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Archives for December, 2009

The Story of the Datum

There is no better feeling in science than to see weeks of planning a new experiment come together in one day’s work to produce data. To be more correct, one datum. We’ve been working for weeks building a prototype, and developing the experimental conditions in which we could test the prototype. The test conditions were [...]

Catch-22 in Academia

In an effort to facilitate development of technologies the Bayh-Dole act also mandates that preference for licensing and developing opportunities of federally funded discoveries be given to small US owned companies. This stimulation has been a boon to the technology sector.

Students are the Farm Team.

There is an old saying that those who can do; those who can’t teach. While I’m not too sure about that, there is an interesting paradigm in higher education. That is the highest level scientists in the USA tend to be successful scientists and researchers by spending time doing research, writing grants and papers. The [...]

Peaks and Valleys in Academia

Peaks and Valleys. The whole lifestyle of college professors and most academics is a series of peaks and valleys. We are exuberant with successes like funded grants and exciting research data. Conversely we live with constant rejection from failed experiments, rejected papers and grant applications. So the peaks really need to outweigh the depths reached [...]