...I would be a fireman. OK, so a Science Blogs reader asks, "Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?"
I don't think I can limit it to one, but here's several areas that interest me:
- Solar power. I would love to figure out how to build a more efficient solar panel.
- Evo-devo. We finally have the tools to answer some really cool questions (I realize I am an evolutionary biologist, but evo-devo is still very far afield for me).
- Astronomy. I don't know very much about it at all, but I would like to learn more about it.
- Political science. I think someone with lots of training in experimental design could try some really wacky things.
All of this assumes, of course, that if I stopped what I'm doing now I would stay in science. If I had my druthers, I would be a radio DJ who could make his own playlist...
More like this
A review of evo-devo (Jenner, R.A., Wills, M.A. (2007) The choice of model organisms in evo-devo. Nat Rev Genet. 8:311-314. Epub 2007 Mar 6.) is starting to make rounds on the blogs.
Doc Myers has another evo-devo post up; this one is on conserved dorsal-ventral patterning in the vertebrate and arthropod nervous systems.
Evolution 101 has a brief definition of evo-devo.
In a review of a new book edited by Alan Love, The evolution of “evo-devo”, Adam Wilkins makes a few telling criticisms of the sub-field I enjoy.