Archive: December, 2016

From a talk in April 2016, slides and summaries about the post-PhD job hunt. View slides View blog post with links

Proofreading can be a chore, but if you send out your work full of typos and grammatical errors you won't be judged by the good quality of your ideas.... View resource

Peer review, meaning a critical assessment by experts within a discipline, is both a privilege and the responsibility of all scientists who seek to publish their research and compete for funding. Peer review also contributes to professional development: Many institutions consider peer review activities…

Plant pathologists like all other scientists are imparted scientific knowledge and technical expertise, building the educational side of their career. Beckerman and Schneider emphasize the pressing needs of teaching ‘soft skills’ scientists need in order to improve their leadership and professional…

"Don’t waste them trying to cram in eight more points or call out as many reminders as possible" One of a series of article by James Lang in the Chronicle of Higher Education on small changes that can make your teaching much better. The article includes links to his other columns. View resourc…

It has been stated that adaptive evolution occurs in plant populations with respect to various complex traits. Olofsson et al. validated the hypothesis that different components of a complex trait can evolve in isolation and later be combined by gene flow by using C4 photosynthesis as a study system.…

Recently, I was asked it if is ethical to give a job to a woman rather than to a man of higher quality. I replied, “How do we measure “quality”? This is the longer answer that I didn’t have time to provide. The opinions expressed are my own. Achievement does not equal quality Imagining…

Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) is a specialized form of photosynthesis that greatly increases water-use efficiency by taking up CO2 through stomata that are open at night (when evapotranspiration is low). Engineering plants that can switch to CAM during periods of drought is a key goal towards…