CharonY

Well, teaching is not necessarily helping Also, professors are talking to you?

Usually you can start during your undergrad study as a volunteer, but it generally requires a little experience (e.g. taking a few practical courses in the area). Undergrad research often results in more work for the researchers in the lab (as they have to do hands-on teaching), and having no basics is usually a bit too much effort (unless you demonstrate some practical usefulness). Most funding is provided by agencies such as NIH, NSF and other federal or state departments. Sometimes research (usually applied) is sponsored from other sources. Depends on type of funding, research and reputation of the principle investigator. Getting personal stipends, for instance, is not super-hard. Getting research funds to actually run a lab, much more so. On average the NIH funding are dropping well below 10% (i.e. 90% of all grant applications are rejected), with the more sought-after grants being much lower (close to 1-5%). The average R01 (which is one of the oldest funding mechanisms of the NIH and is considered a bread-and-butter fund) is in his/her 40s, for example. Depends on to what purpose you join a lab. Generally you just ask. Undergrad research is generally not tied to a given degree (but can naturally lead to a bachelor/master/PhD thesis. Research is generally never completed, chances are that if the results are useful someone else will continue, if you produce crap it will be scrapped. Note that there significant differences between countries (or even type of schools within a country).

Depends on what you really want to look at. The first step is to assess sequence similarities which is mostly done via alignments of the peptides under investigation. Clustal is commonly used as well as Dialign (among others). The rest depends on the conclusions you want to draw, e.g. simply just sequence similarity, or true homology. For the latter (i.e. the identification of shared ancestry) just a comparison of two sequences is generally not enough, as you need reference sequences to really trace ancestry.

I was under the impression that English was taught at a fairly high level in Sweden. Wouldn´t it be better to have someone in-house to look over things? Usually it is easier to coordinate that way.

I do not think that we have got a neuroscientist here. My suggestion is to pick up a few good neuro books (e.g. Kandel or any of the many available). Note that in science you do not necessarily get a good mentor relationship. It depends a lot on size of the lab and the principal investigator. Also note that the right research group tends to be become relevant during the postgraduate studies, before that showing a good foundation is usually sufficient.

It depends a lot on the school and ideally you should look for one with a strong curriculum as well as active research. Generally it is not taught in the first two semesters or so, as some foundations in bio are needed. I am thinking that courses may start popping second year or so. It depends how strong and focused bio teaching is (as opposed to life-science oriented curricula).

I agree with the relevance of post grad experience, but you also need some education on cell and molecular biology. It depends a lot on the area (e.g. cancer biology, diagnostics, oncology, pharmacology, etc.). ACS for the most part are not terribly suited to learn about cancer (except for analytics). Better journals are more bio oriented (such as Cell) or medical (e.g. Cancer Research, Lancet Oncology etc). Though for starters textbooks tend to be better,supplemented with current reviews (including from review journals such as Nature Rev Cancer).

Differentiated cells could be used in cases where you want to distinguish them from pluri- or totipotent cells (pluripotent cells are not fully differentiated, but more limited in what they can become than totipoten cells). In almost all other cases you would designate the cells according to what type of cells they are (which can be more or less specific, depending on context).

