I have to warn you all, little muffins. I am about to have a serious getoffamylawn moment.

Figure 1: Pretty much like this, minus the droopy bits. Dr. Isis has no droopy bits.

I recently had an interesting online exchange with Andrew Colgoni, Science Fluencies Libraries at McMaster University in Hamilton, ON. (blog).

Dr. Isis is at the casa of her in-laws this weekend. It is their 40th wedding anniversary and we have made the many, many mile trip to spend it with them. This has been a generally relaxing trip filled with much Jameson for Dr. Isis and much shenanigans for Little Isis. Last night Little Isis's grandfather took him swimming at 11pm after enjoying some chocolate cake at 10pm. I can't imagine anything cooler than late night chocolate cake and swimming if you are three years old.

Dr. Isis has received a lovely email from a graduate student who needs some help figuring out how to interact with her new mentor. She writes:

Dearest Goddess of shoes and science,

I humbly ask that you help a girl out with two questions, both of which fall within your realms of influence, though one is a sight simpler than the other. I also humbly ask that you take my name and institution out of this here email should you decide to post it.

Inside Higher Ed has a news squib about gender disparities in academic science, which points to a Nature story about a survey on job satisfaction (bad IHE, giving a false impression on the story!). The gender portion of the story is limited to a short section at the end of the article, and one graph:

Here at Thoughtful Animal headquarters, we're starting a new series of seven-question interviews with people who are doing or have done animal research of all kinds - biomedical, behavioral, cognitive, and so forth. Interested in how animal research is conducted, or why animal research is important? Think you might want to do some animal research of your own someday? This is the interview series for you.

O.K. It's been a while since I last posted, but I do have a good excuse. I've been on the road with my family for the past 5 weeks, and have just settled in London. I'm here because I am about to start a half year sabbatical, and to give you a sense of where I'm working, here are a few picture hints (note that it's not, as my Son thought for a while, Hogwarts).

Here's the "foyer" (img link):

Last week, I asked on twitter, and then on the blog, about peoples' preferences for listening to music while doing various types of sciencey work, and conducted an informal survey.

(Well, actually 6 since the first ad below is just a bit of fun...)

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JOB POSTING: "IT'S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME"

This is a call for outstanding candidates to apply for a tenure track assistant professor position within the context of the Michael Smith Laboratories at the University of British Columbia. The successful applicant is expected to work in areas of interest to current faculty members, to interact with related groups within our network and to have demonstrated ability in producing research material of excellent quality and interest.

tags: I'm a Scientist, Get me out of Here!, internet chatrooms, online program, technology, public outreach,