Category: science

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Why conferences matter

After a drive from Guelph and then a long flight from Toronto into very foggy Vancouver and then not-quite-as-foggy Prince George, I arrived home last night from the Joint Annual Meeting of the Entomological Societies of Canada and Ontario (#ESCJAM2013). I have been away from my family and from UNBC for close to a week now, and though somewhat fatigued (and slightly jet lagged), meetings like these are valuable.

I have come to particularly enjoy ESC meetings over the past few years as I think that they really hit the sweet spot in terms of having just the right number of attendees and topics. Don’t get me wrong – there is nothing wrong with huge meetings or small niche meetings. I enjoy those too. But if I were Goldilocks, this one would be “just right.”

So, why should a scientist bother to use up part of a research grant to pick up and travel to some far-flung location and spend several days eating and sleeping relatively poorly in a generic conference facility? Here are the reasons that I came up with, and perhaps you can think of more:

Learning and connecting – Nothing beats being fully immersed in a topic that you love, with a ton of likeminded people all around. Conferences provide this type of environment, ranging from excellent student talks (and wow! there were so many of these at the ESC JAM this year!!), to detailed symposium talks, to workshops, to simply chatting with colleagues at coffee breaks. After a conference I generally return reinvigorated and excited about what is going on in my own personal research and the research of the folks in my program. I’ve had a chance to hear cool things and to ask in-person questions and receive in-person answers. I’ve been reminded that there are a lot of other people out there working on interesting problems too – I’m not toiling alone. I’ve been able to troubleshoot some of my scientific and red tape issues with people who have had more experience than I in certain areas. I’ve found out about new theories, new technologies, and new frontiers of study. I’ve re-met old friends and colleagues, and I’ve made contacts with new people as well.

You can read all of the literature all of the time in complete solitude, and you will be very well educated on a topic. But nothing beats the human element in terms of deeply understanding the state-of-the-art in a particular field. In fact I’d go so far as to say that the best learning is done in community with other humans. And the best way to encounter other humans is… to actually spend time with them.

Being challenged – Not everyone does this –and I’m not suggesting that it is the only way of doing things – but I try to go to sessions that do not necessarily major on my own research topic. The reality is that I hear a lot about the type of things that I do on a regular basis from my closest colleagues who also do that type work. I read their papers, talk to them on the phone, collaborate on projects, etc. So I already have a pretty good idea of what is going on in their programs and what they are thinking about. What I don’t necessarily know is what is going on in other entomological fields because my interactions are not as frequent nor is my network so solid. Conferences allow me to sit in on sessions as a fly-on-the-wall (pun intended!) to see what others are up to. Sometimes this gives me new ideas for research or for potential collaborations. If nothing else, it reminds me of how cool entomology is. Like others during this conference, I tried to send out a tweet from each talk that I attended, so if you’re interested, you can get a quick idea of the diversity of topics that I was able to enjoy, here.

Tours – Most conferences that I’ve been to feature one or two of these. Admittedly I don’t always get to go due to conflicts with other events. But when I do, I generally really learn. This year a few of us were treated to a tour of the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario facility at the University of Guelph. Besides the fact that what is going on there is highly impressive, it was great to be able to talk to some of the facility experts and to ask specific questions. At other conferences I’ve been able to head out on field trips to see some of the local insect pest problems. Nothing beats seeing, hearing, feeling, and smelling a topic first hand for later understanding. I find that after such field trips, reading the literature is a much more living experience than it can be when I just approach a paper “cold” with no actual life connection with the subject.

History – This year was the 150th anniversary of the Entomological Society of Ontario and (in conjunction with the ESO… I won’t explain it here) the Entomological Society of Canada. As Dr. Laura Timms pointed out in her excellent Heritage Lecture, we’re the oldest entomological society on the continent. With 150 years of history comes a lot of deep tradition as well. Laura’s talk was excellent and reminded all of us of the fact that the ups and downs that we see in our profession today are nothing particularly new. We have a solid foundation built by others before us on which to grow. It is up to us to carry on that legacy. This hit home during the banquet when Dr. Thelma Finlayson was honored for her contributions over her 98 years (!!!) to students, to entomology, and to our Society. The reality is that, barring incredible medical advances, most of us will not be very active in the profession – if we are around at all – at the 200th anniversary. Our history should remind us of our ongoing responsibility to those coming after us over the next 50 years and beyond.

Cookies at coffee breaks – need I say more?

For a great summary of the meeting, please head over to Sean McCann‘s photograph-filled post (featuring my Ph.D. supervisor in the first photograph).

