There and Back Again

[Thrasador]

18 minutes ago, Scyzara said:

*pulls both off their high horses and puts them on donkeys*

 Pff.. what you're describing about hippies collecting gnats in the forest is not even remotely what average biologists are doing. It makes as much sense as saying  'Chemists are odd white-haired guys developing explosives who are only happy if something in their lab blows up at least once a week'. 

You two (at least @Thrasador) seem to be pretty unaware what biologists are actually doing. Less than 2% of all biologists are working in the field of ecology (where they may really run around outdoors and collect whatever organisms in a small portion of their time). The remaining 98% are working in the lab, either doing basic molecular biology research (e.g. regarding transduction cascades, metabolism, chronobiology, epi-genetics, etc.) or they're working somewhere in the biomedical field, researching the molecular basis of cancer development, autoimmune diseases, pathogenic infections and whatever other disease you can imagine.

I for one e.g. made two B.Sc.s (General Biology & MolecularBiology) and then specialized in virus immunology (t cell reactions in chronic viral infections) during my M.Sc. in Biomedicine. And now I'm using this background knowledge to manipulate blood brain barrier endothelial cells (lentivirally-delivered Crispr/Cas9  plasmids to knock out different S1P receptors ) for an in vitro model of the blood brain barrier. Which is relevant e.g. for the development of multiple sclerosis, stroke or Alzheimer's Disease. Not exactly collecting gnats. 

That being said, I'm working together with people from whatever background you can imagine (medical doctors, pharmacologists, biochemists, biologists, informaticians and technicians who don't even have academic degrees at all) and it certainly taught me how much it's worth to utilize each other's strengths instead of looking down upon each other.  I may not know as much about drug kinetics as our pharmacologists, but while they might help me in this field, I can e.g. help them with the genetic backgrounds of their mice or blood FACS analysis. And our technician is able to pipet qPCR plates both faster and more accurate than both of us.

In the end, it's not about the name of your degree, but about what you're capable of doing. And the different fields of science with their different specializations all contribute one way or another, at least in my field of work.

Well, you were smart to get two degrees and the second dealing with molecular genetics. When applying for Biochemical type jobs a straight Biologist will be passed over if there is a Biochemist available applying for the same job....

The scientific community respect meter is as follows:

Mathematics > Physics > Chemistry > Biochemistry > Biology

However my stereotypical assumptions about Biologists were meant to be a joke, I'm sorry you apparently were so easily offended.....I was kidding.

That being said my best friend in High school both his parents were biologists and they DID apply for a grant to study some gnat in Australia for like a year....

I hate camping and love air conditioning....so I knew right then, that I would NOT be doing that stuff....

[JAFO]

12 minutes ago, Thrasador said:

I hate camping and love air conditioning....so I knew right then, that I would NOT be doing that stuff....

So that's why you love TLD so much.. outdoorsy stuff from the comfort of your chair!

[Thrasador]

8 minutes ago, JAFO said:

So that's why you love TLD so much.. outdoorsy stuff from the comfort of your chair!

Exactly! I would NEVER camp for real outside if I had ANY say in the matter. My AC has been on all day everyday, since the month of May...and yes that rhymes.

I told my girlfriend I would pay the electric bill if I can keep the AC on whenever I want....

The bills have been about $130 instead of about $45....which is what they were before summer. It's well worth the money....I can't sleep in a room over 60°F

Of course now that I'M paying the bill she has her's on 60 all night while she sleeps....and so does her son....

[Scyzara]

3 hours ago, Thrasador said:

However my stereotypical assumptions about Biologists were meant to be a joke, I'm sorry you apparently were so easily offended.....I was kidding.

I'm not offended, I just wanted to point out it's nonsense.

And I personally have never heard about your 'scientific community respect meter' either except at the TV series "The Big Bang Theory".

At least in my field of work and scientific surrounding, the 'respect meter' (if you want to put it that way) depends on how many papers with which impact factors you publish, not in which science you made your first degrees.