There are several issue which stand out to me as someone who is not actually actively involved in securing funds. And again, I would like to separate the issue of acceptance of scientific idea and their fundability as the two are not the same (though intertwined from a career viewpoint). I only skimmed the latter part of the essay the first time and came to the conclusion but after re-reading the author pretty much confirmed that it is written from a student´s perspective (see title and the first few sentences of the essay). Another aspect that the author completely ignores is that established scientist in a field usually have a reason for their reputation (i.e. experience is a specific area). If they compete with a newcomer, they are very likely to have an advantage. Is it disproportional? Obviously, once you managed to get funding your chances of getting more increase. The big hurdle is to get your first grant in. It is less an issue of innovation, but of seniority. An established scientist has a bigger chance to push through a somewhat quirky idea (due to his track record) rather than a new one. There are different mechanisms in the NIH (not the mentioned transformative grant that the author mentioned, its goal is a completely different one) that are supposed to help junior scientists, including postdoctoral level grants, as well as a less harsh review process for first-time grants. Nonetheless, this is not about accepting new ideas at this point. Also the author is not very coherent in his argumentation as in the first part of his assay he cites reluctance of novel ideas by citing some (let´s say, controversial) ideas of very established scientists and then claim that established scientists do not have novel ideas (note that the examples were also not necessarily novel, such as. GM food toxicity).. Also he somehow equates contradiction with existing finding as novelty. How is simple contradiction a novelty? A true novelty does not contradict existing knowledge, but expands it. And finally the idea of crowdsourcing, especially for life sciences is a typical hip idea that is not very thought out. If a problem is so specific that you cannot gather sufficient support from the scientific community, how much do you have to dumb it down and sensationalize it to gather significant amount of public interest? Also the author does not appear to know the amount of money required to establish a successful research project. A R01 (the bread and butter grant from the NIH) has a volume of one million in direct costs plus overhead. How many projects of that volume could be reasonably crowdsourced? If that was the way to go we would only do high-profile rock and roll research (which, incidentally the NIH is quite keen on funding) rather than the more basic research that will open up new horizons. As a whole the essay is merely an opinion piece with little on data from a rather limited perspective. Note that the funding system (more or less worldwide) is not ideal. Not even close, but the real problems are much more in the details.

Proximity, the last part of your post is specifically targeting science funding. This is actually quite a different discussion as politics (and hence, public pressure) plays a bigger role. Obviously it does has impact on the scientific community (especially as they determine academic careers) but the mechanisms (and thus, outcomes) are somewhat different to those in academic discussions, which mostly happen within publications and conferences. The linked paper addresses the problem of science careers more than anything. And to be honest I feel that the article was written by a junior scientist getting a first glimpse on the financing system, which is a rather depressive view. But I also feel that it is overly simplicistic description of the issue (it reads a bit like a piece from a grad student not actually actively involved in securing funding and managing a lab, but I may be wrong). But if we want to discuss science funding, I would suggest to open up a new thread as it really is a rather complicated issue (not that I have a lot of nice things to say, though).

All cells are categorized according to their their differentiated state. Examples include neurons, myocytes, hepatocytes etc. and can often be subdivided according to specific functions.

A) gene duplication is a classic type of DNA mutation and therefore not considered epigenetics. B) depending on gene, often there is no specific phenotype associated with it. They are only expressed if the upstream region is also duplicated. C) in terms of reversals it is important to distinguish between reversals of phenotype and genotype. With gene duplication the latter is extremely rare, for the former see B. In cases where it is, the regulation is mostly moderating effects D) what is an inactive spot and how would it be move there?

I think it has been mentioned already somewhere but an important point regarding immune response is that it works within certain biological parameters which are determined by regulatory networks. An efficient defense happens within this The strength of a response does not scale with the efficiency of the immune response. In biological context a strong immune system is one that effectively protects the individual from infections while not creating issues (as mentioned above) due to it. Exposure to harmless microinfections (such as per the hygiene hypothesis, but which is essentially also the reasoning behind vaccinations) do not strengthen the response but allow the system to mount an efficient response against something they encountered already.

I remember that a few papers (PNAS and Plos IIRC) analysed cerebral structures of homo- and heterosexual males and females as well as transsexuals using imaging techniques such as MRI and PET. That study revealed that overall patterns are closer to their biological gender also there were certain regions (forgot which) which were slightly different. The other study however, showed that there appears to be differences in the amygdala connectivity and and volumes of the cerebral hemispheres. In these cases the homosexual individuals showed similarities to their hetereosexual counterparts with the same sex-partner preference. I would be careful to use oversimplifications such as male or female brain as these classifications tend to mask important details. This is especially true when extrapolations of the molecular origins are being made (sorry, this is kind of a professional pet-peeve of mine).

