In a previous post I wrote about how great new web tools are making it easier for scientists to collaborate, find information, and share information. This light-hearted introduction was rather popular, so heres’s a tongue-in-cheek video version.
Ok, so these questions aren’t perfect. Nobody reads scientific papers for fun, and you’re a lucky person if you leap of bed with the expectation of a day solving the world’s scientific problems. But you get my point I’m trying to make. Being a computational scientist is hard work. No one really knows what you do, day-to-day. You have to be your own boss - is the next slice of code you write going to move you any closer to your goal?
Science, biology in particular, lags behind in the uptake of new web technologies. For example blogging is still regarded in the mainstream as a frivolous, self-indulgent activity. While, in business, blogs have been embraced as an effective method of communicating with customers - have a look at these wired articles, here and here.