| Mind: Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits Psychologists have discovered that some of the most hallowed advice on study habits is flat wrong. feeds.nytimes.com |
Observatory: Crows Put Tools to Use to Access a Nutritious Diet Since crows that are good tool users have better access to highly nutritious food, it is beneficial to learn how to use tools. feeds.nytimes.com |
Scientists threatening to leave Britain: case studies Five of the UK's leading experts tell how cuts to research funding are forcing them to look abroad• Datablog: Alok Jha explains how science funding worksProfessor Brian FosterProfessor Brian Foster, a particle physicist, says he is "seriously contemplating" shifting most of his research to Germany.He has been offered a prestigious professorship at Hamburg University in conjunction with one of the world's leading centres for the investigation of the structure of matter. It comes with £4.3m to spend on research of his choice over five years.He says it is "likely, but not certain" that he will take this up. He would maintain his position with Oxford, but says "the centre of gravity of my research would very much shift to Germany. There is nothing remotely as generous in the UK."Foster says he let his name go forward for the position out of concern at the cuts already applied to particle physics and astronomy. If extra cuts go ahead in the government's spending review next month they are likely to "sharpen my decision very much", he says.Foster says it is "common sense" to assume that if scientists across the world hear the UK government is about to cut research funds by 20%, they "aren't going to come here".This is particularly the case when the US, Japan, France and Germany are increasing funds to science."The opportunity for them to come is also demonstrably decreasing simply because positions are being cut. My particle physics department in Oxford has lost about half the postdoctoral researchers and support staff it had when I arrived seven years ago."UK physicists are substantially funded by the United States, Foster says, and there is a "long list" of cancelled or substantially scaled-back research projects. "One could weep at the idiocy of the coalition throwing the baby out with the bath water. UK science is demonstrably the most cost-effective and selective anywhere in the world. We do more for less than anywhere else. The damage to UK science, if cuts go ahead, may be more serious than even the Thatcher years."David ProctorDavid Proctor is considering leaving the UK despite having a long-term girlfriend in Dundee, where he has lived for the past four and a half years.The 33-year-old scientist, who is funded by cancer research charities to study enzymes, says the likelihood of major cuts to science is driving him to consider moving back to the US, where he was born."The opportunities just aren't going to be here," he says. He is worried that there will be cuts to universities as well as to research councils – publicly funded agencies that are responsible for co-ordinating and funding research in specific fields.In contrast, back home, President Barack Obama plans to increase government funds for science by at least 8%. "I will only return home if I'm unable to find a job that will allow me to remain in the UK."As an American, it's much easier for me to find work at home than in the UK, but I'd like to stay if I can."I have a girlfriend who is local so it would have been good to stay. Socially I like living in the UK."He has started to apply for jobs abroad as well as in the UK.Proctor says the cuts are on scientists' radar. "I know a couple of people who are thinking of moving. For me, it would also be a career move."I don't want to be a professor and I also don't want to be a high-level technician. I want to do research and there doesn't seem to be a career track for people who want to do that over here."Professor Kate JefferyOne of the country's most esteemed neuroscientists, Professor Kate Jeffery, has started to "future-proof" her career by exploring options abroad.For 20 years Jeffery has been working on spatial navigation – how the brain makes sense of the space around us. The work helps to explain Alzheimer's and some forms of amnesia. Her lab at University College London attracts researchers from Spain, Greece, Iceland, Italy and Germany. She also has a company she started with her husband that makes scientific equipment, which she would take with her if she left."My university is the best place in the country to do the kind of research I do," she says. "However, my research is entirely contingent on grant money. If I became unable to fund my research, then I would leave. Like many scientists, I suspect, I have already begun 'future-proofing' by staring to explore what options might be available outside the country if the worst happens."Jeffery left her family in New Zealand to work in the UK. "Leaving them was very difficult, but my desire to do science was even stronger. Like most scientists, I have a passion for this kind of work … I would readily give up the life I have here in order to pursue my interests elsewhere if I had to."Applying for funding can take months, she says. Even then, there is a four in five chance of failure. "If it fails, as most do, that is devastatingly disappointing, but you just pick yourself up and start all over again. Grant-getting is gruelling and occupies about 30% of a typical scientist's time. If funding declines even further and the success rate becomes even less, then the average researcher … will not have time to find funding. Some will doubtless leave the profession altogether, but the most committed will simply go elsewhere."Science, Jeffery says, is not like finance. "It is deeply cultural and that culture is fragile and easily damaged. I really hope we don't end up vandalising one of our greatest assets."Carlos GiasCarlos Gias has dedicated the last few years to searching for a cure for the most common form of blindness, age-related