Category Archives: howto

How are you reading the Internet these days?

In the wake of Twitter’s ongoing uh reinvention, and my departure from the site, it’s really become apparent how much I was leaning on Science Twitter as a front page of the Internet — the place I went to find out … Continue reading

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Recent reading: 21 Jan 2022

The period between semesters is supposed to be quiet. I’ve been mentally dumping things to do into this one — paper revisions, reviewing service, analysis of long-awaited new data, a first draft of a new grant, writing my (eek) application … Continue reading

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Recent reading: 7 Jan 2022

It’s a new year, and while many of the challenges of 2020 and 2021 don’t show any sign of letting up, I’m trying to pick up some habits that fell by the wayside while I juggled fully online semesters and … Continue reading

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In the pipeline – Part 1: ‘Plan, plan, and plan some more’

So you’ve decided it’s time to finally get around to starting that sequencing project. But before you aimlessly leap into it and generate terabytes of sequencing data, just STOP.  It’s far too tempting to rush into sequencing projects for a … Continue reading

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Simple rules for organizing data in a spreadsheet

Most scientists collect and organize at least some data in spreadsheets, usually Excel or Google Sheets, despite the potential pitfalls of using such products (there are even archives of spreadsheet horror stories). The most commonly bemoaned problem in Biology, that … Continue reading

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The Molecular Ecologist Podcast: What do you look for in a journal?

A new episode of The Molecular Ecologist Podcast is now out on Anchor.fm. In this episode, we turn to a question that every academic scientist has to answer at some point: How do you choose a scientific journal to receive your paper? Kelle … Continue reading

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The Molecular Ecologist Podcast: Rivers and rabbit resistance

A new episode of The Molecular Ecologist Podcast is now out on Anchor.fm. In this episode, Sarah Shainker tells us about how population genetic structure works differently in river drainages; Kelle Freel recaps her reading on the history of rabbits and rabbit-killing viruses … Continue reading

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The Molecular Ecologist Podcast: Color me viral edition

A new episode of The Molecular Ecologist Podcast is now out on Anchor.fm. In this episode, Patrícia Chrzanová Pečnerová discusses resources for using color to make scientific figures clear and appealing; Stacy Krueger-Hadfield tells us about the complex considerations surrounding tracking and controlling … Continue reading

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Simple tools for mastering color in scientific figures

Call me a procrastinator but I strongly believe that spending time to select a good color scheme can work miracles with a plot, paper, or presentation. In science, it’s generally not expected that you invest time into a thought process … Continue reading

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Applying for a faculty job is a full-time job – the financial burden

Last week I talked about the ‘workload’ of applying for a tenure-track faculty job (let’s call them TT jobs). This week, I want to talk about a different load – the financial one. This burden was a surprise to me, … Continue reading

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