This blog is about what its like to be a bat researcher with a little bit about the things I love sprinkled throughout: bats (of course/understood), biology, music as well as the less expected.
I have a fun Opinion piece to direct you to titled 'Shocking Sex Secrets of Insects'- written by Marlene Zuk and published recently in the New York Times.
The image below illustrates the recent finding reported by Li et al, 2013 in a paper titled "Forever Love: The Hitherto Earliest Record of Copulating Insects from the Middle Jurassic of China".
Image: Shu LiChungkun ShihChen WangHong PangDong Ren
The Opinion article by Dr. Zuk starts as follows:
"PROSTITUTION is supposedly the oldest profession, which means that sex
itself must be one of the oldest behaviors, a conclusion underscored by
the recent discovery of two bugs fossilized as they coupled 165 million
years ago. Simply being ancient doesn’t make a sex act interesting, but
this one was noteworthy in part because behavior is generally so
ephemeral, leaving none of the preserved remains we rely upon to tell us
about how early forms of life ate, or ran, or saw the world."
Dr. Zuk is author of "Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love and Language From the Insect World" and is a very engaging writer. Her book Sexual Selections is my favorite and is responsible in part for me pursuing certain lines of inquiry during my PhD work. I highly recommend it but have heard good things about the book shown below.
Writing can be tough. It can frustrate, madden or bore- but it is also rewarding. This is the topic of today's post.
Much of being in academia is writing and scientific writing can be particularly intimidating. It is commonly jargon rich, feels non-creative and highly
formulaic. This is because for a paper to be successful precision and
thoroughness are key while creativity or prose tends to be an afterthought.
In any case, I find that writing is a key aspect of my work-life I most wish to improve upon or at least enjoy more. Thus, I'm always excited to learn about books or other resources about writing, presenting motivation or even better advice on how to be a more efficient writer. For example Stanford has a series of videos that present interviews with different faculty members - each discussing why writing matters to them. Below is the video from Deborah Gordon a well-known biologist who studies ant behavior and has written several books on this topic.
My favorite part of the video is when she says:
"when someone really understands what then mean to say-
they don't need jargon anymore."
I very much agree with this idea. Even in scientific papers where researchers explain complex methodologies, results and concepts I believe they should be able to at the very least write a jargon free abstract AND discussion. I often describe this as the 'explain it to your grandmother requisite'. Namely, one should be able to explain the ideas and general methods of what they are doing research-wise to anyone- particularly grandmothers. (I choose to think of explaining it to a grandmother because in my experience they are so often: interested, patient and encouraging- in my mind - the perfect audience)!
Perhaps in science we want others to think we are smart so less weight is put on this skill: communicating clearly without jargon- whereas obtuse writing is rewarded because if it is difficult to understand 'you must be smarter than I am'. This is just a guess. In any case, it seems to me to be a rather unfortunate state of affairs. Particularly sad and surprising is that early biologists did not always write in this way. Pick up early papers by Darwin for example, and I think you'd agree that things are presented in a much more story-telling manner.
So while it is most certainly not a book aimed at non-fiction writers I ordered a copy of the book Bird by Bird. It arrived today and I am so excited I may spend the rest of the night reading it! Bird by Bird is written by Anne Lammot and seems to be funny and inspirational. I learned about this book from another blog: Orangette- where the blog's author: Molly spoke very highly of it and I get the impression drew a good deal of inspiration when writing her 2nd (no I haven't bought it yet- but I will....) book.
In any case Molly is a great writer and makes me smile a lot with her blog posts so I tend to take her word not only on recipes (hasn't let me down yet) but on writing as well.
"I had the strangest feeling. It took me a long time to figure out what
it was, because I’d never felt it before. Turns out, I missed writing. ... I know that probably seems like a perfectly normal thing to feel,
given that writing is what I do. But the truth is, most of the time, I
will do anything to avoid it. ... I
understand that some people wake up itching to write. They feel as
though they somehow aren’t complete unless they’re writing. I have
never been one of those people. I have wondered what it’s like to be
one of those people. Sometimes I have wondered what it would be like to
punch those people."
She also recommends this lovely Ted talk by Elizabeth Gilbert which I will echo here- it really is great!
Bird by bird's book description is pasted here from Amazon: (Book Description)
"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old
at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had
three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our
family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears,
surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds,
immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down
beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird
by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'"
Anyway- hopefully I've given you some useful links here and inspired you to think about how scientists do and should write. I am not going to launch into the whole 'Publish or Perish' dogma in academia. Perhaps another day. Plus- really the fact of the matter is that I think there are much more positive ways to view the publishing process. So as I work my way through this book and try to find my own muse- I'll share more about that here! Meanwhile it is bat by bat for me!