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Aside: During the conference there was a bit of a Twitter squall that is summarized/linked with this tweet:

 

I won’t add much more to the conversation here, others have already responded nicely. Suffice it to say that, for me, Twitter is the next best thing to an ongoing conference. It allows realtime and authentic interaction with others on various topics that interest me.

Twitter is, by no means, as substitute for a good conference or a good blog post. But neither is a blog post or a conference a substitute for Twitter or any other medium. It is what you make of it.

And much was made of Twitter at this conference. For instance, a bit of intense web wizardry by David Shorthouse gave those in attendance using Twitter this fantastic tool that added value to the already useful stream of #ESCJAM2013 tweets.

During this discussion there have been quotes of Marshall McLuhan’s “the medium is the message” mantra.

To this I’ll add a quote from Neil Postman:

One way of looking at the history of the human group is that it has been a continuing struggle against the veneration of “crap.”

Any medium will end in a fecal morass if the only contributions to it are scat.

I have experienced just the opposite of that with Twitter on a variety of subjects because the people who I follow contribute useful content and ideas. Twitter at the 2013 ESC JAM was a prime example of that.

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Searching for a promising scholar

  • Are you deeply interested in insect ecology?
  • Are you excited about exploring the intersection of plant defenses and insect overwintering survival using both traditional field work and cutting-edge molecular tools?
  • Would you like to do your graduate degree research at a small, research-intensive university in a great community surrounded in all directions by forests?
  • Are you looking for an opportunity to develop a network of collaborators from a variety of other institutions during your graduate studies?

Our lab is looking for a graduate student (M.Sc. or Ph.D. level) or a postdoc, and a promising scholar of natural history, to join us in studying how pine host defenses affect mountain pine beetle larval overwintering success in its normal hosts (e.g. lodgepole pine) and a novel host (jack pine) across its expanding range. What are the tree chemical defenses that larval mountain pine beetles experience in their early development? How long after a tree has been killed do those defenses remain in the tree tissues? How do those defenses affect larval growth, development, and physiological preparation for surviving the extreme cold of a northern winter? What are some of the specific genes that are instrumental in helping the larvae obtain enough nutrition from the toxic environment of their host tree to allow them to survive the winter? What are the effects of climate and a new host species in a new geographical range on larval survival? How might these affect the spread of this invasive insect?

Work on your project will take place wherever the beetles and the host trees live. That will mean extensive field work in the summers, including trips to other parts of British Columbia, into Alberta, and perhaps beyond. In addition, there will be plenty of lab work throughout the year using techniques ranging from analytical chemistry to RNAi.

This work is funded by a major grant and is an extension of five years of previous successful and highly collaborative work. That means a number of things…

First it means that there is secure funding for several years of your research. This includes funds for materials, travel, conferences, and publication fees. It also includes funds for student stipends. However I would strongly encourage applicants to look for their own funding as well. More on that in a moment.

Second, it means that there is a preexisting network of institutions and researchers who you will be able to work with during the course of your degree. The “network” grant ensures that we continue to maintain close collaborative relationships with other scientists at the University of British Columbia, the University of Alberta, the Natural Resources Canada Canadian Forest Service, and the University of Minnesota. A strong collaborative network, such as this one that we have developed over several years, is beneficial to you as a graduate student both by providing research opportunities and because it may lead to further career opportunities beyond your graduate studies.

Third, it means that you will be working on a solid foundation of results, data, and ideas. You will have the opportunity to push hard against the envelope of our current knowledge. You can find a fairly up-to-date list of papers that have come out of our collaborative research so far at this link. I would specifically recommend that you carefully read those papers that I linked a few paragraphs above – as well as this, this, this, and one more to appear here shortly – prior to considering whether this position might be for you.

Graduate studies are not easy by any stretch. Ask anyone who has done them, or fellow students who are in the midst of their work. But they can be the most richly challenging and rewarding time of your life. While doctoral degrees are awarded to successful candidates for their ability to develop and defend new ideas, explore hypotheses, and communicate findings to various audiences in a robust manner, those things are only an outworking of something deeper. A course of graduate studies is, more often than not, a journey of maturation as a scientist and a scholar. So I am looking for someone to join our research program who can demonstrate that they are ready to embark on that road. Specifically, I am looking for someone:

  • who has shown that they are capable of committed work over an extended period of time,
  • who can work equally well in the lab or in the field,
  • who has shown that they are capable of scholarly output (e.g., papers, presentations at conferences, etc.) even early in their scientific career,
  • who is able to develop novel hypotheses and pursue them with passion,
  • who has a sincere and scholarly interest in insect ecology, and
  • who wants to explore the very edges of what we know about the natural world.