There's a good reason why the PhD - or Dr. rer. nat as it's called in Germany - is not tied to any scientific field in particular. Anyone with this degree is expected to be able to teach themselves whatever method may be required for their work, no matter their personal background. Pharmacologists can potentially do their PhD in genetics, biologists in pharmacokinetics, Chemists in Immunology - there's no hard exclusion criterium for anyone not to do their PhD in whatever field they want as long as they have the basic knowledge to deal with he required methods and tasks. I have inter-disciplinary people all around me - it's seen as an advantage to have people with different backgrounds working together here.

And your example of the biochemist being preferred over the biologist in each and every case thus doesn't apply here in Germany either. Employers (of Post-Docs) over here primarily check the number and quality of your publications as well as your personal previous experiences in the field and of course your PhD grade (yes, we get grades for our PhD work and thesis over here).

Employers usually don't care much whether you got your first degrees in Biology, Chemistry or Pharmacology. If you've been successfully publishing (preferably high-impact factor) papers in the past in whatever field they want to find an employee in, they'll invite you to a job interview and check your knowledge/experiences at first hand no matter what B.Sc. you may or may not have done in the beginning. Just like they're usually not much interested in your high-school-courses either.

If you try to apply for a job immediately after your B.Sc. (which would be madness in Germany as nobody would ever employ you anyway due to way too little practical experience) your example might be true, but for everyone who got their summa cum laude (s.c.l.) or magna cum laude (m.c.l.) PhDs, the primary academic education is not particularly relevant any more.

[Thrasador]

2 minutes ago, Scyzara said:

I'm not offended, I just wanted to point out it's nonsense.

And I personally have never heard about your 'scientific community respect meter' either except at the TV series "The Big Bang Theory".

At least in my field of work and scientific surrounding, the 'respect meter' (if you want to put it that way) depends on how many papers with which impact factors you publish, not in which science you made your first degrees.

There's a good reason why the PhD - or Dr. rer. nat as it's called in Germany - is not tied to any scientific field in particular. Anyone with this degree is expected to be able to teach themselves whatever method may be required for their work, no matter their personal background. Pharmacologists can potentially do their PhD in genetics, biologists in pharmacokinetics, Chemists in Immunology - there's no hard exclusion criterium for anyone not to do their PhD in whatever field they want as long as they have the basic knowledge to deal with he required methods and tasks. I have inter-disciplinary people all around me - it's seen as an advantage to have people with different backgrounds working together here.

And your example of the biochemist being preferred over the biologist in each and every case thus doesn't apply here in Germany either. Employers (of Post-Docs) over here primarily check the number and quality of your publications as well as your personal previous experiences in the field and of course your PhD grade (yes, we get grades for our PhD work and thesis over here).

Employers usually don't care much whether you got your first degrees in Biology, Chemistry or Pharmacology. If you've been successfully publishing (preferably high-impact factor) papers in the past in whatever field they want to find an employee in, they'll invite you to a job interview and check your knowledge/experiences at first hand no matter what B.Sc. you may or may not have done in the beginning. Just like they're usually not much interested in your high-school-courses either.

If you try to apply for a job immediately after your B.Sc. (which would be madness in Germany as nobody would ever employ you anyway due to way too little practical experience) your example might be true, but for everyone who got their summa cum laude (s.c.l.) or magna cum laude (m.c.l.) PhDs, the primary academic education is not particularly relevant any more.

That is an interesting system. You can get jobs here without being published....or a Doctor. I have had many....

The respect meter thing I learned about in college about 20 years ago....long before the Big Bang Theory. I think I even saw it in a movie...I can't remember which one....oh, and I think God was supposed to be in it....above Mathematicians.....

[Fuarian]

9 hours ago, cekivi said:

I've been keeping track of developments but I haven't been able to sit down to play the game since the last pre-wintermute update. So about 2 months or so. I did get to play vicariously by watching my girlfriend play  

And how do you like Wintermute from what you've seen?

