Take note, people!

http://jbdeaton.com/2010/things-you-never-say-to-a-graduate-student/

Fashion for women in science...part 1

Just wanted to link to this post about women's dress for a scientific meeting. I'm impressed by how professional everyone looks. The average outfit at the Ecological Society of America meeting (ESA) is tevas with cargo shorts and a tie-dye shirt. I would LOVE to do this at ESA but get the full range of outfits. There would be QUITE a range, but I can tell you suits would not be present.

http://cobblab.blogspot.com/2012/12/womens-attire-at-agu.html

Another great thing about Florida

...is the armadillos!

News Flash...Cookies!

Keebler coconut dream cookies are THE SAME as Girl Scouts' Caramel Delights  (or Samoas if you come from that part of the country). So delicious. I'm not usually into buying store-bought cookies (why buy them when you could make them yourself, better?), but field work makes me bend my rules and buy things I don't usually buy, like coconut dreams and flavor-blasted Goldfish. So good. I keep telling myself I'm going to reduce my sodium intake, and then buy flavor-blasted Goldfish. To be fair, I have been sweating all day out in the sun. So I figure I need the salt.

Funding science

I was recently discussing the current state of research funding with some other scientists. Most science funding for university researchers comes from the government--National Science Foundation, National Institute of Health, Department of Energy, NASA, etc. As most of us know, funding rates are decreasing, especially with changes to National Science Foundation policies. As more people get PhDs and go into research, the chance of getting money for research isn't likely to go up anytime soon. I think we need a new system. I see two models: 1) a patron system, like artists in the Renaissance used or 2) a sales system, where we develop products to fund our research.

Under a patron system, individual researchers or teams of researchers would be funded by a donor (the patron), and the scientists would research exactly what the patron wanted. Unfortunately, I think we would get a lot of superficial or inane questions that wouldn't necessarily further scientific knowledge. Unless of course, that patron is a scientist him/herself. Could universities or institutions be patrons? Perhaps, but they still need the money to come from somewhere.

The sales system is already used by pharmaceutical companies and probably every company that does R&D. Develop a product, sell it, use some of the profit to fund more research, get rich in the process. Or at least that's the goal. Could individual researchers use this method? I suppose we could to some extent. The problem is that developing something that people actually want to buy takes time, and wouldn't leave a whole lot of time for the actual "useless" research that is contributing to our knowledge of the world around us. Basically, we would have to develop immediate applications for our research that are marketable, or sell awesome souvenirs. Crowdsourcing sites like Petri Dish encourage researchers to give a souvenir of their research to donors. Photos, hats, and having a species named after you are cool rewards for donors. I could sell mangrove mud masks, photos of insects, and maybe some aquarium plants...I wonder if that would work. Hmm...

Total fail

I've been a total failure at keeping up with posts...sorry! Bear with me, because I came down with a nasty stomach sickness yesterday. This has never happened to me in Panama before, because the water in Panama City is very clean and fine to drink. I blame the water at the field station--every so often, they run out of water because people steal parts of the pipe down the road, so they have to call in a water truck to fill up tanks on site. I have a feeling the tanks are not the cleanest...sigh. I know travelers in Mexico call this "Montezuma's revenge" but since I'm in Panama I think I'll call it "Colombia's revenge" since the US helped "liberate" Panama from Colombia.

Wildlife sightings

For July 5, 2012:

3 three-toed sloths
1 coati (Nasua nasua)

Coatis are related to raccoons, but have longer, skinnier tails and a snout more reminiscent of an anteater.

Yesterday I saw a raccoon coming down from a mangrove tree, which might not sound exciting but it is. Why? A different species of raccoon lives in mangroves than in cities--the crab-eating raccoon, which as its name suggests, eats crabs. Probably eats other stuff too. I've seen lots of raccoon tracks in the mangrove mud but never spotted one before.

I also saw some sort of eagle or hawk in the mangroves, but I'm a terrible birder so that one will go unidentified.