While this project is well-funded, I will be looking for applicants who either have their own funding in hand, or who show the potential to pursue and receive their own funding. As noted above, our grant will allow for a suitable and livable graduate stipend. But finding your own funding is an important part of the graduate degree process, it looks great on your CV, and it provides you with one more layer of security during your time as a student. It also serves to free up some money that can then be used to support more experimentation, to hire valuable research assistants to help with your project, and to allow more trips to present your findings at conferences, etc. UNBC awards entrance scholarships for excellent students, maintains a number of other awards, has a tuition rebate for Ph.D. students, and provides a large number of TA-ships to supplement your income with pay for teaching experience.

If you come to work in our lab, you will find a pleasant group of people excited about their research. You will become a part of a close-knit group of researchers who are interested in many of the things that you are working on. You will also find UNBC to be a vibrant community with lots of great things going on. The surrounding city, Prince George, is a great place to live with many cultural opportunities in town and fantastic outdoor activities all around. And you can’t beat the reasonable rents or the five-minute commutes – or commute by bike in the summer and skis in the winter!.

If you are interested in this position, please email me at huber@unbc.ca for further details or to ask the questions that you probably have.

Thank you for reading this, and I look forward to hearing from you.

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I’m not Grandpa Simpson (although I may sound that way)

Pretty much every morning I check the Google News page, and I generally scroll pretty quickly to the science headlines. Today one of the big headlines was about a fascinating new PLOS ONE study that shows quite conclusively that insects from several orders detect and respond to changes in barometric pressure. Such behavioral reactions in insects make sense as pressure changes usually indicate important changes in the weather that could jeopardize an insect’s reproductive success.

My antennae (no pun intended) immediately popped up because my hazy memory seemed to recall something like this being studied in bark beetles quite some time back. A quick search brought up this 1978 paper. I then went back to the PLOS ONE paper, and thankfully found the authors had cited the older paper in their final reference. The 1978 paper itself cites several other studies dating as far back to 1955 that hint at this kind of phenomenon. My bet is that this general phenomenon was observed prior to 1955, and further digging would take us quite a distance into the past.

The new result is extremely cool, of course. Hopefully it goes some way to reviving an old idea for some new and fruitful study. I don’t fault the study authors for the general tone of the 24 hour news cycle hype that seems to suggest that this is a brand new idea. The media are like that, and once a story gets into the hands of a journalist it can take on a life of its own no matter how careful the interviewed scientist was to state the full case. I suspect that most reporters rarely closely read reference sections.

That said, this little episode started me thinking a bit – with help from a few of my Twitter friends – about how we do science and how much, or how little, we pay attention to the past. Interestingly Chris Buddle at McGill University wrote a very prescient blog post just today that provides a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Specifically, there are certain aspects of the way that science is currently done that cause us to rush forward into the future without paying enough attention to the past.

I can think of three reasons for this, and perhaps you can think of others:

1. The tyranny of high-speed novelty – This comes in at least two flavors, but they’re both mixed into the same underlying ice cream. First, science news, like other news, comes to us from all directions. University communications offices and journal PR departments are eager to capitalize on this for what amounts to free advertising. Although scientists who read these interesting accounts know that science, in general, moves at a modest pace at best, there is likely a subconscious tweak that says “hey, you need to move faster, everyone else is.”

Second, university tenure and promotion committees and granting agencies require ongoing productivity. This makes sense, of course. But the main measure of productivity is the peer reviewed paper. This means that there are likely many papers that escape into the wild from the lab or field before their results are fully mature. Contrast this to, for instance, Charles Darwin who spent years studying barnacles to the point where he wrote in a letter:

I am at work on the second vol. of the Cirripedia, of which creatures I am wonderfully tired: I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before, not even a Sailor in a slow-sailing ship. My first vol. is out: the only part worth looking at is on the sexes of Ibla & Scalpellum; I hope by next summer to have done with my tedious work.

This type of longterm commitment to a study still happens today, but often in special circumstances. Besides the fact that getting funding for Darwin-style barnacle research these days would be woefully difficult, proposing to conduct such a long study with no predetermined timeline or outcome would sink any proposal.

So there are career pressures on one side that push scientists into grant-cycle-length (or shorter) studies, and there is the constant barrage of news stories and CSI-like shows on the other other side that give the impression to the public that science moves at a furious pace. Both together add up to at least some degree of myopia across the board.

