Category Archives: General

Making the Case for Increased Federal Support of Biomedical Research

 The Black Hole is extremely pleased to welcome Dr. Jonathan Thon to its team of regular bloggers.  Jonathan approached us last month to publish a series of articles on building a better support structure for young biomedical scientists in Canada … Continue reading

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Google Scholar “My Citations” – Useful tool or the height of narcissism?

Since I first read about it on the Piece of Mind blog by UBC Professor Nassif Ghoussoub, I have been trying to figure out whether or not Google’s new “My citations” is a useful tool for researchers.  Essentially, this tool … Continue reading

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Quarterly Summary: A Busy Autumn + Goodbye and Good Luck to Beth!

Happy 2012 everyone. The end of 2011 was very busy, but it was worth it to gather some momentum behind the ideas and conversations from the site in the form of our session at the Canadian Science Policy Conference as … Continue reading

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What to do with all the Scientists… find out at the 2011 Canadian Science Policy Conference

In a break from normal lab routine, I’ll be dabbling in the black arts of science policy this November and running a session at the 3rd annual Canadian Science Policy Conference.  The conference runs from Nov 16th-18th and features an … Continue reading

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A Quick Thanksgiving Post on Bad Graphs

I’m full of Thanksgiving dinner, so today’s posting is going to be a quick one! A friend of mine recently passed along this paper to me, as she thought it might be a useful tool in teaching research methods/statistics: Graphs … Continue reading

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Quarterly Summary: Guest Bloggers are Great!

This summer featured our second summer series.  Last year’s “So you want to be a…” was followed up this year by “Notches in the STIC” which navigated through the key points of the Science and Technology Innovation Council’s recent report … Continue reading

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Adding Shades of Grey into Science Policy

I was forwarded two articles last month (thanks Mike O!) from the world of Australian science policy.  In these articles, the debate centred on whether or not academics should be involved in making public policy.   The article that started the … Continue reading

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Quarterly Summary: Back on Track

After a harrowing Stanley Cup playoff run that disappointed both of us Canucks fans in its final moments, Beth and I have reclaimed our free hours and will be moving full steam ahead with new content for the Black Hole.  … Continue reading

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The storm is brewing: Postdocs are speaking out…

Lucie Low, newly elected Vice Chair, Finance of CAPS and a current non-Canadian postdoctoral researcher at McGill has just published in Nature a scathing critique of Canada’s system which promised her more than it delivered, and further suggesting that …Canada … Continue reading

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CMAJ calls for “new mechanisms to ensure academic integrity”

A while back I posted a link to Retraction Watch, a website that reports on research papers being retracted (e.g., due to the science contained within them being fraudulent). Well, yesterday an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) … Continue reading

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