You do it already. You spend a portion of your research hours on the here and now, a slice or two on what's to come, and a sliver on the past. What you may not do is purposefully work out what the best balance is between past, present, and future. To preclude a nighttime visit from a hooded Ghost of Projects Yet to Come, a la Dickens, take some time to analyze your present allocation.If you define present projects as everything from bench work to publication, then future projects include brainst

Ned ShawImagine an entertaining evening out on the town and talking science. Sound unlikely? Not to attendees of science cafés in Europe, North America, and Australia. Perhaps these comments, collected from Australian audiences, will sway naysayers to look more closely: "I love the exchange of ideas." "Provocative and fun." "I like seeing the 'techos' come out of the closet."Science cafés aspire to promote discussion of science in a community setting. Held in venues ranging from caf

If writing a personal essay is a drive on Germany's Autobahn, then writing a research article is Friday evening gridlock in Manhattan. One is free-flowing and colorful with a rhythm that stirs the senses. The other is formulaic, dense, slow-moving, and grating on the nerves.Both types of writing fall under the category of nonfiction and are governed by certain rules of the road, such as grammar and truthfulness. Both can benefit from the use of a guide to style and usage; Strunk and White's The

THE VIRAL TREE OF "LIFE"Compiled by Jill U. AdamsIn the late-19th century, scientists showed that certain infectious agents, such as those causing tobacco mosaic virus and yellow fever, were distinct from other microbes because they were so small. Still, it was presumed that they were living organisms until 1935 when tobacco mosaic virus was crystallized. The discovery of its acellular structure made viruses "seem more like nonliving chemical entities of disease," a view still held by many, writ

AMYLOID REPRIEVE:Courtesy of the National Institute on AgingAmyloid β is the cleavage product of Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP). Long suspected a culpable player in Alzheimer disease progression due to the plaques it forms, Aβ may have a physiological role depressing neuronal function.Recent work has revealed a potential physiological role for amyloid β, often considered a major culprit in Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology. This suggests that Aβ, an ordinarily upstanding prot

Courtesy of Monica MarcuMonica Marcu's life outside the lab is just that: outside. As a nature photographer, she spends her free time, "all the weekends, all the holidays," exploring the parks and nature preserves in and around the Washington, DC area.After years of taking her camera along on hikes, her husband suggested: Why not be a photographer? Inspired, Marcu set about reading books and taking classes; she studied with professionals and practiced on her own. In time, her technique and her c

©2003 Elsevier NEUROPATHIC PAIN MECHANISMS: Neuropathic pain can originate from peripheral or central nervous system damage. (A) Following injury, damaged nerves attempt to regenerate. This often leads to accumulated nerve sprouts, gliosis, and a buildup of white blood cells. (B) After nerve damage, prominent changes in the dorsal root ganglion and dorsal horn can be observed. Sympathetic innervation occurs as does increased crosstalk between nociceptive and nonnociceptive neurons. (C

Moonlighting | If the Shoe Fits ... Courtesy of Bruce Benjamin Bruce Benjamin's daytime job as Chairman of he Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at Oklahoma State University in Tulsa may put shoes on his family's feet, but his weekend vocation, shoeing horses, helps his equine clientele do their jobs. Benjamin is a farrier, and the horses he shoes range from Clydesdales that haul to show horses that look like royalty. Benjamin's research interests include cardiovascular and ren

Gerad Taylor Your grant went unscored; the review panel returned the manuscript without review. Your reaction may reveal how well you deal with rejection, and even whether you want to pursue a science career. Still angry? You say the reviewers were, um, less than intelligent? That may not be a constructive reaction, according to studies and experts. A study by ecologists Phillip Cassey of Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris and Tim Blackburn of University of Birmingham, UK, examined failure-to-

Ned Shaw Open your file drawer all the way, and force your fingers to pry through the folders wedged in the back. Or take down that black binder from a decade ago, labeled with the name of a student you can no longer picture. Perhaps you saved that dataset for the sparkling nugget of an unexpected finding, hoping to determine later whether it might be fool's gold or the real thing. But, in relinquishing it to the vault, it's become like mystery meat, wrapped tightly in aluminum foil inside a

Andrew Meehan Because the sheer volume of published journal papers overwhelms even the most diligent scientist, review articles play an increasingly important role in a researcher's life. Want to brush up on a new topic? Reading two or three review articles will give you a good overview of the current status of a field, including some historical perspective and a point-counterpoint of controversial ideas and emerging hypotheses. Trying to glean the same information from dozens of abstracts is