Scientist Dads Stepping Up - a New ScienceCareers?

Okay so there is a work-life balance carnival going on, or was going on yesterday over at LabSpaces. I found out about it thanks to DrugMonkey. I did thank DM for pointing it out, since you know I did cause that huge kerfuffle awhile ago....

Neways, I really did want to post about managing work-life balance and how I manage to be a grad student, mom, wife and person. Unfortunately I have no time. Because blogging is something I do as a "person" and there is very little me time right now. I listed those roles in their priority sequence. Mr.SM and me time are equal, neither is getting any...At work/school, I need to be a student and focused on studying, though that is a bit challenging after the whole comp debacle. At home, monkey needs me to be focused on him, the I have all the house chores to get done and so does Mr.SM.

Anyways, the point of me blogging mid-day is that Vijaysree Venkatraman shot me an email about her latest article in ScienceCareers. I have to say Five stars. She made sure to have pics of the male scientist being dads, talking about both the joys and challenges of being involved AND the Stigma. I am happy to see that the blogosphere was listened to. Here's to hoping this article is one of many and not just a one off.

Thanks to Vijee for sending it to me and giving me the heads up.

As usual Zuska does it again

I have no problem admitting that other people (especially other feminists) are way more articulate at expressing my thoughts/ feeling/ point of view then I am. For a variety of reasons, I find it hard to get all my thoughts / feelings/ opinions formed into coherent posts.

Well Zuska has written an awesome post on work life balance, all the different scenerios it encompasses and has challenged the male scibloggers to take a turn:)

Media direction of Research Dollars.

I'm not a vascular person or an MS person, but this story in the Globe and Mail irks me. I read the original news article on Saturday, thought it was interesting and was looking forward to how the MS treatments would eventually change. I will note, that as I read the original newspaper article, I noticed there was no mention of the studying being published. I thought this was odd as normally news stories will make a big splash and state which science/medical journal would be publishing the study. I was impressed with the caution and restraint that the not-for-profit MS Societies were showing.

Now it appears that the MS research focus may change and significant dollars will go into what may or may not be a valid research avenue. I say may or may not because I have no experience with MS research, I know nothing of about the validity of the original paper. I have not read it. I do not know what is the basis of the methodology was, what are the peer reviews saying? How was the recovery defined? How long were patients followed?

What I find interesting is that the MS Society is putting money into this avenue, not because it can answer those questions or because a push by the MS research community but because of hype from a investigate news journal and a newspaper.

I'm all for open access to research; a researcher must be able to example to the lay public what is going on. However, I do believe that science policy needs to remain above public opinion. There is a reason why good policy does not make good politics. Good policy can be a bitter pill to swallow. Which is not to say this guy might not be on to something. He may, but the treatment needs to be well studied, repeated etc.