31 May 2007

Revisions and wow

It has taken more days than it should, because I have been lazy with no excuses, but I finally resubmitted a rejected manuscript to a new journal today. I am happy to have something in the hands of an editor again. Now, I just have one more manuscript to revise and resubmit, and then I can start real data collection again.

From the always intriguing TED talks, this one about Photosynth is amazing. There is a demo. You must try it to believe it. Very, very cool.

There must be ways to start stitching biological information about species together the way that these guys have stitched together photographic information. Hm. I must think on this some more.

23 May 2007

I am officially a supervillain

From a little opening fiction in OtherWorld Creations' Forbidden Knowledge Master Codex:

Lord Strange vs. The Voidmen excerpt
I wish I'd known about this earlier, but it's never to late to say:

John, my friend, you are the best.

You will be treated mercifully when my plans come to fruition.

19 May 2007

Same ol’ story

Another week. Another grant rejection.

Meanwhile, I'm starting to seriously work on the one grant I do have, and looking at the money. And right away, once I started to look at how the money was divided into all the different categories (operating, travel, scholarships, etc.), I found a $6,000 mistake. Money got stuck in the wrong category. Should be fixed now, but this is why I've been telling people, "The fun and easy part (selecting the students) is over now. Now we actually have to spend the money."

And in another meanwhile, a recent email from a journal I submitted to boasted of an average time of 35 days from submission to decision. I am sorry to be running the average up, since my manuscript is still waiting on a decision at about 100 days and counting.

12 May 2007

The Zen of Presentations, Part 8

This blog entry is a total cheat, because all I wish to do is to direct you to this excellent post on the subject of presentations in Escape from Cubicle Nation.

10 May 2007

Almost missed this

So I'm walking into a faculty senate meeting a little late, and they're showing off the university's researcher database. And because I'm just walking in, they decide to use me as an example and pull up my research profile. And down at the bottom, I notice this article. I'd talked to the reporter, but it had completely slipped past my notice that the story had come out...

Meanwhile, proofs were sent back yesterday on my commentary article with my colleague Anita. Another thing in press. Hooray!

08 May 2007

Worth a trip to the library

Formenti F, Minetti, AE. 2007. Human locomotion on ice: the evolution of ice-skating energetics through history. The Journal of Experimental Biology 210: 1825-1833.

You can get the abstract here.

The question is, why are two people in the UK doing this research instead of Canadians?

04 May 2007

Making comment

I got the page proofs back on a book review I wrote with my colleague Anita back in March. It'll be coming out in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. It's fun, because that's where I published one on my first articles, a short commentary. I can't wait to sit down and check through it next week.

Now, if the reviewers for my other article in review would get the lead out...

Only one day left in this week...

And the weekend can't come a second too soon. I am often busy, but this week has been the most highly scheduled and structured and filled with places I must be than any week in recent memory. Heck, in distant memory. Normally, I can be busy busy, but it consists of me sitting at my desk working through tasks on my computer. This time around -- whee. Lectures, faculty senate meetings, HHMI program interviews, Sponsored Projects workshop. Coastal Studies Lab Advisory Group, student meeting for Tri Beta, Honors thesis pounding out... and those are just the planned things. Toss in the number of people who walk in the door and want to ask about graduate school, which results in a long conversation (for instance)...

The best software I have now is the calendar software on my desktop computer. No doubt.