Well, from a German viewpoint at least the Bologna process has a lot of disadvantages. One issue is that the German system was a more specialized system than the UK (or US) system and the Bachelor degree was a bit like an extended "abitur". The now added bachelor and masters degrees are now a kind of hybrid which seemingly takes the bad of both systems. But for other countries this does offer benefits, of course. This is one of the benefits of the EU, of course. While some may have to take a hit on their end, other members may be brought to a higher standard, which could be harder to achieve alone. On a different point, one has to acknowledge how much the EU has changed the perception of their member states to each other. Yes, due to the economic downturn there are issues, but just remember that there are no comparison to the tensions that would have existed just six or seven decades ago.

FBS is a sideproduct of animal slaughter. For the blood products (including BSA) slaughter is unnecessary. Though for sometimes blood from slaughterhouses may be used (I am not sure why you would think that sheep are not used for meat, too). Collection of antibodies from animals requires exsanguination, and therefore results in animal death. The only exception are of course the mentioned in vitro generation.

I am starting this as a split from another thread.http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/71115-finally-in-college/ Actually I can think of a worse scenario, write grants that do not hit and then get urged to write further grants for the PI without actually having time to do research of any sorts (and obviously without crediting in the grant). After two years these postdocs may very well leave the position with nothing to show. Also, as a correction to a an earlier post of mine : the NIH grant towards independence is the K99/R00 mechanism. Non US citizens are also eligible for that. I think there was one more for postdocs but can't remember). Then there are those for junior scientists, but they require sponsoring (or a position other than postdoc). H1B was also ok for those. There are several major issues that postdocs are facing. One is the lack of independence, which is a bit of a bigger issue in the USA. The other, more global issue is the lack of not time-limited positions (which I called mid-level positions). A third issue is that long postdoc actually count against you. In other areas, especially in private sector, years of experience allow you to rise in position as it demonstrates industrial experience. In academia the worth of postdoc drop sharply after around 3-6 years (depending on field). After that time a postdoc may be considered a failure as he/she was not able to secure tenure track within that time (again, I am talking about the US system for now). Together with the potential lack of independence it is not easy for the postdoc to get out of that mess. One thing to realize is that careers are generally not made on ones own. There is always the requirement of support from the PI (ideally) or securing the support from the community. Unfortunately most junior postdocs still solely focus on productivity (i.e. publishing papers), but that is not enough. Creating visibility is obviously the major obstacle and I would like to discuss some methods to achieve that as well as maybe discuss strategies to deal with PIs of various types, as well as how to become a good PI yourself. Edit: I do not know how to quote

Actually there are at least two grant mechanisms that you could take advantage of. One which eventually is supposed to give you independence is the K22 mechanism (IIRC). But obviously this does not alleviate the broader issue.

In the academic area one of the major issues (IMO) is that there are no real mid-level positions (with very few exceptions). Either you are on the path of getting tenure, or you are stuck on temporary positions. A postdoc is essentially a cheap waiting loop until you either score a TT or find something outside academia. Obviously there cannot be sufficient tenure positions to absorb all graduates (or even just the majority of them), and since there is the political will to increase the number of graduates, the situation is likely to become worse. Sad thing is that I know quite a few people who would actually be content with the equivalent of postdoc positions, despite the low pay. However, the way the system is set up, a long postdoc is likely to hurt your career and make you more dependent on the goodwill of your supervisor (but that is another issue entirely.

One has to be careful with these projections. Virtually everywhere (including US) there is a claim that more engineers or scientists are needed. Truth is that companies demand a surplus of scientists and engineers so that they have a large pool to draw from. Unless the situation is vastly different from Germany there is no guaranteed success, either. Of course this is vastly economy-dependent. During the Biotech boom late 90s and 2000 a lot of people got a job almost immediately post-graduation in the biotech area (mostly sales and product management). The projections at that time were also vastly optimistic. In the mid 2000 many companies had to shrink themselves healthy and lay off people. Since 2011 many are on a waiting loop in terms of new hires. The rather obvious thing is that job projections are (similar to most economic projections) vastly unreliable. And finally, there is of course always the actual mechanics of getting a job. Just because there is a need (assuming there is) and you are qualified, does not guarantee you a job. In the end, post PhD jobs are extremely dependent on networking (even company positions). Another thing that I should mention is that many companies (well, I heard it from German and US companies FWIW) are reducing their commitment for on-the-job training and even entry positions require a certain amount of industrial experience. The reason they can do that is the (relatively) high amount of unemployment of already trained personnel. Only if they cannot find someone with experience to fit the spot (or when specialist knowledge is needed) a real entry-level person will be hired. Captain, IIRC you are working in biotech in the Netherlands? Maybe you can share your experience. I am always interested in info from the private sector side.