macular degeneration. Now, though, he has had enough, and decided to quit the UK, tempted by colleagues' descriptions of the lavish funding available abroad.It is simply too hard to find a job in this country, the postdoctoral researcher says, and too frustrating. Careers in British science are spent writing grant applications.Gias will be giving up a field he finds fascinating. From his laboratory at University College London's Institute of Ophthalmology, he studies the effectiveness of different therapies to treat loss of sight."I'm 34 and I've been working on this for a long time. I want to have my own [research] group, I want to establish myself. I can see from established researchers how hard it is."It is different overseas, he said. "I was talking to a colleague today who's been talking to a Chinese researcher and he was shocked finding that we have to keep on applying for grants over and over again and spending a lot of time [doing that]."He added: "I'm realising that it's only going to get harder now, which makes me think, 'is this good for me?'"Gias is also considering quitting science altogether to go into finance. Politicians in Britain have decided that "the banks will be saved, but not the universities", he said.Tom WhyntieCambridge graduate Tom Whyntie is warning that universities in Germany and the United States are already headhunting British researchers with the cuts in mind.Whyntie, who is finishing his PhD at Cern – the European organisation for nuclear research – says he knows postdoctoral researchers who have been headhunted and that it is a "very tempting offer".The 26-year-old particle physicist says funding for his field has been cut by so much in the last three years that if it goes any further he'll be looking for a job outside the UK. "As a scientist you want to be worrying about the experiments, not your next pay cheque," he says. "It's pretty much critical now. A 25% cut and it will be game over for my field. A 10% cut would be the straw that broke the camel's back. We need extra money just to stay where we are."Whyntie says he'll be looking for a postdoctoral research post in Germany and the US if the cuts go ahead."This is really about the kind of signal that our government is sending out. Cuts would show they aren't committed to science and aren't serious about keeping the best people in the UK."We have a track record of using our knowledge well in the UK. You just have to look at Cambridge to see how the economy can grow when incredibly bright people are centred in one place."Research fundingHigher educationResearchLiberal-Conservative coalitionScience funding crisisScience policyJessica ShepherdJeevan Vasagarguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Doing it for the thrill Lily Asquith: The LHC has had a great couple of weeks, hugely stepping up its rate of data production and passing the target for the year, which was set back in March. And Lily is learning to drive.This week I have been trying in vain to garner an interest in frequentist confidence levels. To be honest, I'm doing it (high energy physics) for the thrill.We just got two picobarns of data in a day, which has excited me immensely. I have only just realised that I have been standing in the same position in my kitchen for two hours submitting jobs to the grid and my feet are completely numb. When I have finished writing this I will simply allow myself to fall to the floor and then drag my lifeless body to the bedroom for a couple of hours sleep.ATLAS is lapping up the dataWhat the hell is a picobarn, though? Before you google it, I will try to explain. First of all, ATLAS has now taken 16.72 inverse picobarns of data in total since startup. A picobarn is 10-12 (0.000000000001) of a barn, and a barn is a measure of area.Amusingly, this is named for the phrase "as big as barn", but a barn in particle physics is not particularly big. It is 10-28 square metres. In English, a barn is vanishingly small. You could fit about a zillion barns in a pinprick. So what 16.72 inverse picobarns actually means is that we have recorded 16.72 hits in a vanishingly small area. Sort of.A barnA dartboard is something like 0.7 square metres in area, and if you throw a dart at it you have made data, or a hit, which would cover about 1/700 of the board. We are covering that dartboard with miniscule pinpricks, and we now have made 16.72*1040 (1672 followed by thirty-eight zeroes) hits on that board, with a lot of them (an eighth) being this week.I almost committed the ultimate driving faux pas this morning. Hurtling down 75th street listening to La Roux on the radio, I was about 15 feet (I'm not going to convert that into barns) off the back of a school bus when I had a flash back to my driving theory test.Thou shalt not ever overtake a school bus when it is picking up kids with its arm out. Punishable by huge fine, loss of license and immediate lynching from aforementioned arm. I stopped just in time. Probably a bit late if I'm honest, but nobody attacked me so I may be okay. Or I may be arrested tomorrow morning.Do not mess with these buses.I find myself continually practising what I will say, in my finest English accent, when I am arrested. I don't know where my terror of police comes from. I am also scared of nuns for no apparent reason. Anyway, the accent didn't help Hugh Grant much, so I should really try and avoid getting nicked in the first place.Back to the point - In theory I am completely able to pass the test, but in practise I am a thrill-seeking idiot.I got as far as printing the paper on frequentist confidence levels, but I know in my heart that pressing "print" means I will never read it. Thank god there are stronger souls than mine in this field, or we would never get anywhere.Jon Butterworthguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Dark energy flattens the Universe Researchers have developed a simple geometrical method to add weight to the idea that ours is a flat, dark-energy-rich Universe. bbc.co.uk |