Alun SaltIt was close at the top this week for the most shares on twitter one just beat out the other. This week our followers seemed equally interested in scientific papers and the social context they were read in. There’s also some data management tips for your project.
1. Why scientists are losing the fight to communicate science to the public
"most science communication.. is self-affirmation for those already on the inside" https://t.co/7ROqxzdBTH
— Sophie Harrington (@sa_harrington) August 23, 2016
Richard P Grant asks what people think science communication is trying to achieve. He argues that a lot of science communication is tribalism. There are a few tweets of people agreeing. I’m inclined to agree, but there is a danger that this kind of comment also becomes tribal, marking out the science communicators who have moved beyond the deficit model against the outsiders.
Sharers: edyong209, sophieaharring1, wonderthink, BritSciAssoc, RJLilley, EStafne, dr_krystal, digitalsci, kate_llyn, benhwhite, Prof_GD_Foster, ChestnutPowell, WyoWeeds, keholsinger, LynnSosnoskie, BraybrookSA, EvoEcoAmy, aguribfakim, SelvarajGuru, CG_ath, AmeliaFrizell, IHStreet, rebecca__dalton, fasttrackimpact, AgBioWorld, malherbologist, Huskerwheat, markus_eichhorn, afri_isaaa
2. Integration of omic networks in a developmental atlas of maize
RNA & protein networks only weakly correlated–wish there'd be ribosome footprinting data https://t.co/S1exdVwmzI pic.twitter.com/8UEJyUECor
— Weigel Lab 🌱 aka WeigelWorld 🇺🇦 🇩🇪 🇺🇸 🇪🇺 (@PlantEvolution) August 19, 2016
How do genes work? You can’t just match a gene to a protein, or to RNA. What you can do is start integrating data to pull in different views from the transcriptome and proteome to examine Gene Regulatory Networks.
Sharers: szintri, UllasPedmale, PlantEditors, yasindagdas, schwessinger, ErinSparksPhD, BarkerLab, plant_sci_guy, NaturePlants, IHStreet, NoahFahlgren, BiswapriyaMisra, meter, JaneLangdale, plaza_genomics, ArtemPankin, mrmckain, PlantEvolution, Seminisia, KleineVehnLab, tair_news, Rodrigo_S_Reis, BaxterTwi, jmhibber, UCDflowerpower, PlantTeaching, ssukno, SelvarajGuru, JambenSloom
3. Ten commandments for good data management
Amen!!!! https://t.co/IlKPcHSECm
— Dylan Craven (@DylanJCraven) August 22, 2016
Some handy tips on how to manage data that any research project you’re on produces. Not surprisingly your raw data is sacred.
Sharers: ibartomeus, duffy_ma, DylanJCraven, GrasslandSocSA, StephenBHeard, KTInvasion, SeemaSheth, hormiga, GGranath, CLivensperger, dr_tialynn, Annapplbiol, ZarahPattison, thelonglab, EcoEvoEvoEco, rebecca__dalton
4. The remarkable stomata of horsetails (Equisetum)
We nudged into fourth place by Dynamic Ecology, above. I think the image helped a lot in getting this post traction. You can read the full paper at Annals of Botany.
Sharers: BotanyRules, ChadHusby, BiswapriyaMisra, jvamosi, Marj_Lundgren, UCDflowerpower, villarreal_lab, MossPlants, iramjohn, DreyerErwin, Lepidodendron, susieoftraken, BarkerLab, KevinFrediani, maloucao
5. Conference travel awards that you can’t apply for until after the travel is done are bad
How freaking ridiculous! No way the grad students I know would be able to afford to do this. Time for this to stop! https://t.co/lmDhvLo879
— Belinda Fabian (@BeaCurious) August 24, 2016
Suppose you wanted to gentrify science, so it was less about talent and more about privilege. How could you do that? Well, one way would be to give travel grants, but only to those who have the income to pay to travel to conferences. Small Pond Science raises a problem of fairness.
Sharers: BeaCurious, StephenBHeard, ejrollinson, EntoProf, hormiga, EvoEcoAmy
Being in and Institution/small hotel in China this week with many websites blocked, I did not really expect to miss Twitter: surprisingly, I do, and the articles highlighted above really show why! Normally I follow through several 140 character nuggets each day and find both science results and discussions of interest.
But even worse than lack of Twitter, is the lack of Google. No more Scholar to find necessary papers, and the search of Web-of-Science / ISI just does not find the relevant literature, even when I know the paper exactly (it is almost faster to find the paper on my own hard disk rather than the web!). And OpenStreetMap does not match Google Maps, but as for general websearch, I can’t believe how many irrelevant and useless websites there are out there which Baidu and Bing bring to prominence. I expect I’ll soon be worn down to using a proxy server