2. Referencing software – In this case I’m talking about products like EndNote and RefWorks and others that are very useful, but also potentially damaging in the development of a good vision of the past. To this day I still do all of my reference work in papers that I write or edit without these tools. I have tried various software solutions in the past, but I have found that they tend to distance me from the literature and dull my ability to remember what has been done before.

When I physically type in a reference, or even copy-and-patse a citation from a previous paper and revise to fit the journal standard, it forces me to think about that paper and the foundation on which it was built. This often leads me down a reference rabbit trail that can, on occasion, help me to contemplate the topic in a deeper manner. If, on the other hand, I simply input “(Smith et al. 1997)” and the software does the rest, my brain just carries on with what it’s doing and doesn’t necessarily make any new connections. The writing process should inherently be a learning process, and by letting software do parts of the work for us, I fear that one part of that process is going by the wayside.

3. Online access – At this point I’m going to start to sound a bit like this guy, so please just roll your eyes for a moment and then hear me out. First, note that I think that the fact that much of the scientific literature in the world is now online is a great thing. Even better is the fact that a lot of it is either open access or is heading that way.

Now here’s the part where I will start to sound old. When I started my Ph.D. in 1995, the internet as we know it today had just barely gotten off of the ground. Prior to that I had been using things like GOPHER, ELM, and PINE… many of you probably have no clue what I’m even talking about here. The long and short of it was that virtually all scholarly outputs were on paper in the library. When I was researching a subject, I would go to the library, use an index based on a mainframe (or even extensive tomes of the paper version of Biological Abstracts), and then get a rolling cart that I’d push around the library. My cart and I would head through the stacks, picking up volumes along the way. Then I’d go to the central photocopying area to copy the articles that I wanted to read. Later, back at my desk or lab bench I’d read the articles and circle any references that I needed in order to delve back further into the literature. Then I’d make my way back to the library and restart the process. Chasing references was a process that took time and allowed for thought.

Today I fire up my web browser, point it at Google Scholar, do a few quick searches, and then I’m off to the races. If, while I’m reading a paper, I see a reference that interests me, there’s usually a hyperlink there to take me right to that paper. Within minutes my virtual desktop can be full of PDFs, enough to keep me busy reading for weeks. Reference chasing now takes no time at all.

The problem with the old process was that it was painfully slow and labor intensive. The problem with the new process is that those silicon brains are so fast that they don’t allow time for our human brains to stop to really think. In 1998, when I was standing by the photocopier, I was also mulling over the papers that were dropping into the copier tray. The process forced the time to think on me because I really couldn’t go anywhere else while the copier was doing its job or while I was wandering through the stacks. In 2013 the process should provide me with more time to think because it is a lot faster. But that extra time does not necessarily get filled with contemplation unless I make it so. And there are many pressures – and temptations – that all of us face that can easily reduce that technologically found time into lost time in no time.

It should also be noted that while there used to be a “demographic” gap in the papers that were online, most journals have now archived almost their entire collection (e.g., a shameless plug for a fine journal here). This is to our benefit, if we take advantage of it.

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So what can be done about this? There is not much that we can immediately do about media, administration, granting agency, or public expectations and perception because these are all an ingrained part of the current culture. Cultural shifts take time.

The challenge to scientists, then, is to work to change that culture, one researcher and one act at a time. I am not blaming referencing software or online journals. Far from it. Both are vital parts of the process in our era, and both bring benefits that were hardly imagined a couple of decades ago. But with this technology comes a responsibility to ensure that we are doing things like undertaking longterm studies; reading deeply into the literature; spending time contemplating instead of getting caught up in a Red Queen scenario; making sure that both our students and ourselves understand and explore the deep foundations of current breakthroughs; and doing our level best to get it across to the media that our results are only possible because of work that has been done by others.

We owe it to our students, to the public, to our scientific “ancestors,” to our current colleagues, and to ourselves.

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My Voyage(er)

What were you doing on 25 August 2012? Now think back (those of you who were even born then), and tell me what you were doing on 5 September 1977.

In my case, last year on 25 August my family and some friends were hiking in the Valley of the Five Lakes in Jasper National Park. My two boys, five- and three-years old at the time (bookending the crew below, in red and blue shirts, respectively), were enjoying time exploring nature in one of the most beautiful spots on earth.

Eli (on the left) and Marcus (on the right) take a break with some friends during a hike in Jasper National Park.

