The Egyptian goddess Isis was celebrated as the ideal wife and mother.
The blogger known as Dr. Isis has some fancy-sounding degrees and is a physiologist at a major research university working on some terribly impressive stuff. She blogs about balancing her research career with the demands of raising small children, how to succeed as a woman in academia, and anything else she finds interesting. Also, she blogs about shoes. In fact, she blogs a lot about shoes.
About 80% of what Dr. Isis writes is the God's honest truth. About 20% is total nonsense. Dr. Isis makes no claims as to which is which and neither should you.
The American Physiological Society has another award available. This one is for undergraduates interested in doing summer research in the lab of an established (ie, hot shot) investigator. The research award provides $4000 for 10 weeks of support and a $1300 travel stipend in order to attend the annual Experimental Biology meeting.
The deadline to apply is February 2nd. Award information is here and the site to apply is here.
For those of you not already aware of this from Dr. Isis's-quicker-at-hitting-the-post-button-ScienceBlog colleagues, ScienceBlogs is upgrading their publishing software this weekend. This means that Dr. Isis will be unable to post between 1 pm Friday and 5 pm Saturday EST.
If you still need your SB fix, PhysioProf has graciously offered to allow a bunch of us to guestblog over at his joint. You can check us all out here during the Great ScienceBlogs Outage of 2009.
While you're over there, tell him how much you loved his Postdoc piece. And just wait until you see the hot freshness I have coming up for the grad students-to-be!
Your research may have been very important, but I wouldn't know because I have no idea what you were talking about. Not because I am not smart or knowledgeable in this field. Not because I was not initially interested in the topic. No, my dear colleague, you lost me when you violated the 6x6x1 rule of presenting and I was so distracted by your whack-a-balloon slides, that I gave up and started daydreaming about which shoes I should buy to go with my new red plaid skirt. The 6x6x1 rule is as follows:
Thou shalt include no more than 6 lines of text on your slide with each line containing no more than 6 words. Further more, though shalt spend no less than one minute per slide. Thusly, though shalt have no more slides than the number of minutes you plan to talk. And even then , though shalt have ideally half that number.
Because, seriously dude! Your paragraphs of 8 point white font on a blue background, read while you sat in a chair with your back to us, made me want to stab myself in the eye with my mascara wand to end my own misery. In case there is still any confusion, allow me to illustrate:
Figure 1: Panel A -- An effective slide. Panel B -- A slide that will make Dr. Isis wonder if there really is a God and, if so, why he has forsaken her. And a 10 line table? Seriously, you should know better,
You may have cured cancer, but I don't really care because my head hurts so bad from trying to read your clusterfuck of a slide. Now, if you have a way to cure my squinting-induced headache, I might be willing to give you another listen. With that, I leave you with one additional piece of advice that may have made this all a little less painful:
Dr. Isis's #1 Rule for Presenting: Never, ever, ever, ever find yourself in a position where you have to apologize for your slides.
You now know the 6x6x1 rule and, if you ever consider violating it again, slap your own hand and tell yourself it was from Isis. But also of importance to you after seeing the shenanigans that took place today is that, when I give a talk, I carry my presentation with me on 2 forms of external media (usually a CD and a flashdrive) and I email the little piece of brilliance to myself. I make sure I know what type of computer I am going to be using in advance so I can be sure that images and fonts are compatible. Cause, really, it doesn't matter how cool your movies are when they don't work.
All my best,
Isis
PS: Dr. Isis recently did an interview with the editorial powers that be at ScienceBlogs. Check out the hotness here.
Dr. Isis recently received an e-mail asking about the process of successfully identifying and obtaining post-doctoral positions:
I'd like to try something new, which means applying to labs that are not in my field, so not known personally by my PI, and not generally at the same meetings I've been attending as a student. It also means a lot of background reading to prepare for the interview. So I was wondering if you have any tips to share on how to send an application that stands out (besides the totally hot science I've been working on) when you come from another field, and how to prepare for the interviews once you get them... do you try to read all the papers from the lab? The recent reviews in the new field? Publications that make some link between your current research and the new field? Should you already have a plan for the questions you'd like to work on (or do you assume that the lab already has someone working on the obvious questions arising from the recent publications in the field and try to see what is new in the lab when you get there?)
