Nature: No One is Allowed go to out!, Science and Research around the world affected by Coronavirus!!!

Today's Nature Editorial Reviews the impact of Coronavirus on Scientific community and Scientific Research as a whole in China and around the world!.

China and the Empty Streets, Image from Nature.com

A Review of the Coronavirus spread and its impact on Scientific community in China and world wide will wake up even the most insensitive and callous politicians around the world, however, many politicians or policy makers in governments in US and around the world living in denial, joining them are the economic pundits and fake heads, who claim Coronavirus has no financial damage to American Economy?.. Well, will you trust these fakers or trust a Scientific Review by Nature. who has no political or other interest to tell the true story. Trumps policy and stand on scientific research already is as worst as Bush's, both of them did a major hair-cut to scientific funding, with that kind of mind set, and zero interest or knowledge about Science, he seems to totally undermine what a Pandemic like coronovirus can do to the local city, country and to the world/

Nature shows us the glimpse of its deadly impact on Research by surveying or listening to about 600 researchers, scientists and university members in China and world wide!.

According to this Nature reviews, as we also heard from various other news and sources, that most cities in China are in lock-down, most streets are empty, so what is happening to all the universities and research institutions in China, its been shut down!. The Chinese Science and Research is in a frozen state, that is horrible for the nation of China, but wait, there is so much interconnection to science/research to various parts of the world, in terms of scientific supply, it is a two way traffic, China needs world scientific supplies and China in turn is a big supplier of tools, technologies, chemicals, reagents to all research products!, and that chain is frozen too as Chinese research is frozen?.

Nature calls it is wrecking havoc!?.. Hey Politicians, Policy makers can you hear that?..

Here is the Review:

‘No one is allowed to go out’: your stories from the coronavirus outbreak

From laboratory closures to equipment shortages, researchers worldwide tell Nature how they have been affected by the epidemic. 
 The outbreak of a new coronavirus is wreaking havoc worldwide. In China, the epicentre of the epidemic, the virus has infected tens of thousands of people and killed more than 2,100. Unprecedented measures meant to contain the spread have brought millions of daily lives to a halt, and the effects have touched economies and global supply chains.

PostDoc Unions:- How do Science Magazine and Nature Publications Look at it?.

Nature Publications Group (NPG) headquartered in London and The Science Magazine (AAA) based in Washington DC are the two leading science publishing groups quite well read and world wide known for their reputation to be the number one science publishers. But, it is ironic to notice that they have been on the other side of the fence with respect to PostDoc issues, quite touchy and distanced themselves to support postdoc organizing themselves, rather they openly opposed any such organizations for postdocs except of their own vested interest NPA like organizations.  From the day one Uconn Health Center (UCHC) PostDocs began to fight for their own voice to be heard by the management and the policy makers, most scientific groups and institutions kept their distance with organizing postdocs...! Why?..

.................both these scientific magazines been utterly negative about Unionization of PostDocs. If any of the readers, visitors and advocates have any idea and thoughts on why, I invite you to share it, there are several obvious reasons one can come up with and share here.

They continued their anti-postdoc attitudes in a very subtle manner so that the innocent or naive postdocs and young scientists around the world would not notice their "anti" stand. So that they can keep the naive postdocs in their loop without loosing postdoc readership of these magazines. The subtlety lies in their method of writing about postdocs, what they did is to create two groups of journalists insider their writers roster, one group will write in a postdoc union positive tone, and the other journalists will bash it and try to put the Union effort into trash, eventually they gave up once Unionization's emerged at Uconn........ they found a new love for postdocs by allocating more space and time after the Uconn Health Center's PostDoc unionization, the success of postdocs organization perhaps taught them a lesson, because postdocs put together far more powerful effort than these magazines ever thought?, and thereby the spread of postdoc unions led to some changes in their attitude towards writing about postdocs plight?.

The very mechanisms and the way these two science publishers approached this postdoc issues are pretty perplexing to someone who knows how things work at Nature and Science Magazine. I will provide some instances later, but after bashing the postdoc union for a long time (number of years?), both Nature and Science magazines slowly waking up and are coming to a realization now that it is too late to keep chanting the anti postdoc union mantra but move on writing "As IT IS" about postdoc issues. The following nature article is simply the most obvious display of the change of mind of Natures writers and editors, but science has done it's own part by letting Beryl write freely on PostDocs union without any constrain......!?. Time does bring changes to even the most notorious mindsets!................as I wrote earlier, no one can stop the Postdoc unionization spreading all over the world let alone in US...Bravo Uconn Health Center PostDocs!.

