The ladybugs are successfully reproducing on our mint plant. Oh frabjous day! The larvae are crawling all over the plant scarfing down aphid...

We have now interviewed two post-doc applicants. Both are extremely well qualified for their respective prospective positions. Both seem ver...

Most mornings I spritz the chocolate peppermint plant on our bedroom windowsill from a spray bottle of water. It loves to be damp. It is gro...

I'm one of those people who have trouble sitting still and working for any great period of time. I frequently find excuses to get up and...

Spring has sprung and is sprinting toward summer here in Rostock. The horse-chestnut trees that line many of the parks and roads are covered...

We've just gotten a Roomba . For those of you who don't know, this is one of those vacuum-cleaner robots. It has some obvious advant...

I have called a lot of references for post-doctoral candidates over the last weeks. I always go into it wanting the reference to tell me how...

My prediction for hiring success has improved significantly over the past few days, for reasons both rational and irrational. Rationally, I’...

The part of science I like best is the coming up with questions part. The part where I ask something someone else has never asked before (or...

The pun is my wife's, the Photoshopping my own: This, for the record, took 36 minutes, starting with a giraffe clipart.

I have an ethical situation here. I've received a fraudulent post-doctoral application. This applicant has, on his CV, listed quite a fe...

I have a bit of a stomach bug this weekend, so I am thinking about things that don't require so much concentration. A colleague had rais...

I'm a bit uncomfortable with some of these German CVs . The lebenslauf ( life run ) is the rough equivlent to a curriculu...

The question has arisen how we should define Evolutionary Demography, such that we can decide if someone's work qualifies. I have offere...

I’m a great fan of the pre-submission inquiry. The way this usually works is I write an email to the editor of a journal saying, “Here’s thi...

A group of us considering organizing a new scientific society have been compiling a list of those we would like to invite to the initial mee...

I have thus far received 39 post-doctoral applications. Of these 29 were immediately rejectable on the criteria that the application did not...

The cover letters of the post-doc applications I have received have included statements along the lines of, "I have been following the ...

We now have enough ladybugs in our window plants that the aphids and white-flies won't last long. However keeping the predators concentr...

I like to have edible plants in the house. We have mint, basil and a Thai chili plant at the moment. We had oregano, but it didn't make ...