To be a Nobel candidate may be predictable if I am reading correctly a paper on archiv.org. The “traditional” impact factor is largely useless

as it ignores the importance of citing papers: a citation from an obscure paper is given the same weight as a citation from a ground-breaking and highly cited work

It may be, however, that the (PageRank derived) CiteRank is holding some promises – giving weight by whom you are cited. In this case, even a 100 citation paper can lead to a Nobel prize.
But is it predictable to get a Nobel prize candidate? Certainly not. I agree with a news feature about a science manager who

recently read Outliers, a book in which Malcolm Gladwell makes the case that
exceptional people get where they are partly because of the exceptional circumstances in which they find themselves, rather than through exceptional ability or sheer hard work.

Yea, yea.

A new editorial in PLoS medicine suggests five ways how trust in publications can be reestablished:

First, editors themselves should recognize and declare their own competing interests. (Show me more…)

I already suspect that science has more to do with believes than religion. However, only very recently I came across this paper (when working on eosinophils) that stretches this view to its limits: “Eosinophil cells, pray tell us what you do!” Or is that a new incarnation of Spinoza’s God in Nature?

or should I have said that science is nothing more than an extension of the senses? Or that most of our scientific output is done by autopilots?

quoting from an email this afternoon:

Only 8% members of the Scientific Research Society agreed that “peer review works well as it is.” (Chubin and Hackett, 1990; p.192).
“A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision and an analysis of the peer review system substantiate complaints about this fundamental aspect of scientific research.” (Horrobin, 2001).
Horrobin concludes that peer review “is a non-validated charade whose processes generate results little better than does chance.” (Horrobin, 2001). (Show me more…)

I am currently taking online lessions at the Strobist website after having ordered some light stands, reflectors and additional flashes.

Lighting 101
Intimidated by the idea of off-camera lighting?
Don’t be.
We are pretty much starting from scratch, so no worries. The first posts will be about what kind of gear you will need to do the minimalist strobe thing.

(Show me more…)