December 13, 2010 Just a quick note: This Monday, ScienceGeist is going to be part of a roundtable discussion on the state of jobs in the chemical industry and academia, and by default, the things we talk about will be 100% applicable to any employment in any technical arena. The schedule is as follows: Monday: Chemjobber will discuss why the current view (espoused by the President’s Scientific Advisory Council and many other agencies and CEO’s) is wrong. The background for this post will be an article by Beryl Benderly. So, do your homework and check it out! Tuesday: Leigh Krietsch Boerner will discuss over at her blog on CENtral whether or not we are training more chemists in PhD programs than we actually need to be. I’m sure a lot of our readers have strong opinions on this one. Wednesday: Paul Bracher will give his opinions on ChemBark on why we need to abolish tenure for academic faculty members. I’m sure he will bring out some of his characteristic wit and sarcasm for the post. Should be great! Thursday: We’re hosting the discussion over here on what we think the government and private policies and practices should be to address some of these problems Friday: There will be a wrap-up hosted on Chemjobber that will summarize all of the discussions and some of our conclusions. We’re really excited about being associated with all of these great blogs and wonderful people. But, mostly, we’re excited to hear from you. In all of these discussions, we NEED to hear from you. What ideas do you have? Are we thinking about things the right way. This roundtable won’t work without your input!!. If you would like to see the release that I sent out to the world (to other scientists, science communicators, journalists, science policy folks) check here. Two interesting videos to leave you with today. The first is from the bomb-house in San Deigo. If you don’t know anything about it, visit Jyllian Kemsley’s post over on the Chemical & Engineering News site where she’s done an awesome job of covering the whole story. Specifically, you should go there because she has a link to a much better video than I’m going to put up here. Here’s another video of just plain awesomeness! The good folks at the NatureVideoChannel have made a replica of a Greek computer (originally built in 100 BCE) that calculated when solar eclipses would occur. They only used Lego’s to put the thing together. I don’t know what I find more amazing: the fact that the Greeks made one of these so long ago or that these guys replicated it and made an AWESOME video! Check it out. Have a great weekend! mrh
Chemistry and Tech Job Policy
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