The Spread of "PostDocs Unions"
..............this is the latest news about postdoc penned by Virginia Gewin, I never heard of this name associated with postdoc issues but it is interesting to note how a genuine story can be told to the world in their narrowed outlook at times with their own little interpretation of what is happening in the world of PostDocs. This is a news publication stemmed from one of the Nature publications, NatureJobs.com, a division of nature publishing group (NPG). Nature for some reason did not like PostDocs getting unionized,  oh well, why would they and most corporations squirm at the thought of unions?

If you thought that was interesting to know, it gets even more interesting if you know how Science magazine and Alfred P.Sloan Foundation (supposed to have GM connections, they claim in their "about us" page that it is independent and no formal relationship with the General Motors Corporation, well yea, we believe it!!?) together put their heavy hands to create and support to a looser organization known as "National Postdoctoral Association". Though, there might have been some genuine reasons to create a body for PostDocs that represent all the US PostDocs, NPA was one of the least influential of such organization I ever seen, it is like for the heck of it they made an org? that has no vision or any record of helping postdocs, because it was a failure from it's very inception!.

When I was attending their very first meetings during 2003 (infact, the NPA gave me a travel fund to attend and present my views as a member of the PostDoc Union organizers from Uconn Health Center, Farmington, Connecticut. I was not sure about what their stand, and thought that they might be genuine supporter of postdocs cause, thought they are open minded and will have the right perspective about PostDoc Unions. What I noticed during the conference that there was not much interests among organizers and sponsors of this conference about postdoc Unions.The NPA folks at that time (2003) about 90% of them opposed the idea of postdoc union, or the union approach to resolve postdoc issues?. Their argument was an association like NPA will spearhead and fix issues without conflicts with PIs or Universities, whereas unions cannot?. I had attended this conference against my own colleagues advice not to participate, I kept a open mind to explore what is that NPA and the backers upto?. My colleagues who are fighting with the university for salaries, benefits and betterment of postdocs at UCONN thought that I might be sucked into the anti union gang and taken over by the NPA that I might leave the postdoc unionization efforts, they did not realize that I can't be swayed away by these organizations and such people!!, I came out of NPA with clear and strong views that Unionization is the best option for Postdocs and NPA is anti union.

They created this organization to fight the postdoc unions and made their effort to somehow stunt the growth beginning by opposing the first Postdoc union (ours?) and in that process NPA miserably failed. big upset for them?.

To be cont'd,,,,,,,,,,,,,,More to come....!!!

To Those Young investigators or if you are looking for a Project to Challenge your skills?

I like this efforts to promote new thinking, a Open Innovation challenges published in Nature (Nature.com's innovation Pavilion)

Open Innovation Challenges

• Model the Functional Molecular Networks in a Cancer Cell

  Deadline:

  Mon, Dec 05, 2011

  Reward:

  $100,000.00 USD

  Given gene expression data from Affymetrix microarrays, build a biological model that explains the molecular...
  



• Increasing the Affordability of Inactivated Poliovirus Vaccine in Low- and Middle-income Countries

  Deadline:

  Fri, Jan 20, 2012

  Reward:

  $25,000.00 USD

  The goal of this Challenge is to identify problems or opportunity areas where eventual solutions

Nature's Paul Smaglik: Green Card Vs Blue Card for Graduates & PostDocs?

Paul Smaglik's writes at the Nature's News and Comment about the future of Visa's for students in US/UK. Interesting to note the appointment of Janet Napolitano, gov of Arizona for the homeland security which overseas visa granting to students, researchers and other categories.

It seems Napolitano is an advocate for changing the current H1-B requirement to the Foriegn graduate students who are studying in US Universities. If the graduate student's pass through all the security checks by the immigration or home land security during their studies, then there was no need to have an H1-B. Students need not go through a H1-B period inorder to apply for a green card, rather a green card be granted to them? sounds pretty good. 

