/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ en-us derekb.lowe@gmail.com 2012-01-13T11:22:15-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2012/01/13/dealing_with_dishonesty.php So, we've been talking here since yesterday about what looks like large-scale fraud, but there's small-scale stuff that goes on inside various labs (often in academia, which is where people like this are supposed to wash out). Many readers will... 75377@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Graduate School 2012-01-13T11:22:15-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/12/28/the_ucla_lab_fatality_criminal_charges_filed.php Most readers here will remember the fatal lab accident at UCLA in 2009 involving t-butyllithium, which took the life of graduate student Sheri Sangji. Well, there's a new sequel to that: the professor involved, Patrick Harran, has been charged along... 75348@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Safety Warnings 2011-12-28T12:02:17-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/08/18/the_nih_wonders_about_the_future_of_biomedical_workers.php A reader passes along this request for comment by the NIH. The "Advisory Committee to the NIH Director Working Group on the Future Biomedical Research Workforce" is asking for thoughts on issues such as the length of time it takes... 75141@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Graduate School 2011-08-18T08:10:59-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/07/19/sezen_sames_what_does_it_say_about_grad_school.php If you haven't seen it, Chembark has Part III of the series on the Sezen/Sames research scandal. And it's another good one, focusing this time on Prof. Sames and his responsibilities in the whole affair. Everyone who's interested should go... 75089@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Graduate School 2011-07-19T10:58:25-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/04/13/the_foxs_lament.php That hedgehog/fox distinction reminds me of my own graduate school experience. I'm a natural fox myself; I've always had a lot of interests (scientifically and otherwise). So a constant diet of my PhD project got to be a strain after... 74949@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Who Discovers and Why 2011-04-13T10:54:43-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/04/05/in_which_i_reminisce_about_the_prins_reaction_chemical_abstracts_and_john_keats.php Well, this post needs updating. In it I mentioned never running a Prins reaction again since the 1980s, nor any photochemistry, and today what do I find myself doing? Both of them, although not at the same time. I am,... 74937@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ The Scientific Literature 2011-04-05T08:01:12-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/01/07/the_phd_problem.php We've had the too-many-doctorates discussion around here a few times, from different angles. The Economist has a good overview of the problem - short on solutions, naturally, but an excellent statement of where things are: Whining PhD students are nothing... 74815@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Graduate School 2011-01-07T08:54:56-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/09/30/the_hours_you_put_in.php Several people have brought this editorial (PDF) to my attention: "Where is the Passion?" It's from a professor at the Sidney Kimmel Center at Johns Hopkins, and its substance will be familiar to many people who've been in graduate school.... 74691@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Who Discovers and Why 2010-09-30T06:27:44-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/09/02/posters_and_pickiness.php Blogging time is short today, since I'm on a deadline to produce a couple of posters for presentation. These are for an internal hoe-down, unfortunately, so I won't be able to share the fruits of my labors with everyone out... 74651@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Graduate School 2010-09-02T08:27:09-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/09/01/how_long_would_it_take_if_everything_worked.php Over at BoingBoing, they're investigating the question: "How long would your PhD have taken if everything worked the first time?" I have to admit, it took me a few minutes to adjust my head to that idea, since God knows,... 74650@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Graduate School 2010-09-01T10:48:38-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/08/27/how_much_is_the_pi_to_blame.php Chemjobber has a post up on the responsibility of the professor in the Texas Tech explosion case. I have to agree with him: if you're going to get grant money to have your group work on energetic materials, you have... 74641@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Safety Warnings 2010-08-27T09:12:09-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/08/24/gegen_die_dummheit_well_guess_who_wins_again.php If you haven't heard about the explosion at Texas Tech earlier this year, this piece is the place to learn about it. (More from Chemjobber and the newly re-blogging Paul Bracher). In short, two graduate students were preparing a nickel... 74636@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Safety Warnings 2010-08-24T14:05:10-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/01/08/reasons_not_to_go_to_grad_school.php There's an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education that's been getting a lot of recent attention. It's titled "Grad School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go". The author, clearly (and to my mind, justifiably) embittered about what he sees... 74207@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Academia (vs. Industry) 2010-01-08T08:47:59-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2009/11/18/ill_get_right_on_that_for_you_professor.php I was going over some thermodynamics the other day, and it hit me that this was just the sort of thing I always tried to avoid when I was actually taking chemistry courses in college and grad school. And here... 74147@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Graduate School 2009-11-18T09:36:02-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2009/06/10/random_questions_answered_randomly.php I had some requests to answer my own "Random Questions" from the other day, so here goes: 1. Does it bother you, or by contrast make you a bit proud, when you tell someone that you're a chemist and (as... 73922@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Graduate School 2009-06-10T07:25:56-05:00