Schmoozing for your peers

Had a recent interaction with a BigCheez type recently that reminded me I wanted to discuss altruistic schmoozing. Networking on behalf of someone else, that is. This applies all up and down the career ranks if you think about it. But it is most focused on my usual targets, the transitioning and recently-transitioned scientists.

Motivation to Commute on Bike

Dave Moulton (I’ll say it again, yeah, that Dave Moulton!) has the call. He found a blog called Copenhagen Girls on Bikes which exists to:

 inspire people in other countries to commute by bicycle or lobby for better bike conditions in their cities by providing a portrait of a city that lives and breathes bikes.

by, of course, putting up pics of attractive women riding their bikes around Copenhagen.

I’m envisioning my local version which would be the Notoriously Wasted and Tattoo Infested Chix Wobbling Dangerously on Figure-8 Wheeled Rusty Beach Cruisers blog. I gotta get me one of them helmet cams.

Yet another commentary on the NIH funding problem

There is a recent commentary in Nature from Brian C. Martinson, one of those chaps funded to study the enterprise of science. Recent pubs from this author/group on ethical conduct in science are here, here and here. [Update: See a prior note on this work from writedit.]

Bait quotes to get you to read the commentary (emphasis all added, DM):

we should all be concerned about the negative effects this may have on the robustness of the research engine; by damping scientists’ willingness to pursue high-risk projects; by causing them to spend excessive time in pursuit of funding; or by causing talented individuals to shun research careers.