NIAID pulls out of EUREKA

NIAID is pulling out as a sponsor of the EUREKA program.

Due to the substantial preliminary interest communicated by numerous investigators in widely disparate fields of research versus the limited new funds projected to be available  for this initiative, NIAID has determined that investigators interested in support from NIAID would be much better served, and are likely to have a higher ultimate success rate, by applying for unsolicited R01 grants in response to the Research Project Grant (R01) parent announcement that can be found at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-07-070.html .  The NIAID remains committed to considering one award for up to $400,000 to a EUREKA application responsive to the NIGMS research scope and programmatically important to NIAID.

We apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused investigators.

HUH?????!!!!!

Recognition

I keep meaning to talk about our deficit of recognizing and marking important successes in science careers. One problem is that the our triumphs dribble out over time making it hard to know what to celebrate. Getting that paper submitted? Acceptance? Appearance on Medline? or in hardcopy?

Career steps are weird. Because there is always this subtle belief of “well of course”. Well of course you earned your doctorate. Well of course your institution awarded you tenure because from the outside we like your work and think you are  the real goods. Well of course you got a grant because that’s what we do here, get grants.

I have more on this.

But today let us mark the successful doctoral thesis defense of blogger Thomas Robey of “Hope for Pandora“.  Go give Dr. Robey a shout out, will ya?

Welcome to the club Thomas.

Slowly extend middle finger

Unsurprisingly, you can make your life better in sports by learning new skills. It’s one of those fun little benefits that you can set out objectively to get better at something and within a short time have obvious results. Cool. How many aspects of your life offer this?