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Submission + - The Postdoc: A Special Kind of Hell (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by Jim_Austin
Jim_Austin writes: In a very funny column, Adam Ruben reviews the disadvantages and, well, the disadvantages of doing a postdoc, noting that "The term "postdoc" refers both to the position and to the person who occupies it. (In this sense, it's much like the term "bar mitzvah.") So you can be a postdoc, but you can also do a postdoc, which unfortunately isn't as sexual as it sounds."

Submission + - The Neuroscientist Who Discovered He Was a Psychopath

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Joseph Stromberg writes at the Smithsonian that one afternoon in October 2005, neuroscientist James Fallon was sifting through thousands of PET scans to find anatomical patterns in the brain that correlated with psychopathic tendencies in the real world. “Out of serendipity, I was also doing a study on Alzheimer’s and as part of that, had brain scans from me and everyone in my family right on my desk," writes Fallon. “I got to the bottom of the stack, and saw this scan that was obviously pathological." When he looked up the code, he was greeted by an unsettling revelation: the psychopathic brain pictured in the scan was his own. When he underwent a series of genetic tests, he got more bad news. “I had all these high-risk alleles for aggression, violence and low empathy,” he says, such as a variant of the MAO-A gene that has been linked with aggressive behavior. It wasn’t entirely a shock to Fallon, as he’d always been aware that he was someone especially motivated by power and manipulating others. Additionally, his family line included seven alleged murderers, including Lizzie Borden, infamously accused of killing her father and stepmother in 1892. Many of us would hide this discovery and never tell a soul, out of fear or embarrassment of being labeled a psychopath. Perhaps because boldness and disinhibition are noted psychopathic tendencies, Fallon has gone in the opposite direction, telling the world about his finding in a TED Talk, an NPR interview and now a new book published last month, The Psychopath Inside. “Since finding all this out and looking into it, I’ve made an effort to try to change my behavior,” says Fallon. “I’ve more consciously been doing things that are considered ‘the right thing to do,’ and thinking more about other people’s feelings.”

Submission + - Glut in Stolen Identities Forces Price Cut (darkreading.com)

Submitted by CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: The price of a stolen identity has dropped as much as 37 percent in the cybercrime underground: to $25 for a U.S. identity, and $40 for an overseas identity. For $300 or less, you can acquire credentials for a bank account with a balance of $70,000 to $150,000, and $400 is all it takes to get a rival or targeted business knocked offline with a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS)-for-hire attack. Meanwhile, ID theft and bank account credentials are getting cheaper because there is just so much inventory (a.k.a. stolen personal information) out there. Bots are cheap, too: 1,000 bots go for $20, and 15,000, for $250.

Submission + - Do Cell Phone Companies Improve Your Service at Contract Time? 1

Submitted by Jim_Austin
Jim_Austin writes: Has anyone else noticed this? After years of dropped calls and failed connections, suddenly your service improves as the end of your contract approaches. Thinking that your provider--in my case AT&T--has finally gotten their act together, you re-up and get that nice new phone. It works great during your trial period--and then it all falls apart again: dropped calls, failed connections.

Am I paranoid, or do the cell phone companies--or maybe it's just AT&T--get better near decision time?

Comment For me, faster (Score 1) 488

by Jim_Austin (#44926311) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Is iOS 7 Slow?
My immediate impression, on my 4S, was that it was much snappier. Also, my voice quality went from unacceptable to great. I realize that's almost certainly a coincidence--something happened on my network at the same time, or something--but that was my experience. As for speed though, no question: My iPhone 4S got faster. Jim

Submission + - They found the God particle--what now? (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by Jim_Austin
Jim_Austin writes: Teams of hundreds of young scientists--including many grad students and postdocs--staffed the Large Hadron Collider and helped make one of the most important scientific discoveries in recent decades. Now they must compete for just a handful of jobs.

Submission + - Note to Self: NEVER Do This (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by Jim_Austin
Jim_Austin writes: A note inadvertently left in the "supplemental information" of a journal article appears to instruct a subordinate scientist to fabricate data.

Submission + - Some "Very Strong Words" on the Immigration Reform Bill (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by Jim_Austin
Jim_Austin writes: At Science Careers, we've posted remarks by Norm Matloff on the immigration reform bill that passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday after 8 amendments from Senator Orin Hatch (R-Utah). "I believe that we will be seeing a lot of very angry people, once they realize what has been snuck through," he says.

Submission + - Going Rogue (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Mere months after running a crowdfunding campaign to set up his own "meth lab", Ethan Perstein leaves Princeton University and strikes out on his own.

Submission + - What 'Stapling a Green Card' Portends for STEM (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by Jim_Austin
Jim_Austin writes: At Science Careers, we've just posted a column by Beryl Benderly on the likely affects of high-skill immigration reform proposals on science, IT, and other "STEM" careers: >>"The incentives are all aligned to create massive downward pressures on the labor market" should "stapling" become a reality, says Hal Salzman of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. "It will lower costs in the labor market and effectively disincentivize people to go into [STEM] fields. It diminishes the quality of the jobs. The good Americans [will] go elsewhere."
Science

Submission + - "We Are the World" (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by Jim_Austin
Jim_Austin writes: Computer science veteran Ed Lazowska argues that his field is poised to dominate careers in the sciences.
Science

Submission + - Sexy, Sexy Scientists (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A popular feature about the sexiest scientists leads Adam Ruben to ask what it means to be sexy in science and to advise readers on how to make their science sexier. (Example: 'Arrange implausible pornographic situations in the lab: "This is my friend Kimberly. She just came over to use the chemical safety shower. Oh, look, the repairman is here to fix the differential scanning calorimeter." ') No one else writes stuff like this: "As the adage says, sex sells. (Or, if used to vend half a dozen unhealthy gametocytes, sex sells six sick sex cells.)"
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Truly Alternative Science Careers (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Slashdot has picked up previous "Experimental Error" columns, but this one might be the funniest yet. Can't find work in this bad economy, in your chosen scientific field? What is to be done? How 'bout trying a career in Lysenkoism, diluvial geology, or political science?

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