Mike Slackenery gets a job at last!

Sort of…

Invasive plants journal launched

The Weed Science Society of America has launched a new journal, Invasive Plant Science and Management. The first issue is expected in the first quarter of 2008. The society is soliciting articles in:
[T]he biology and ecology of invasive plants in rangeland, parkland, prairie, pasture, preserve, urban, wildland, forestry, riparian, wetland, aquatic, recreational, rights-of-way, [...]

Benefits of Science Blogging

Apparently the benefits of science blogging are substantially greater than I had ever imagined: it serves a foil against speeding tickets, accusations of being bad in bed, priests and thesis advisers!  (I wish I had known that when I was a grad student.)
H/T PZ Myers and Chris Rowan.

Cynic’s Guide to Academic Departments

I missed this, but last week Taner Edis posted a brilliant summary of academic disciplines last week. About biology, he said:
Biology: The science that explores the wonders and beauty of life itself, seeking understanding of plants and animals in their intricate complexity. Biologists mostly investigate life by looking at dead things under microscopes, and [...]

Northern Illinois University

What brings people to shoot others at random? And why, of all places, on a university campus?
Apparently the shooter was a former graduate student. And given what grad school does to some people, somehow it doesn’t entirely surprise me. I loved grad school, but it was also an incredible grind on the [...]

Quackademic medicine

Start here with Orac’s intro to David Calquhoon
Continue with Larry Moran’s introduction to the talk
And then get the meat of it from Post-Diluvian Diaspora

IDist drivel

It’s normal to come across random drivel claiming that scientists are refusing to allow a free and open discussion of intelligent design. To begin with, the intelligent design movement has yet to provide a single shred of research into intelligent design. The handful of papers that they actually have produced have been criticisms [...]

Academia as cult

Bug Girl has a great post about academia as a cult.  Now I understand my feelings of unworth and the near-physical aversion reaction that even thinking about non-academic jobs gives me.