The point is that one has to have a realistic understanding of the actual situation. A PhD is nothing more than a base qualification that gives you nothing career-wise on its own. As Arete said, many students just concentrate on their degree and do not realize that getting a career afterwards requires a serious long-term strategy. Another rather depressing aspect is that landing a job is often not a function of your (scientific) abilities. For both academic and private sector hiring is often based on intangibles. In other words, things like a high publication rates alone will not guarantee a job. It is really important also to invest time in career building rather than just doing ones job (goes for grad students as well as postdocs, for that matter).

I suppose he/she is a master student (usually a little bit below a classic German diploma in education, at least on the practical side). There are also a number of nice reviews out there for a lot of different contexts. That being said it would be helpful to closer define the scope (e.g. organism? origins/evolution? functions? mechanisms? etc.)

You will have to look what kind of position actually exist. There are not many pure research positions. Most principal investigators are also college teachers. There are of course research institutes which sometimes have fewer or no research load, but the positions are extremely rare (much more so if limited to a given topic, of course). I am not aware of consulting positions outside of think tanks (again, not really a mass market). TBH what you describe is something most students drawn to science are interested in. Thinking about problems and conduct experiments. In reality the job market and requirements are quite different. Also, if you manage to obtain a non-term, non-teaching research position (again, a very rare thing), your job will mostly entail securing funds, networking, managing people, etc. In fact, the more successful you are as a scientist, the less time you will have for science. Sounds paradoxical, but is unfortunately true (and is another reason why people leave academia). Meeting with people in the job and talking to them is definitely the right way to go. Note that companies tend not to do a terrible amount of research. Often, innovations are grown outside the private sector and then grow into startups, for example.

This is most definitively not the case. As a note to Ringer´s data, they are from an older survey and the situation has gotten much much worse due to the economic downturn. Also note that the majority of PhD holders do not remain "lab-rats". Actual in-lab positions for PhDs are almost always transient and based on term-contracts. Postdocs are in quite a way waiting positions with a lot of uncertainty of getting a tenure-track position (which is filled with uncertainty of actually getting tenure). The funding rate of 18% mentioned by Arete is actually way lower for junior scientists (usually assistant prof level) as the majority of funds are awarded to well-established groups (i.e. often groups that already had funding). First-time success rate was way below 10% (often around 2, I was told). Just to reinforce what Arete said, a PhD alone is not a goal to anything. You will have to identify the position you want to get and for some you may need a PhD. However getting an academic position is very competitive (roughly 20 % of all PhDs will get tenure eventually) takes a long time (depending on discipline most tenures are granted around the forties). There are arguably more industrial positions, but even they can wait and select the best fit. This does not mean having a PhD but having a lot of hard and soft skills (especially the latter) that makes a candidate more attractive. Just to give some real-world number: the average number of candidates for a given tenure-track position are usually 100-200 (depending on how attractive the position is), in industrial settings the numbers I have heard range from 50-200. All of them with PhDs and usually considerable relevant experience and skills. As you can see, a PhD barely covers the basics. Note: this is not to deter anyone from pursuing a PhD (we need cheap labor, after all), but it is important to decide on a career path prior to entering a PhD track. This is more akin to a technician position and most of the time requires a master degree (or bachelor plus proof of experience).

As StringJuy said, the hand lens is not held at fixed distance from your eyes,which would force your eyes to change focus. Instead, you normally keep your eyes relatively relaxed and adjust focus by moving your hand.