Science isn’t fair

<rant>

Life isn’t fair, science is part of life therefore science isn’t fair. This would be a very short way to say what I am thinking but this is a rant so I will stretch it out a bit more.

We learn early on that in our line of work there is almost no correlation between the amount of work we do and the results we get. You need luck and I am not turning mystical on you here. I mean the low likelihood kind of luck. Even if you do everything right, being successful in science depends mostly on factors that are outside your control. A somewhat random pool of people end up being in the right place and the right time to go on with their academic work. Almost like a game of musical chairs, those with enough passion and perseverance to sustain the blows of lady luck get to play in the final rounds. Granted that I have been at this only for a few years but I have seen my share of hard working people getting scooped or hitting the wall with impossible projects. Try to explain scooping to non-scientists to see how ridiculous that sounds. I have also seen people (myself included) getting authorships for things I would not consider worthy of such.

So … science isn’t fair. This was exactly the sort of observations that made me start thinking about open science a few years ago. We could help to even out the playing field if we all are a bit more open about what we are working on. Too many financial and personal resources are eaten away to the duplication of research agendas.

</rant>

Late Links: Bio::Blogs#18 + new blog

I have been away from the web for the last few weeks as I moved to San Francisco to start my first postdoc. I will be working at UCSF in the Lim Lab and the Krogan lab on the evolution of signaling in yeasts. I'll try to blog more about it later during the year. I am looking forward to getting to know the bay area and hopefully make the most of the great (and apparently relaxed) science & technology environment.

Early this month Michael Barton edited another great edition of Bio::Blogs mostly dedicated to open science. He also put together an essay on the subject that is worth reading and commenting on. The next edition of Bio::Blogs will probably come back here to Public Rambling on the 1st of March (unless there is another volunteer).

Also in these last few weeks Lars Juhl Jensen started blogging at Buried Treasure. I met Lars at EMBL while I was doing my PhD and he always had time to help me out when I had some work related question. Like Roland Krause said Lars is one of the most prolific researchers in computational biology I ever met.

Disconnecting for a while

Image credit: Duff Suds

I am disconnecting from blogging for longer than usual. There will not be a Bio::Blogs edition on the 1st of January but there will be one dedicated to Open Science on the 1st of February. Before I go, congratulation to the chemioinformatics related blogging group that got a paper from combined efforts. Also, have a look at the new blog from Jason Kelly called Free Genes that will focus on synthetic biology and open science issues.

I'll be back sometime in the end of January. Happy celebrations to everyone and a good start to the new year.

Bio::Blogs #15 - call for submission

Since there were no volunteers :) I will be hosting the 15th edition of Bio::Blogs here in the blog. I will be gathering some posts from around the web on bioinformatics and other science related topics from the last month and will post about in on the 1st of October. Suggestions are more than welcome. Please email any links to interesting blog posts to bioblogs at gmail dot com.

On a personal note, I have defended my PhD :). This mostly explains the low volume blogging.

Next stop: San Francisco

I finally know for sure where I will be going for my first posdoc. I will be taking a joint posdoc position with Wendell Lim and Nevan Krogan at UCSF - Mission Bay. I will be moving to San Francisco around the end of the year or beginning of next year.