Today’s GRE high frequency word is exigency. According to my widget dictionary it means an urgent need or demand.
In this crazy world of “publish or perish” there is an exigency to get your research published in a reputable journal.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Interesting Bills in Congress
I just read this in PLOS. On Friday the Senate will go over a bill that has already passed in the House. The bill mandates that all research findings that are published in academic journals will be free to the public after 12-months of publication. It is about time, I hope this bill passes.
It does seem silly when you think about it; scientists do research with taxpayer money and submit their findings to the appropriate academic journal. They pay the journal, with taxpayer money, to have the article published. Then free of charge other researchers, whose salaries are paid for by the taxpayers, review potential publications to make sure they are scientifically sound. After the research articles are published, the journals are sold to other researchers and people that are interested in the research. The journals make profit off of work that the taxpayers paid for. The profit that they make from selling the journals is from, you guessed it, taxpayer money, because that’s how research institutions and universities get the information, through subscriptions paid for with taxpayer money.
What a racket, but I am not surprised that it has taken this long to get to congress. I did not know any of this until recently when I actually started working for a research institution. So why should anyone else. Many scientists are extremely busy doing science and don’t have time to make an impression on congress nor become a member of congress. On the other side, you potentially have a strong lobby working against any progress. All they would have to say to any busy congressman is that any change relating to science hurts science. This hypothetical lobby would obviously be funded by the journals profiting off of taxpayer money and thus the current situation.
It does seem silly when you think about it; scientists do research with taxpayer money and submit their findings to the appropriate academic journal. They pay the journal, with taxpayer money, to have the article published. Then free of charge other researchers, whose salaries are paid for by the taxpayers, review potential publications to make sure they are scientifically sound. After the research articles are published, the journals are sold to other researchers and people that are interested in the research. The journals make profit off of work that the taxpayers paid for. The profit that they make from selling the journals is from, you guessed it, taxpayer money, because that’s how research institutions and universities get the information, through subscriptions paid for with taxpayer money.
What a racket, but I am not surprised that it has taken this long to get to congress. I did not know any of this until recently when I actually started working for a research institution. So why should anyone else. Many scientists are extremely busy doing science and don’t have time to make an impression on congress nor become a member of congress. On the other side, you potentially have a strong lobby working against any progress. All they would have to say to any busy congressman is that any change relating to science hurts science. This hypothetical lobby would obviously be funded by the journals profiting off of taxpayer money and thus the current situation.
Friday, September 7, 2007
A New Race
It just occurred to me that I have blog with my name on it. This is interesting because every time I have searched for "Scott Kerr" on Google, the only places I can see myself are on the lab sites that I am or have been a part of. The search put my at number 18 for the Hutch, 116 for my UW lab and after 150 or so I gave up looking for this blog.
This brings up a race. Who will be more important according to Google in the future, Scott Kerr the scientist or Scott Kerr the blogger? Right now it's 18 to who knows.
Furthermore, will I become the most popular Scott Kerr in the world? I think there is a lot of us. The most notable seem to be soccer player and the director of the engineering department at NASA. There also looks to be a programmer in grad school right now who may be a direct competitor. Regardless, the competition looks stiff.
This brings up a race. Who will be more important according to Google in the future, Scott Kerr the scientist or Scott Kerr the blogger? Right now it's 18 to who knows.
Furthermore, will I become the most popular Scott Kerr in the world? I think there is a lot of us. The most notable seem to be soccer player and the director of the engineering department at NASA. There also looks to be a programmer in grad school right now who may be a direct competitor. Regardless, the competition looks stiff.
Whoops
I forgot to mention that I found my definition for the last post from an email I get daily from A.Word.A.Day
Hypergolic
On my path to wild success on the GRE's sometime in the future; I bring hypergolic. It means igniting on contact. This means it does not need a spark to ignite. I can not think of an example of something that is hypergolic but it seems like an interesting word to know. Oh, heres one a very few people will know but is good; Will Hoff has a tendency to be hypergolic. For some reason blogger thinks hypergolic is spelled wrong.
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