Say yer prayers, gecko

I trust most of the folks that read this blog are out obsessively writing and collecting data.

That said, as an entomologist in a department of vertebrate biologists, this video does the heart good.

The anxiety of influence

In all creative endeavors there is a phenomenon called the anxiety of influence–the angst arising from the suspicion that your ideas are supposed to be your own, but that they are in fact related to, or derivative of, those that have gone before.

Among grad students in the sciences, this can set up a tension between advisor and graduate student.

Now tension is not necessarily a bad thing. In measured doses, the anxiety of influence pushes you forward to do something new. And one hallmark of good science is novelty.

Don’t let it worry you too much. It is expected that a grad student, at least in their first year or so, will be doing something closely related to your advisor. Hopefully, you two will be discussing lots of ideas. The last thing you want to do is constantly dwell on ownership of ideas.

It is your advisor’s job to recognize and nurture your insights. In most cases, those insights will constitute a “rediscovery” (the nature of 99% of all insights). In other words, you will have made a cool and valid connection that someone has made before.

Some small proportion of the time, you will make a connection that is the genesis of a new, truly cool idea.

Both represent progress, in that you are learning to think creatively.

After a time, you will even begin to recognize which is which by the way your advisor reacts. A “rediscovery” will illicit a warm smile (“progress!”, your advisor thinks); the genuine, new, cool idea will involve more expressive body language.

At some point, the anxiety of influence magically disappears. This event is often associated with your first paper, or the corpus of your dissertation.

Happy Friday–The World of Chemistry

Watch this video and tell me if you can ever again think of organic chemistry in quite the same way.

QOTD:Thich Nhat Hanh

“Smile, breathe and go slowly.”

Some advice from Dr. Bob

Check it out.

NIMBY Vela Supernova

Oh sure, it’s all fun and games until the bloody sun blows up.

This image shows the devastation wrought when a star explodes. The Vela Supernova Remnant formed when a massive star 800 light years away blew up 11,000 years ago. Expanding at a ferocious velocity, it is now 8 degrees across in the sky — 16 times the apparent width of the Moon, and about the size of your outstretched fist! David’s mosaic shows a stunning amount of detail, tracing the variety of shapes and patterns the expanding gas makes as it slams into the interstellar junk floating around it.

From the always excellent Bad Astronomy Blog.

GtDA poll:What would you do if you had 10 million dollars?

When I was a grad student at the University of Arizona in Tucson, the state of Arizona came up with the $1 dollar lottery ticket, promising the chance at the big money.

I admit to buying a few of those tickets (I recall our annual stipend was a whopping $8K, and that was in Reagan dollars). I would fantasize about what I would do when I won–start an ecological institute, and hire the coolest post docs to do cool stuff, and meet once a week to talk about the cool stuff they were doing.

Funny thing, my answer would be pretty much the same today. I think. (I would like to perform the experiment). Of course, I would throw in lots of travel to experience unique things near and dear to my heart. I would love, for example, to hear great orchestras play the Beethoven Symphonies.

It’s not a bad question, really. Since you can’t have more time, what would you do with more money? If you’re in grad school, and your answer has little to do with “finding things out”, or “teaching”, then…fer cryin’ out loud, get yerself on a path that get’s you closer to what you want to be.

Regardless, what would you with your life if you suddenly to didn’t have to worry about the next paycheck?

R.I.P. George Carlin

We’ve lost a good one folks. Academics talk a lot about teaching critical thinking.

I only wish every campus would celebrate, randomly, once a year, George Carlin Day. A day which the lecturer would leave the stage, the assigned PowerPoint presentation would be deferred until–oh, I don’t know, never–and the class would be allowed to listen to an hour of George Carlin. With a Carl Sagan chaser.

Maybe the world would edge a wee bit closer to this side of sanity.

Toward that end, one of Carlin’s better’uns, from When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?

The Secret News
Good Evening ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for the secret news.
Sshh.
Here’s the secret news:
All people are afraid.
No one knows what they’re doing.
Everything is getting worse.
Some people deserve to die.
Your money is worthless.
No one is properly dressed.
At least one of your children will disappoint you.
The system is rigged.
Your house will never be completely clean.
All teachers are incompetent.
There are people who really dislike you.
Nothing is as good as it seems.
Things don’t last.
No one is paying attention.
The country is dying.
God doesn’t care.
Sshh

Welcome to the food web

’spect most of the folks that read this blog are out obsessively writing and collecting data and have little time to spend cruisin’ the blogs. It is field season, after all.

That said, as an entomologist in a department of vertebrate biologists, this video does the heart good.

Happy Friday–Penn and Teller

I study social insects for a living. That said, honeybees have always seemed to be rather wimpy, and thus prone to the kind of abuse in this video.

I’d love to see them try this with army ants…

Photos by Christien Ziegler