Linkage
May 20, 2013
The National Institute on Aging has a new blog, go comment and tell them we want funding data!
Francis Collins was on Hardball discussing the sequester impact.
“Independent Scientist” Perlstein covered in Science, bit titled “Going Rogue”. Unfortunately.
Impact Factor Distortions editorial
The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) is unimpressed with Impact Factor assessment of science.
Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine give $70 Million to USC. Scientists everywhere fantasize about finding their own celebrity backers…..
The unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of writer’s block (h/t Namnezia)
DrugMonkey 
May 20, 2013 at 10:20 am
You know your discipline is excessively ossified when what Perlstein is doing constitutes “Going Rogue”. It’s like republicans and mavericks.
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May 20, 2013 at 10:45 am
The Francis Collins bit on Hardball was nice.
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May 20, 2013 at 10:54 am
Internet Rule 14 applies when dealing with Perlstain – do not feed the trolls! Seriously, if ever there was someone more deserving of the term “attention whore”, I’ve yet to meet them.
Re: Dre, does knowing your professorship is funded by over-priced over-hyped re-badged monster headphones make you feel more or less secure as a music faculty?
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May 20, 2013 at 10:55 am
Yea, props to Francis Collins. He excels at the public advocacy/ bully pulpit part of his job. How does he suffer fools so calmly and with grace? In the Senate hearings last week, Senator Shelby was being a total wanker, and Collins just sat there and listened before giving Shelby the respectful answer he didn’t deserve.
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May 20, 2013 at 11:04 am
beta-blockers?
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May 20, 2013 at 11:25 am
The lead singer of Offspring has an MS from USC in molecular biology. They should get him to endow a chair in biology. Maybe for the study of the neuroscience of self-esteem.
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May 20, 2013 at 11:25 am
Senator Shelby was being a total wanker…
At least he was there.
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May 20, 2013 at 12:35 pm
Senator Shelby was a sideshow–a “gentleman bully.” He started out pontificating about his own desire to double the NIH budget…but he’d “like to get to little road kill first.” Then he cherry-picked some funded grants and mocked them, to get base fired up. Çollins addressed his faux-concern, and calmly explained why the research was so important.
We also got strong representation from Gary Gibbons and Anthony Faucci. Story Landis gave spirited testimony for neuroscience, although I doubt anybody there knew what she was talking about when she said “electroceutical interventions.”
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May 20, 2013 at 7:37 pm
Alex- let the dude get his PhD before he bribes the school. It looks better that way.
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May 20, 2013 at 8:28 pm
Yeah, if they don’t give him his PhD he’ll be all “I won’t pay, I won’t pay ya, no waaaaaaay……”
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May 21, 2013 at 9:00 am
Shelby is about to have ANOTHER building named for him on UAB’s campus…….I doubt he takes a hard line against NIH funding; it would hurt the ability of his name to adorn brick and mortar structures.
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May 22, 2013 at 7:51 am
With regard to the NIA funding data, I am working with a colleague on a book about interacting with the NIH and we are doing our best to collect such funding data from as many ICs as possible. NIA is one who have already provided some data so that I know that they are doing the analysis. The book is going into production fairly soon.
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May 22, 2013 at 11:54 am
DM – mostly unrelated, but did you ever find out what was up with NIAAA from this past cycle? They must have a heckuva backlog, based on my RePORTER-stalking they’ve only issued one new R01 since Jan. 1.
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May 22, 2013 at 12:26 pm
No idea cn, been wondering about that myself. They got a handful out in Dec right? So possibly that past round was already accounted for and we’re just looking at them being late for the current round. There are a couple of early April R21s but those could easily be from the end of the Fall council round.
I heard one very bizarre (but officialish) comment from another IC to the effect of waiting until after the Summer council round to deal with *any* awards from the current council round. That seemed weird to me but with the sequester, who knows.
NIAAA is also currently looking to replace the acting director with a fully appointed one. Rumor has it that this will be announced within months. Since the Director of an IC plays such a large role in what gets funded (officially all input on grant funding is only advisory to the Director if I have that right) maybe the NIAAA is waiting on this person to act?
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May 30, 2013 at 8:06 am
They awarded a second one last week. Maybe the spigot is opening? I know a handful of people who were reviewed in NIAAA’s January council back in February, including a few R01’s and a K, and none has heard anything beyond the usual heavily-caveatted PO-speak.
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May 30, 2013 at 8:38 am
One more is hardly opening the spigot….
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