Wednesday, December 29, 2010

29/42 to 14/20 adapters

A collection of small things that make me happy (and yes, not much time to blog this morning):

- It's a really bad idea not to It's a good idea to find a secure place to back up your Ph.D. thesis.
- Check out this post on reddit chemistry about exposure to polymer resin dust; looks like legal action to me.
- Probably you've all read it, but check out Derek Lowe's recipe for French onion soup.
- Read the latest on formaldehyde-containing hair products at Brazilian Blowout Central Sharon's blog, I Can Has Science.
- Go submit your nominations for the 2010 Chemmys at ChemBark. (I should really start the Jobbies, or something like that.)
- Why are the letters "z" and "x" so popular in drug names?
- An excellent list of quotes from journal referees at ChemistryBlog.

Enjoy!

8 comments:

  1. Hi Chemjobber--in case you missed it, there was another article on the PhD supply in the last Economist ("Doctoral degrees: the disposable academic") and a vote on "is doing a PhD a waste of time?" on their website.

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  2. Thanks -- I did see it. It's unfortunately more of the same; I suspect credentialism is even higher overseas than it is here.

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  3. Thanks for the link, CJ. I'm trying to find an electronic version of the story and will post if I can.

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  4. No problem, dude. That's really quite a nightmarish scenario (and it doesn't hurt to remind people.)

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  5. http://www.economist.com/node/17723223

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  6. @bad wolf

    Interesting article. I would say that this is written from the perspective of those strictly seeking academic employment (i.e. tenure-track professor). For example, a PhD in the humanities and social sciences has little recourse outside of academia. PhD chemists can fortunately seek a career in industry.

    However, some of the supply arguments ring true due to the depressed state of the chemistry industrial job market. But, I'm thankful that we at least have that potential industrial arena.

    Thanks for the article.

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  7. The poor gal whose dissertation work was stolen is kind of getting a bum rap from bloggers. She did have everything backed up onto an external hard drive (same method I've used for years). Problem is, that was stolen too. And she had a good job offer in Albuquerque that was contingent on finishing her degree. Not much of a Merry Christmas for that family.

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  8. A9:08a:

    I didn't know that, just by going off of the summary provided by TRW. I'll edit the line. Thanks for commenting.

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looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20