Here is a pretty song that seems to fit the mood today. It is cold, grey and rainy here in Massachusetts today- but in a cozy way. I'll be writing while listening to it.
I hope it can similarly inspire you to do something cozy and productive.
'I am not a monster...' begins the dramatic plea of an exhausted and jailed hamster mother.
Why is the pitiful mother in jail?
She has eaten one (or more) of her babies. We learn that this behavior is somewhat commonplace among hamsters.
She goes on to explain her reasoning. To raise more pups would have been impossible... This is a case of limited resources being divided among competing processes (trade-offs). If she had cared for all of the young perhaps she would have perished mid-way through lactation (prior to weaning her young) and all of the babies would have died.
Nature... red in tooth and claw- and overall a good (albeit cold-hearted) economist.
If you want to know more please watch the video below from the new Sundance Channel series 'MAMMAS'.
The story of a hamster mama is told by the lovely Isabella Rossellini. Apparently when asked "if she drew inspiration from the relationship with her own mother (for the series), the Oscar-winning star of Casablanca, Rossellini is quick to respond. “No, it’s biology,” she firmly asserts. “I cannot write Mammas about a worm and think of Ingrid Bergman. It’s too far away.”
I love worms but I think I have to agree here... also- can you imagine having Ingrid Bergman as a mother!? Crazy!
And no- despite a surely glamorous childhood and life as a model- Isabella is most certainly not just another pretty face...
Rossellini is currently pursuing a graduate degree in Animal Behavior!
I guess that makes her a bio-nerd.... Kinda like Amy Farrah Fowler in The Big Bang Theory. Amy Farrah Fowler is supposed to be a neurobiologist in the show. I'll admit I love the show and I like Mayim Bialik as Amy. Mayim by the way REALLY is a biologist... just like her character (she has a PhD I believe from UCLA in fact). (*Just like Pauley Perrette has actually studied forensics)...
But lets be honest... her character in the BBT does not depict us lady biologists in quite the same light...
Do you see what I mean?
Dear Isabella,
Thanks for helping us biology ladies make a strong case that science can be smart AND sexy! I unfortunately am too busy with doing microscopy to actively pursue my modeling career but perhaps my career as a hand-model will be launched when someone... somewhere publishes an image of my hand changing magnifications and Rolex simply 'must know' who's hand that is (sigh)....
Surely one can dream- no?
Now back to the point:
Ah yes- check out MAMMAS - and while you are at it I also highly recommend the previous series 'Green Porno'.
I am excited (dare I say thrilled) to report that a paper I was involved with got blogged about!
*Forgive the self-enthusiasm. This is a first for me!*
This paper examines lactation in 129 species and was published this year (2013) in the Journal of Animal Ecology.
The paper is titled: "The evolution of the nutrient composition of mammalian milks"
Authors: Amy L. Skibiel, Lauren M. Downing, Teri J. Orr and Wendy R. Hood
Article Summary: "1. In mammals, nutrient allocation during lactation is a critical component of maternal care as milk intake promotes juvenile growth and survival, and hence maternal and offspring fitness. 2. Milk composition varies widely across mammals and is hypothesized to have arisen via selection pressures associated with environment, diet and life history. These hypotheses have been proposed based on observations and/or cross-species comparisons that did not standardize for stage of lactation and did not consider evolutionary history of the species in analyses. 3. We conducted the largest comparative analysis of milk composition to date accounting for phylogenetic relationships among species in order to understand the selective advantage of producing milk with specific nutritional profiles. We examined four milk constituents in association with species ecology while incorporating phylogeny in analyses. 4. Phylogenetic signal was apparent for all milk constituents examined. After controlling for phylogeny, diet and relative lactation length explained the greatest amount of variation in milk composition. Several aspects of species’ ecologies, including adaptation to arid environments, reproductive output and maternal body mass were not associated with milk composition after accounting for phylogeny. 5. Our results suggest that milk composition is largely a function of evolutionary history, maternal nutrient intake and duration of milk production. Arriving at these conclusions was made possible by including the evolutionary relationships among species."
Read the blog entry by Katie Hinde here at:
http://mammalssuck.blogspot.com/2013/11/mega-mammal-milk-analysis.html
This paper was part of Amy Skibiel's dissertation work under the direction of Wendy Hood. I've written about these two lovely ladies before as they were instrumental for helping me get my bat milk work up and running during my dissertation!
