the establishment” get equal coverage as “the establishment”? Very tough call, especially in medical research, where so much is at stake and there are lots of people out there with downright loopy ideas.

(One of my current pet theories is that the human brain is capable of infinite credulity. No matter how weird or outlandish the proposition, no matter how much evidence to the contrary, someone out there will believe it.)

;;;;;

Whoa! Science facts are useful! If you can listen to mp3 files, you absolutely, positively must hear Tripod's song for scientists, written as part of their regular "song in an hour" challenge on Triple J. Look for the "Tripod - Boffin' boffins" link fairly far down, here.

I got to do an experiment!

And any day you do an experiment is a good day.

The story is as follows: I got up and drove out to the Coastal Studies lab on South Padre Island. I thought it would be an uneventful drive, but to my surprise, ran into a couple of massive cloudbursts. The sheeting down, "Can't-I-make-the-windshield-wipers-go-any-faster?" kind of cloudbursts that slow even normally aggressive Texas drivers down to 30 miles an hour. I'm sure there are other places in the world that matches the southern U.S. for the ferocity of cloudbursts, but I haven't been there yet.

Fortunately, while the burst is intense, it's quite small, and I'm out of it fairly quickly. I get to the Coastal Studies Lab to pick up a juvenile spiny lobster that they had been showing off to the public. They had two small lobsters, so I left one behind, so that the public wouldn't be deprived of the viewing pleasure of seeing Palinurus argus. (Couldn't find a link to a decent picture of the beast, sorry.)

Then I scampered back to the lab to look at this beastie's nervous system. This gave me the first real chance to test out my nifty microscope (that cause so much trouble to order... but I won't rehash old details). It worked well, although I may have to see if I can do something to get a slightly larger field of view. Sometimes, even the lowest power magnification is still a teensy bit too high.

The exciting bit is tomorrow, though. Some preparations have to sit before you get to see the results, and this is one. Tomorrow I get to see if it gives me a definite answer to my question... or not.

;;;;;

Irrelevent recommendation: Down With Love with Ewan McGregor and Rene Zellweger.

Posted

I'm surprised. Revamping a manuscript for submission to a new journal didn't take as long as I thought. I now have four copies of the manuscript in two envelopes (three to an editor and one to an associate editor) waiting to be taken out with the morning mail.

It feels good to have a manuscript in the works again. I have to push and get one or two more out in the coming months.

But first, I have a symposium to organize (today) and make a trip to pick up an animal from the Coastal Studies Lab (tomorrow).

Tedium!

One of the most annoying things about preparing a scientific manuscript is the references. They are fiddly. They are long. And every journal wants them a different way.

For example, I'm revising a paper that I had originally written for one journal for submission to another. The first journal wanted the list of references to look like this:

Paul DH, Then AM, Magnuson DS. 1985.

Very clean, very "Europoean" in its approach to punctuation. Now, however, the journal I'd like to submit this paper to wants the references to look like this:

Paul, D.H., Then, A.M., and Magnuson, D.S., 1985.

The same, you think? Oh no. 10 periods and commas and the word "and" have to go in the latter version that weren't required in the former. One journal wants abbreviated titles for journals and the other wants all titles spelled out in full. One wants colons separating the volume number from the pages, the other wants a comma.

There is software to do some of this stuff automatically, but it's rather expensive. So, back to my word processor I go, putting in periods and commas...

It's noon now. I'll let you know how long it takes.

;;;;;

About an hour! Lot less than I thought, thankfully.

The grant gauntlet

I'm starting work on a pre-proposal for something called the Advanced Research Program grants, which are put up by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Feeling masochistic, I looked up their funding rate, and discovered that my field, Biology, is the most competetive of anything they fund. Less than 7% of applications get funded.

Why do I do that to myself?

Enough wallowing. Back to writing the proposal...

Replies

Here’s what I sent to the letters section of The Age in response to the article mentioned in the last entry of this journal:

“It’s unfortunate that over a century of high quality scientific research has escaped notice, judging by the article, ‘Pain test to rock lobster fishermen’ (16 May 2003). I was stunned by the statement, ‘Aquatic scientists have now begun examining lobster tails for evidence of nerve tissue.’

“I can save someone a lot of time by saying that not only do lobsters, yabbies, and their kin have nerve tissue in their tails, that nerve tissue has been well studied by neurobiologists. Crustacean nervous systems have been and still are important models for understanding how nervous systems work in all sorts of animals, including humans.

“The question of pain in other animals is an important one, and deserves a higher level of scholarship.”

Doubtful that it’ll see print, but there's no point in letting errors stand uncorrected.