It has been a long time

It has been so long. I am so behind…

 

I have so many papers to post that it is overwhelming. Plus I know everyone is hanging on the edge of their collective seats begging for me to post my list of the top papers from 2014! 😛

However, in the mean time I cannot possibly resist directing everyone towards a great blog post from DrugMonkey.

You absolutely must read this wonderful, provocative blog post!

 

I just love so much about this post. I loved being scandalized when I realized I had completely forgotten about the subfornical control of drinking lessons from biology classes in the past.

But please don’t stop with the post itself. The continued discussion in the comments is even better!! So good!!!!

I love the comments about optogenetics.

Let me be clear – I have mentioned before I am a huge Optogenetics Fan – I constantly strive to make everything I do in science linked with optogenetics. If I could, I would have my entire lifestyle saturated with the glorious method. I would ride from place to place on a sled pulled by thousands of cre-rats with ChR2 in their motor cortex… but I wont get carried away.

The point is as much as I love optogenetics, I also really enjoy when people question the use of the method. I like when people point out the limitations; how important certain controls are; or when optogenetics is used wrong.

But even better than the optogenetics discussion is the underlying point about science publishing and the glorified status of Nature and Science. I know I have said that I am passionate about the flaws in our science publishing system before, but I like the points that are brought up in the commentary especially from rxnm.

One of the things that makes me so frustrated about science publishing is not just the often talked about money madness, but how the ridiculous weight we give to these journals allows them to essentially dictate the direction of science itself. I hate the fact that getting a Nature or Science paper can make or break an entire career in science – jobs, funding, etc.. When this ultimately manifests into a situation where an editor for a magazine is given the power to determine what is and isn’t valuable science. Of course… this discussion is very nuanced and I could go on, but I’ll stop while I can.

Anyway I have to at least repost the one comment from rxnm ,

“Nature is a private company, they can publish whatever the fuck they want and sell the ad space next to it. The chumps are the people who admire a paper because it’s published there. Believing that NPG’s primary goal is rigorous scientific standards instead of whatever is splashy and marketable is like believing Facebook is here to try to bring people closer together and make the world a better place.”

So great! I just love it!

 

Anyway if you still haven’t, please do check out the blog post and the comments here. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

I have no idea when.. but hopefully I’ll post some papers sometime in the next ten years 🙂