This wild week started with an alarm clock ringing at 4:45AM Monday morning and me schlepping myself to Sacramento Airport to fly down to my former hometown of La Jolla, CA to meet Guv Perry of Texas. The small group had a great talk. I’m not naive enough to imagine us all singing Kumbaya together around […]
Scientists meeting with politicians like Rick Perry of Texas Read More »
Taxpayer supported government grants + scientists’ work = closed access publisher profits (derived from payments from taxpayers + scientists) This simple equation embodies all that is wrong with today’s predominant system of publishing. In fact, it is an indictment of closed access publishers. The profits of closed access publishers come at the expense of science
The case for open access publishing embodied in a single equation Read More »
Welcome to the era of the brain injury epidemic. It’s always been an epidemic, but we as a society are only realizing it now. Remember those old anti-drug commercials that aired on TV I think in the 80s saying “This is your brain on drugs”? They showed an egg frying in a pan (see video
The end of the NFL? The “new” epidemic of head injuries in pro and child athletes Read More »
Yesterday I put out a post as a guide for scientists to insult each other. More insults have been forthcoming from the blog readerships including some even nastier ones. Most are just downright mean, but some are sexist or racist. Sadly these comments are real. They skewer you and roast you over the coals, often
Insults 2.0: more ways scientists skewer each other Read More »
It’s been a big couple weeks of headlines in the news for prostate cancer. Let me help you make sense of it all. I’m a prostate cancer survivor and cancer biologist. Prostate cancer is almost an inevitable fate for men in America and for many around the world, but a significant fraction of the cancers
Making sense of all the big prostate cancer headlines of the last few weeks Read More »
How do you use Twitter as a scientist? If you know how to Tweet (posting things on Twitter), you have a new avenue for interacting with the world including colleagues, students, editors, etc. Twitter can be a very powerful tool for scientists. If you, as a scientist, don’t use it you are putting yourself at a
The scientist’s guide to Twitter Read More »
Just about exactly two and a half years ago I had surgery for prostate cancer, a serious prostate cancer that could not be watched. I could not be waiting. It changed my life. How was my prostate cancer diagnosed at age 42, an age when no one told me I should even be thinking about
Throwing the baby out with the bathwater on PSA testing & prostate cancer Read More »
Yesterday I put up a poll asking scientists how happy they are or more simply “is science still fun?” I myself really find science fun despite all the challenges and headaches, but I wasn’t sure how my colleagues would respond as a lot of people seem stressed and/or depressed. It was thus great to see
Scientists still finding fun and excitement in their work: poll results Read More »
On Monday, I made a big stink about Texas GOP Governor Rick Perry visiting a lab (that of Jeanne Loring) at Scripps Research Institute here in California because the lab in question is a leading group doing human embryonic stem cell (HESC) and Perry is a strong opponent of such research. I thought the visit
Great letter on Guv Perry’s California visit video from the artist Read More »
In terms of contact information, this site is produced by the Knoepfler Lab at UC Davis School of Medicine in Sacramento, CA, but our official address is 1 Shields Ave, Davis, CA 95616. The posts are generally written by Dr. Paul Knoepfler who can be reached at knoepfler@ucdavis.edu. You can also reach out to contact