The Molecular Ecologist

Noah Reid over at Nothing in Biology has written a wide ranging and very interesting post about a recent Mol Ecol paper on inbreeding depression in bighorn sheep. I particularly liked this part:

“I found this paper fascinating in that it is the first I’ve read that tries to examine the genomic architecture of this important phenomenon. As the authors note, similar analyses have been conducted in the past, but they are often directed at specifically trying to find loci that cause incompatibility between populations in the context of speciation, rather than examining this complex phenomenon.”

The whole post is here. There’s also an excellent perspective piece by Zach Gompert that accompanies the Miller et al. paper, and both will very likely appear in issue 21.6 (mid March).

I thought some of you would be interested in this:

http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/02/01/the-famous-grouse-do-prominent-scientists-have-biased-perceptions-of-peer-review/…

Since all the bloggers are heading back to their homes and log fires for the Christmas break, we’re going to put the blog on hold until early in 2012… we hope to see you then!

On May 7, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco received an aerial tour of coastal Louisiana with Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House Counsel on Environmental Quality. NOAA Corps CAPT Michele Finn coordinated the flight. Here, Lubchenco and Finn discuss the situation after the survey. Credit: NOAA.

So how does one become a successful academic and then turn around and create an equally successful career as a scientific leader and advisor to the, ahem, President of the United States? One important factor, that arose not with just Jane Lubchenco but with all the women I interviewed, was explicit mentorship.   Each one of these women described a mentor(s), who championed them as scientists and encouraged them to step beyond what they might imagine for themselves.  In Part II of our interview, Dr. Lubchenco summed it up nicely when she said, “Each of my mentors told me in their own way to believe in myself and to stretch in new directions.”  What else contributed to her astounding success?  Read on.

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