But, will it be feasible or go through the scrutiny and approval of both parties in the senate? which is already struggling to come to a realization in this battered economic conditions with huge job loss, unemployment and outsourcing. The arguments is that this kind of initiative will move job opportunities away from Americans into the hands of foriegn born graduates?. 

The current H1-B volume is about 65K, the new home land security secretary wants to increase this number, in addition she wants to make reorganizational changes that permit graduates to get green card without H1B, it is the current thinking, will it be practical is a question?. 

UK seems to be following up on the US paths to promote similar initiatives in giving "Blue Cards"?.

Though America and UK brags about the number of foriegn born graduates and students are attracted to US and UK for further studies, in reality it is Canada and Australia are the top two destinations in the world for graduates and students, a statistical figures can be found in Paul's news piece with reference.

Prospects 

Published in Nature 456, 1005 (17 December 2008) | 10.1038/nj7224-1005a

Visa quotas could soon be relaxed in the United States and Europe. But will the economic downturn mitigate the potentially positive effects?

Paul Smaglik¹

The battle for the US presidency has ended, but a visa storm may be brewing — and scientists could, in principle, be among the beneficiaries. Early this month, US president-elect Barack Obama nominated Arizona governor Janet Napolitano to head the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees citizenship and visas. Napolitano has been a staunch supporter of increasing the number of H1-B visas, which are used to hire foreign information-technology specialists, researchers and other highly skilled workers.

Read the full story: Click this Link.

The Under Represented Woman in Academina: Postdocs and Woman issues!

Kendall Powell of Nature.com writes about how badly woman are represented in the academia in this July 4th special report.


Special Report
NaturejobsPublished online: 4 July 2007; doi:10.1038/nj7149-098a
Beyond the glass ceiling
Women and under-represented minorities are earning historically high numbers of science doctorates in the United States. So why aren't they making it to the professorial ranks? Kendall Powell investigates.
Kendall Powell

If academia is to offer varied role models and perspectives for a diverse population of students, it must become more welcoming to women and ethnic minorities, leaders of diversity efforts say. Industry has already learned the value of diversity. In a 2003 amicus brief in support of the University of Michigan's affirmative-action admissions policies, 65 Fortune 500 firms argued that efforts to increase diversity improve innovation, productivity and global competition.Women and minorities suffer from the effects of isolation once they enter the upper ranks of academia. Both groups perceive academia as an unfriendly environment, and both suffer from an implicit bias against them in the hiring process.For women, the clash of their biological clock with the tenure clock, along with the effort of balancing work and family duties, is a huge barrier to advancing up the academic ladder. For minorities, financial and geographical constraints make academia a less attractive choice than industry. Attempts to remove barriers and to mend holes in the pipeline have met with mixed success.

Biological News-EVO -Karma, a POSTDOC BLOGGER!

The life of a postdoc.
Being a postdoc can be bloody hard. Not knwoing what will be next andwhether there will even be a next job is probably the most depressingthing. Funding is never easily obtained even though postdocs are thebackbone of research these days. It seems that the number of PhDscontinues to increase, whereas the faculty positions for us to go intohave not. link
I think that a revolution in the way academia is run is desperatly needed.First, I would suggest that some security is provided to postdocs, bythat I mean a salary provided by the government so that postdocs cancontinue working until they are awarded a grant or fellowship. Thiswould save us from claiming unemployment and at the same time give usthe financial support we need to continue our work.








Evo-Karma
All about the good, the bad and the ugly things in life but mainly stuff about evolution, diversity of life, life forms and morphogenesis, phylogenies, trees and insects. Lots of biological news and comments. Cool discoveries of new species etc...

PhDs & Changing trends in Job Market?

sPostDocs and the changing job market, an article by Paul Smaglik, the Nature jobs Editor provides some hints about changing trends in career for PhDs.

Demand for PhDs is uncertain in a changing market.
Paul Smaglik
"For recent graduates who are struggling to beat hundreds of other applicants to claim a full-time post, the answer is fairly obvious. But for those in industry who are trawling this sea of talent, the issue is less clear cut. Many recruiters say that they are unable to find the skills they require in the traditional marketplace. Depending on your level of cynicism, this is either an honest assessment or an apologia for outsourcing farther afield".