[deathbydanish]

15 hours ago, cekivi said:

Whether the MOF would be effective for irrigation would be an open question. You'd still be very limited in what plants could survive with such a low daily water output (recall, you only get a few litres per day). The true utility of the material would be its ability to provide safe, potable water in drought prone areas without requiring any major infrastructure changes. 

That would be helpful for the southwest US in general and with Lake Mead providing a lot of that water, it gets a bit depressing to see it drop year after year.

[cekivi]

On ‎2017‎-‎08‎-‎18 at 2:13 AM, JAFO said:

<off-topic mode>

Have you ever read Ignition! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants by John D. Clark? It's entertaining, informative, and at times utterly hilarious. Highly recommended.

</off-topic mode>

I'll have to take a look one of these days. Although explosions are in general to be avoided high energy/reactive materials are fascinating. I was once doing a reaction with n-butyl lithium suspended in hexane (to stabilize it). That stuff's really cool. It auto ignites as soon as it comes into contact with air so you have little drips of flame coming from the bottom of your syringe. 

[cekivi]

On ‎2017‎-‎08‎-‎18 at 6:47 AM, Scyzara said:

I'm not offended, I just wanted to point out it's nonsense.

That's been my experience. I've also got a friend who's an engineer so there's sometimes (jokingly) the argument of whether science or engineering is more important.  

In actuality, the more general your project gets the more fields and technicians you need working on it if you want a successful outcome. And while I certainly wouldn't mind branching out I only have 1 published paper at the moment (with 2-3 more on the way) in field specific journals so it is unlikely I'd be competitive in the German system. Still have a good shot of finding something over here though especially since I'm mainly interested in science outreach and industrial work at the moment. It'll be nice to get out of academia for a few years

[cekivi]

On ‎2017‎-‎08‎-‎18 at 7:44 AM, Fuarian said:

And how do you like Wintermute from what you've seen?

Really liking the updated art but I've been trying to avoid story spoilers so I've mostly been watching while she plays sandbox  

[cekivi]

23 hours ago, deathbydanish said:

That would be helpful for the southwest US in general and with Lake Mead providing a lot of that water, it gets a bit depressing to see it drop year after year.

While MOFs may help as a stopgap my understanding of the situation is that there needs to be a water conservation strategy for the whole southwest US if there is to be any help mitigating the loss of fresh water. This may include switching to more drought resistant crops, water rationing, etc. to prevent the total depletion of aquafers and diversion of surface water. A comprehensive climate change strategy would also help as seasonal precipitation norms change. 

[deathbydanish]

11 hours ago, cekivi said:

While MOFs may help as a stopgap my understanding of the situation is that there needs to be a water conservation strategy for the whole southwest US if there is to be any help mitigating the loss of fresh water. This may include switching to more drought resistant crops, water rationing, etc. to prevent the total depletion of aquafers and diversion of surface water. A comprehensive climate change strategy would also help as seasonal precipitation norms change. 

This, and I think Arizona does what it can, but I can't help but chuckle a bit when I cross the California border and all of a sudden everything is green. I think there is a lot of understated tension between all of southwestern states in that regard, I can hope that can be overcome so that a larger scale strategy as you mentioned could work out.

[cekivi]

Yes, it is bizarre that a lot of California is a desert that has intensive agriculture... 

[Thrasador]

1 hour ago, cekivi said:

Yes, it is bizarre that a lot of California is a desert that has intensive agriculture... 

Yes....farmers utilize 70% of the fresh water on the planet....farming in a desert climate seems ridiculously wasteful....

I guess it takes like 2464 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef in California....

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/californias-drought-whos-really-using-all-the-water/

[SnowWalker]

On 8/18/2017 at 2:38 AM, Thrasador said:

My AC has been on all day everyday, since the month of May...and yes that rhymes.