“A whole dimension of completely weird, incredible things”
Errol Morris has this “Op-Doc” (Opinion-Documentary, as odd as that sounds) over at the New York Times. Technically, it’s about historical research, but I think the phenomenon holds true for biology,...
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Tragedy of the commons among antibiotic resistance plasmids
smith (2012) Tragedy of the commons among antibiotic resistance plasmids. Evolution. doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01531.x | Early view at Evolution Abstract: As social interactions are increasingly...
View ArticleWhat makes something “systems biology”?
Like many biologists, I’ve wondered at times what the relatively new discipline of systems biology is all about. A lot of things get called systems biology, from genomics to metabolism to gene...
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Gut inflammation can boost horizontal gene transfer between pathogenic and...
Plasmids are mobile bits of DNA that play a key role in bacterial evolution. They shuttle genes for things like antibiotic resistance and pathogen virulence among different strains or species of...
View ArticleSetting the right tone
I’ve been finding that the problems reviewers sometimes have with my papers is not so much the actual experiments or the conclusions drawn from them, but rather the tone with which they are presented....
View ArticleDon’t bury the lead
The conference I was at last week included a session in which each poster presenter was given a one-slide, 60-second slot—a movie trailer for their poster, you might say. It’s an interesting approach,...
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Fictitious science
One of the drawbacks to being a scientist is that science fiction becomes harder to enjoy. Storytelling requires a certain suspension of disbelief to work. But when your day-to-day job involves asking...
View ArticleHow to write a paper people will cite
Here’s some great tips for writing scientific papers from Steve Ellner (link to original pdf). Ellner presents them as tips for theoretical papers, but I think they’re good practice for any paper: 1....
View ArticleBenchwork in the age of open science
What does our new age of open science and open data mean for research that’s mainly laboratory benchwork? Most of the major ecology & evolution journals now require that the data for papers also be...
View ArticleOrganizing computational projects
I’ve been working on a computational/bioinformatics project, and I’ve been finding it a little bit challenging to organize and document my work. I’m used to at-the-bench laboratory projects, where you...
View ArticleHow do you help people write?
This year, one of the PIs in my lab has been requiring people to submit regular writing samples. It started off as 1000 words per month and is now at 300 words per week. The idea is that writing is a...
View ArticleValve Software on evidence-driven business
Valve Software is a video game company with an unusual “flat” organizational structure in which there are no managers. I recently read their handbook for new employees looking for ideas about running a...
View ArticleNonadaptive process can create the appearance of facultative cheating in...
smith j, Van Dyken JD, Velicer GJ (2013) Nonadaptive process can create the appearance of facultative cheating in microbes. Evolution 68: 816-826. DOI: 10.1111/evo.12306 Abstract: Adaptations to social...
View ArticleWhy I don’t care if I’m right
Recently I’ve been finding that I really don’t care if I’m right. What I mean is: I don’t care if a hypothesis I’ve come up with turns out to be correct. That theory paper about nonadaptive causes of...
View ArticleFruiting bodies of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum increase spore...
smith j, Queller DC, Strassmann JE (2014) Fruiting bodies of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum increase spore transport by Drosophila. BMC Evolutionary Biology 14: 105....
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Logarithmic history
Evolutionary biologists get used to the idea that all of human history, and all of our existence as a species, is just a tiny slice of recent time in the cosmic scheme of things. An infinitessimal...
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