On 5 September 1977 (here I go, revealing my advanced age) I was five-years old – like my oldest son in the photograph – and it was Labor Day. Just as he was in that photograph above, I was getting ready for my first day of first grade and the beginning of my formal educational journey.

Why are these two dates important beyond my personal reminiscing? Back on 5 September 1977, Voyager 1 was launched on its scientific journey. And on 25 August 2012 it is estimated that Voyager 1 became the first human-made interstellar spacecraft in history.

This has hit me pretty squarely over the past few days since this announcement. As it turns out, Voyager 1 and her sister, Voyager 2, were among the major influences of my scientific pursuits. Both probes launched just as I began first grade, and Voyager 2 sent home some of its final photographs (of Neptune) in the summer of 1989, just a couple of months after I had graduated from high school.

All through grade school my cohort and I were amazed by the spectacular photographs sent back from these probes, photographs that remain iconic to this day. During those years my fascination with nature grew in many different directions, shaped in no small part by this awesome example of basic scientific exploration. My growing realization that the universe around us was such an incredible place made me want to explore my own corner of the earth. And the living things in my yard and neighborhood were right there and available for me to study. Being given the opportunity to imagine then (as I’ve been doing again over the past few days) where the Voyager probes may go and what (or who) they may encounter over the upcoming eons pushed me towards finding out all that I could about at least one small part of the puzzle.

NASA’s Voyager program is a prime example of why we need basic science not to only survive on the scraps thrown to it by applied science, but to thrive, well-fed, on its own. Voyager has not only shown us more about our universe than we ever knew (and the probes are still sending back data!), but it has doubtless been instrumental in inspiring many among an entire generation of kids to become the scientists of today. I’m sure that I’m not the only scientist about my age who felt a wave of nostalgia – and even re-inspiration – over the past few days as we remembered some old friends who went on a long journey.

Now that the Voyager spacecraft are exiting our solar system to explore the universe expanding before them, I wonder what will inspire my two boys as they explore their own expanding world.

In the current climate that prioritizes applied science far over basic research, who and what are the “Voyagers” of 2013 that will fascinate and inspire a new generation?

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Happy birthday, PeerJ

A quick post to note PeerJ‘s first birthday.

PeerJ is a biological open access journal – backed by an excellent publishing team, an advisory board replete with luminaries, and a diverse editorial board – that also happens to come with some interesting twists that are bound to change the scientific publishing paradigm.

First, instead of paying an open access publishing fee for each paper that is accepted, authors each pay a lifetime membership fee (paid memberships start at US$99). If you and your co-authors have a membership, you can publish in PeerJ. In order to keep up your membership, you need to regularly participate in journal activities such as editing, reviewing, or commenting on articles. In other words, with one membership you can publish open access articles in PeerJ for life.

That, in itself, is a twist that makes PeerJ unique.

The second twist – and the one that I’d like to briefly focus on here – is PeerJ PrePrints.

A preprint is a not-yet-peer-reviewed version of a manuscript that is placed on a public server for early dissemination to the rest of the scientific community. Preprints serve to provide early access by other researchers to data, results, and interpretations. They allow for pre-review discussion and criticism of the ideas that, if taken to heart by the authors, serve to strengthen the manuscript for eventual peer review and publication. And, when uploaded to a recognized preprint service, preprints set a date-stamped precedent for the ideas that they contain. To great extent, a preprint is simply a conference presentation or poster in formal manuscript form with broader access and better DOI-based citation/recognition.

Physicists, astronomers, computer scientists, and mathematicians (to name a few) have dealt in preprints for many years now. For some reason, the biological sciences have languished behind in this regard. But things are changing. Rapidly.

And PeerJ has played a major role in that change over the past year.

As of this post, there are 29 PeerJ PrePrints at the journal site, some of which are in their V.2 or V.3 forms (yes, you can update your preprint as you receive comments, etc.). That list is bound to grow in the coming years.

Keep an eye on PeerJ. It’s going places. I’m hoping that my lab will soon submit a few preprints and journal articles, and I hope that you are considering it as well.

NOTE #1: While the world of biological academic publishing is changing in regard to preprints, there are still some hold-out journals which either have ambiguous policies or which flat-out reject papers that have been published as preprints. You can use these tools – here and here – to make decisions regarding preprinting of your upcoming manuscript.

NOTE #2: At the membership link, you’ll have noticed that there is a free membership that allows you to submit one public PeerJ Preprint per year. So it’s a great way to try out the system without spending a single dime.