Unexpected 9: Like Old
This came out of left field It’s weird Embarrassing Frankly unbelievable Possible? Yes! I like old people! Well, some old people. This...
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Dec 24, 20237 min read
Unexpected 8: Be Cause
Each year the second floor of the Institute for Evolutionary Sciences at the University of Montpellier (ISEM) organizes a Christmas...
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Oct 31, 202321 min read
Unexpected 7: Barbershop Snippets
I didn’t expect to reflect on hair-cutting experiences until seeing the Colloquium by Barbara Thériault at the Wissenshaftskolleg zu...
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Oct 11, 20231 min read
Beams in the Distance
The card led to cobbles but the lead, the road was too, far, too off in the distance to start again, to mend, to the end. Yet he lay...
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Jul 2, 202311 min read
25 years since the founding of Ecology Letters
It’s 25 years this month since the publication of the first issue of Ecology Letters. I remember this as the culmination of more than a...
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Mar 17, 202321 min read
Unexpected 6: The Right Field
Life's trajectories are unpredictable. Sure, statistics can be used to predict life events, such as I am extremely likely to still live...
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Jan 28, 202322 min read
Unexpected 5: The Visitor
Life’s paths change from time to time. Some unexpected, apparently harmless forks turn out to have major ramifications. The prime...
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Oct 10, 202216 min read
Peer Review
The main objectives of peer review are to improve manuscript quality and advise the editor regarding acceptance. But peer review’s two...
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Aug 17, 202213 min read
Unexpected 4: Dragons
All of our lives have bifurcation points. Many of them. Choices in education. Choices in jobs. Choices in friends. We carefully navigate...
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Jul 10, 202213 min read
Unexpected 3: Old Man In Tree
I go along with the flow. I trust people, especially those (seemingly) with expertise. When I prepare for what’s to come, I know which...
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Jun 4, 202217 min read
Can’t Unsee
In recently scanning Tweets, my eyes halted for a second on a closeup of someone smiling. He didn’t particularly stand out from what I...
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May 19, 20227 min read
Social Media
Email, blogs, interviews, podcasts, Facebook, Twitter and conferences are only a few of the many ways scientists communicate with each...
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Apr 2, 202218 min read
Unexpected 2: Travel Tangents
I received my Bachelor’s in Bioresource Sciences in June 1982. It took the usual 4 years to complete, split between two universities....
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Feb 7, 202210 min read
Unexpected 1: The Counselor's Office
I grew up in the San Fernando Valley in the 60s and 70s. Life seemed to follow a straight path. From the youngest age I wanted to be an...
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Dec 22, 202112 min read
Are We Publishing Too Many Articles?
You will not be surprised to learn that the number of journal articles published yearly is growing. What you probably don’t know is that...
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Nov 28, 20211 min read
Why no reply?
We all know how annoying it can be not to receive a reply to a well-intentioned email. The default is the person is probably 'busy'. Busy...
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Oct 14, 20217 min read
The writing mind-set
Your working environment influences both motivation and writing quality. In this first of a series of Blog posts about writing scientific...
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Aug 17, 202112 min read
The Package
“. . . In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City,...
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Jun 14, 20215 min read
Two Easy Pieces
When COVID-19 emerged in early 2020, scientists, particularly those with some background in virology and epidemiology, began applying...
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Apr 25, 20214 min read
Mass shootings – The new not normal
This brief essay from December 2015 [1] presents the hypothesis that social environments and psychological distributions lay behind the...
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Mar 28, 202115 min read
How Journals Operate
Ask a scientist—particularly at the start of their career—how journals work and you will either get a blank stare or a logical but...
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Mar 1, 202110 min read
COVID-19 in the Information Commons
We sometimes underappreciate the extent to which science is a community endeavor. Yes, science is done by individuals, laboratories, and...
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Feb 13, 20219 min read
Disposable Science
One of the great challenges to science is the ever-increasing number of publications. More items mean greater difficulty keeping up with...
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Feb 5, 20213 min read
Conferences in the COVID era
Imagine going to a major conference and only 100 people show up. All the name badges fit on a table. No locals to greet you with a...
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Dec 28, 20207 min read
The Drop Culture
Science exists if published. Achieving a publication in an accredited journal is the culmination of hundreds if not thousands of...
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