Noteworthy

My CV

Chris Woolston writes about a new type of CV in science career

CVs have long been part of the currency of scientific promotion. Scientists seeking a position or a grant often feel obliged to list every publication, presentation and award in a single document intended to sway committees through its sheer length and volume. The typical CV follows a time-worn template, says Robert Morrell, an education researcher and former director of the New Generation of Academics Programme at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. “ ‘I was born, I went to school here, I had these publications, these are the students I graduated.’ People who write CVs like that are missing the boat.”

The UKRI is not alone in seeking to rethink the CV in response to a renewed focus on team science and equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). It modelled its new CV format on ‘Résumé for Researchers’, introduced in 2019 by the Royal Society in London. Similar initiatives have been unveiled by research councils in the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

I wish this initiative would have come 10 or 20 years earlier…

The Royal Society template has only 4  blocks. I could fill that template in 20 minutes while for a conventional CV it would take me 2 days.

  1. Personal details: Provide your personal details, your education, key qualifications and relevant positions you have held.
  2. How have you contributed to the generation of knowledge?
  3. How have you contributed to the development of individuals?
  4. How have you contributed to broader society?

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Philosophy

Es ist höchst angebracht

es ist höchst angebracht: Springer nennt endlich seine Zeitschriften um

Der Anaesthesist Die Anaesthesiologie
Der Chirurg Die Chirurgie
Der Deutsche Dermatologe Deutsche Dermatologie
Der Diabetologe Die Diabetologie
Der Gastroenterologe Die Gastroenterologie
Der Gynäkologe Die Gynäkologie
Der Hautarzt Die Dermatologie
Der Internist Die Innere Medizin
Der Kardiologe Die Kardiologie
Der MKG-Chirurg Die MKG-Chirurgie
Der Nephrologe Die Nephrologie
Der Neurologe und Psychiater (DNP) DNP – Die Neurologie & Psychiatrie
Der Onkologe Die Onkologie
Der Ophthalmologe Die Ophthalmologie
Der Orthopäde Die Orthopädie
Der Pathologe Die Pathologie
Der Pneumologe Zeitschrift für Pneumologie
Psychotherapeut Die Psychotherapie
Der Radiologe Die Radiologie
Der Unfallchirurg Die Unfallchirurgie
Der Urologe Die Urologie

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Philosophy

How to Game Google Scholar H Index

https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.0638 explains an experiment leading to an increase of 774 citations in 129 papers basically as they

created a fake researcher (Marco Alberto Pantani-Contador — a reference to two infamous cyclists, Marco Pantani and Alberto Contador, each of whom was accused of blood doping). Copying and pasting text from a website, adding a few figures and graphs and lots and lots of self-citations … created six fake documents, translated them into English using Google Translate, and uploaded them to a new webpage under their university’s domain. It was a process, the authors explain, that took less than half a day’s work.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Philosophy

Worthless citation counts?

from referee3

Even citation counts, the supposed gold standard, are close to worthless: only a tiny fraction of citations represent serious evaluation or validation, whereas the great majority represent nothing more than lazy copying and fashion-following. Two anecdotes demonstrate just how worthless citation counts can be:Some of the most highly-cited researchers in the world have been exposed as gaming the citation system and as charlatans. Papers with thousands of citations turn out to be false; obviously not one of those citations represented a serious validation.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Genetics

Hapmap

I find it increasingly difficult to get the haplotype structure of a given gene. While the are patches to the human genome at UCSC, this isn’t the same like good old hapmap.org by the HapMap consortium that has been retired back in 2016.

A recent computer security audit has revealed security flaws in the legacy HapMap site that require NCBI to take it down immediately. We regret the inconvenience, but we are required to do this. That said, NCBI was planning to decommission this site in the near future anyway (although not quite so suddenly), as the 1,000 genomes (1KG) project has established itself as a research standard for population genetics and genomics. NCBI has observed a decline in usage of the HapMap dataset and website with its available resources over the past five years and it has come to the end of its useful life.

It seems that also its successor, the 1000 genomes, will be retired during the next month. Unfortunately, the phasing server in Michigan does not allow any logon for whatever reason, UK biobank is too expensive so haplotypes basically vanished in the nirvana.

 

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Philosophy, Theology

Wenn die Seele den Körper verlässt

Es gibt zwar viele Fallgeschichten von out of body experience und Nahtoderfahrung. Angeblich soll der Körper auch 21 Gramm leichter werden aber verlässliche Daten gibt es keine. Eine neue Arbeit beschreibt aber nun die Hirnaktivität eines 87jährigen der einen Herzstillstand unter laufendem EEG erleidet.

Cross-frequency coupling revealed modulation of left-hemispheric gamma activity by alpha and theta rhythms across all windows, even after cessation of cerebral blood flow. The strongest coupling is observed for narrow- and broad-band gamma activity by the alpha waves during left-sided suppression and after cardiac arrest.

Die Vorerkrankung schränkt die Aussagekraft zwar ein, aber die Autoren schreiben

The alpha band is thought to critically interfere in cognitive processes by inhibiting networks that are irrelevant or disruptive … Given that cross-coupling between alpha and gamma activity is involved in cognitive processes and memory recall in healthy subjects, it is intriguing to speculate that such activity could support a last “recall of life” that may take place in the near-death state.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Philosophy

Researchers are against the permanent rating of their work

I think most active researchers are against the permanent rating of their work by research administrators like

  • amount of funding received
  • prizes won and
  • impact factor of published work.

as nobody can reliable measure the true relevance of their work.

  • There is no generic value of money, it is only means to an end (and even a waste if we shell out too much money).
  • Prizes are good for some egos. But who really cares? 99.9% of all scientists are forgotten only a few years after retirement.
  • And impact factor?  The “publishing elite turned against impact factor” already 5 years ago as scientists are now tweaking the system by  by self referencing and de referencing others. Most papers published in Nature received fewer citations than indicated by the impact factor of the journal.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2016.20224#:~:text=Publishing%20elite%20turns%20against%20controversial%20metric,-Ewen%20Callaway&text=Senior%20staff%20at%20leading%20journals,its%20outsized%20impact%20on%20science.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Joke

True scientists

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C5CHFA_enDE892DE892&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=true+scientists+quote#imgrc=uU6Gf5hzVZ7z3M
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C5CHFA_enDE892DE892&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=true+scientists+quote

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Allergy, Password, Vitamins

Die neue S3 Leitlinie Allergieprävention zu Vitamin D

This content has restricted access, please email me for the password.


 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025