Watson & Crick’s 1953 article in Nature revealing the double-helix structure of DNA was not peer reviewed. Many scientists claim this paper presents the most important discovery of the 20th century. The peer review system is what gives science integrity. Yet this paper was published based on the evaluation of the editors that it was obviously true…. Read More…
Breakthrough knowledge: Research, education and universities
November 5, 2011 By 3 Comments
Discovering something no one knew before is research. Discovering something that you didn’t know before, but someone else did, is education. I love the idea of universities. I spend my days with people who work to understand something better: the universe, the world, societies, brains, kids, change, books, and more. That’s research. What do we… Read More…
The European Gender Summit
November 1, 2011 By 5 Comments
In less than a week, hundreds of men and women who care about the intersection of science, policy, and gender, will gather in Brussels for the first European Gender Summit. It’s a high-powered event, sponsored by the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the European Commission and many other partners. Why is… Read More…
Negative results are important: Research Europe
July 21, 2011 By 5 Comments
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of the Four, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Research fails. Almost always. Scientists discard hypotheses like so many untried drones, cast out to freeze before even getting a chance. This is the nature of research. It’s the… Read More…
The science of teamwork
June 9, 2011 By 2 Comments
When PhD candidates at my university were recently asked if they were part of a research team, 6% of them answered “I don’t know.” But if they don’t know what they have, at least they know what they want. Our eager, young researchers want more collaboration, they want to be part of teams. They know isolation… Read More…
Arsenic gives aspiration: Twitter and Open Access Publishing
June 1, 2011 By 1 Comment
Passionate researchers want to figure it out. We want to understand nature, to identify what is and why it is that way. We want to know. And when we know something, we want to tell others about it. But the way scientists communicate is outdated. The system is broken. And our attempts to fix it are… Read More…
From the lab to the loo
May 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment
“We succeeded because of where the bathrooms are.” Morris Halle said this to me several years ago, as part of his story about how MIT became the epicenter of research in linguistics. Halle hired Noam Chomsky in 1955 and the world’s brightest young linguists started coming to Cambridge to study with them. Enjoy this article?… Read More…
0.01% inspiration: The failure of research
May 16, 2011 By 3 Comments
Research fails. Almost always. Sometimes I try to explain this with help from Thomas Edison. Edison’s associate, the story goes, was frustrated with nearly a thousand unsuccessful experiments to find the right approach for a project. He was ready to throw in the towel, but Edison talked him out of it. “I cheerily assured him… Read More…
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