You wouldn’t think that mandatory training on company fine print could come across as a beacon of enlightenment, but that’s how it did for me.
Continue readingFrom the top down
Apotheosis (a riff on permanent positions in science)
It’s taken the private sector only six months to give me something that 20+ years in academia didn’t provide: a permanent position.
Continue readingIn and out of love (with academia)
Only in the abstract
I do miss academia, but only in the abstract.
Continue reading2023: TIR’s year in review
Great scientists, great moustaches VII (a Movember posting)
The latest in TIR’s annual celebration of some great minds and the great moustaches that went (just) before them. Links to instalments I-VI can be found at the end for real moustache aficionados.
Continue readingScientific supply chains
Attracting international scientists should be used to complement a domestic science base, not compensate for its deficiencies.
Continue readingA riposte to the Red Queens
Mr Smee finds a home (a riff on preprints, peer review, and undergraduate research)
I don’t usually blog about my actual research, but this week one of my last papers was published, a characterisation of the protein TbSmee1 in the unicellular eukaryotic parasite Trypanosoma brucei (here). “Mr Smee” has had a long and painful genesis, and in many ways the story of this paper is the story of my own research group, and one I definitely plan on telling at a later date.
For now though, the paper is worth highlighting because I think it illustrates a number of features of contemporary publishing dynamics, peer review, and the importance of frontline research to undergraduates.
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Total Internal Reflection 