In addition, Scicurious has expressed an interest in how to find post-doc positions. Well, Comrade PhysioProf is here to throw down, albeit not in hot shoes!
Most of Dr. Isis's regular blog reading comes in science form. You folks are prolifically wonderful writers and I do my very best to keep up. Still, there are a couple of non-science blogs in the reader. Once of them has been in there a long time and is one of Dr. Isis's favorite guilty pleasures, Go Fug Yourself.
I can't seem to help myself. Some of the things people design and wear crack me up. This week, however, GFY hit a little close to home with a picture of Lindsay Lohan:
Figure 1: Dr. Isis is wearing, basically, this outfit in her office today. Dr. Isis's top is teal and her boots are black but otherwise she and La Lohan are twins.
Heather at GFY writes:
You know what else hasn't changed in the new year? LEGGINGS STILL AREN'T PANTS. Take a memo, Lohan. Jot it down right under "beg Tina Fey to write another movie role for you" and "prune hair extensions."
You know what? Yes they are! Don't hate because I look cute today, Heather! I am far too irrational for that. Also, they are perfectly acceptable manuscript writing pants, so "thhhhhhhhhhhhhhbbbbb!"
It's 4 am and I am still in my office. I realize at this point that sleep is silly. I have to be back by 8:30 am to meet with a new student. I think I am going to go home and sit in the bathtub until then.
Still, I made it to swimming lessons tonight and I got a run in. Also, I knocked out some science that is so hot it is going to rock people's universes...you know, when they wake up and come in to work. That should get me some kind of reward...
It's only Tuesday and I am already losing my freakin' mind this week. I need to get a manuscript and abstract out the door and I am giving a seminar at the end of the week. I am trying to solve some lab-based problems and have new students coming next week. I need to leave my office in four minutes to get to swimming lessons.
This evening I had the choice between a run and a de novo blog post. I can't lie, I chose the run and got a great workout in with a couple of supra-lactate threshold periods in specifically designed to kick my own ass. Still, I know you demand reading material, little monkeys, and so I offer you a post from the old blog on family time, pesto making, and why Dr. Isis is the hottest science blogger in the sphere. It's behind the cut.
Dr. Isis's Scibling, PalMD from denialism blog, is far technologically superior to your humble domestic and laboratory goddess. Not only is this wacky guy blogging, but he's making the rest of us look bad by also posting podcasts. His fourth podcast is available here. A few memorable moments:
[Pal's child singing the theme song and discussion of "Daddy waffles"]
I did drink coffee; the offspring did drink milk
Of course, this is bullshit.
I'm a doctor, not a deity
Well, Dr. Isis is a deity of home and science and Pal's discussion of science-based medicine is fantastic. I'm a huge fan of PalMD and love the idea of the physician as a scientist who critically evaluates data in order to make treatment decisions. One would argue that this should be the norm, but Pal gives you all the reasons it's not. Check him out!
Dr. Isis commenter and friend of the blog Eppendork just left this video in the comments section of another post. It is so amazing I thought it warranted its very own post.
Video 1: This is exactly what I imagine it will be like when I make the big breakthrough that gets me the cover of Science and my Nobel. Fantastic shoes and all.
Eppendork, you're amazing and you can work in Isis's lab any day. But, you had better bite your damned tongue next time you think of writing:
Dr Isis - I do believe she out does you on the shoes this time!
If I like what I see, I'll receive 5 more issues (6 in all) for just $19.95. If I'm not completely satisfied, I'll simply write "cancel" on the invoice and owe nothing. The free issue is mine to keep.
