So off to the questions:

1. What is your blog about?
   My blog is mostly biotech related, with special focus on topics that I’m interested in and feel the need to write about. Either to spread the news or to put my own spin on a topic.Oh, and a personal rant here and there to spice things up.
2. What will you never write about?
   Topics I know absolutely nothing about, namely telenovela reviews, eastern European gastronomy, seashell collecting, among others.
3. Have you ever considered leaving science?
   I’m still working my way into science per se. So no, I’ve never considered it.
4. What would you do instead?
   I’d most probably enjoy being a graphic designer. I’ve tried it at an amateur level and have enjoyed it quite a bit.
5. What do you think will science blogging be like in 5 years?
   Blogging has evolved so quickly over the last couple years and has been used for so many different goals that it’s quite hard to say what it will be like in 5 years. However, I hope that blogs and other online mediums are used to share scientific knowledge, making it available to more and allowing fellow scientists to communicate with ease.
6. What is the most extraordinary thing that happened to you because of blogging?
   I can say that the decision to start blogging, after years of lurking on other blogs and only participating via comments, was the best thing I could have done. I’ve connected with people from all over the planet, co-founded a network of science bloggers (The DNA Network) and been invited (and accepted!) to work at MIT.
7. Did you write a blog post or comment you later regretted?
   Aside from my whining and rants, I’m yet to really regret posting something. *crosses fingers*
8. When did you first learn about science blogging?
   I just happened to read blogs that I thought were interesting. I guess I noticed a stronger flux of science related blogs pop up around 2 years ago. And therefore the DNA Network came about as a form to connect bloggers of topics that I find interesting. There are now many science blogging networks.
9. What do your colleagues at work say about your blogging?
   Blogging took a bit longer to hit mainstream here in Portugal and is usually not taken too seriously. However, my blogging was well accepted while in the US and has been a point of connection with folks from all over the globe.

(HT: Bora)

The Science Blog meme

“And if that’s not enough of a good thing, consider this: Descartes liked to stay in bed till 11 A.M. - good ammunition the next time anyone gives me flak about sleeping late.”

in The Know-It-All - One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A. J. Jacobs

• Grab the nearest book.
• Open it to page 56.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
• Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

Quick book meme

The guys that brought you Papers, the award winning software to organize your papers, have now come out with this cool Mac app for the iPhone or iPod touch that allows you to easily perform the calculations for preparation of chemical solutions. The software’s name is as original as Papers‘ - it’s called Solutions.

There’s a cool screencast of the app in action and also some screenshots too. Although calculating this type of stuff isn’t really too difficult, the cool part is that the app comes bundles with loads of info, not only about all the chemical elements to easily calculate molecular weights but also with the PubChem and Chebi databases for easy search along with graphic representations. Too cool for school!

Yet another reason for me to get an iPod touch. If you already have one, you can find the app @ iTunes, here.

Solutions brings chemistry to your iPhone or iPod touch

Since then, Mendeley has moved into public beta, therefore anyone can register and download the software. Another great development is that the software that was originally only available for Windows users (like myself!), is now available in Mac and Linux flavors too.

A press release was sent out this week where some of the project funding info was provided and I’m glad to see some respectable online company names supporting this great project, like former Skype engineers and last.fm Chairman too.

If you didn’t get a code to try out Mendeley during the private beta, go give it a try now. I really recommend it.

Mendeley goes public and gets some love from ex-Skype and last.fm

I’ve made many friends and many doors have opened as a result of setting up My Biotech Life. I must thank everyone that came by and thought I had anything interesting to say.

Let’s see if I can keep this thing going strong for another 2!

It’s been 2 great years…

The website is available in English and Portuguese and full of great content. Even a blog!

Darwin’s Evolution at Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

The MIT kid, possibly a computer science graduate, was going on about how all his friends were coders working at Cisco earning 33 bucks an hour. Some where at Google, got paid less but had better perks.

The BU guy followed by saying something along the lines: “Wow, 33 an hour! I should have gone into computer sciences…”. To what the MIT kid replied “Nah, everybody is into bio these days… That’s where the money is!”.

Shortly after, the MIT kid said “Anyways, I hate bio!”. The BU guy concurred with a simple “Me too”.

Everybody is into bio these days…

The tone of the article is pretty damning, but if you read it with non-sensitized eyes it’s not as bad as everyone seems to think. I showed it to non scientists and didn’t get the take the blogosphere did.

Considering that most (all) reactions came from science related bloggers, the resulting throughput of comments and blog posts was surely expected. After all, the article was published in a scientific magazine.

PLoS is simply going through the natural progression of a startup. It has solved the first puzzle: making something people want, which is open access journals. In so doing it has answered the question of whether or not a completely open journal can consistently produce high quality peer reviewed science. That answer, by the by, is hell yes.

I like the idea of PLoS as a startup that is keeping to it’s original goal while trying to work out the kinks regarding the open-access publishing model. And I agree, they have produced high quality peer reviewed science.

Read John Wilbanks’ post at his Nature Network.

Science Commons’ John Wilbanks on the Declan Butler article

Mac users have an award winning software application called Papers (not free) that is all the rage or even Yep (free?), the Linux gang have some options like Referencer that did a decent job of organizing and downloading metadata for the files. But Windows users were stuck with… well, expensive software packs like Endnote. Oh, and maybe Zotero that is a Firefox addon.

Well, it seems that this is not an issue anymore, someone has been hard at work and there is now a real option for Windows users (Mac & Linux too (sort of…)), it is called Mendeley.

Mendeley is still in closed beta but it is already packing a punch with some features that make it much more than just a paper manager. In their words:

Mendeley Desktop helps you to manage your research papers as easily as MP3s. When you import your research papers (in text PDF format), Mendeley Desktop will try to automatically extract the metadata (authors, title, journal, etc.), thus giving you a hand in setting up your digital library. In the next versions, we will also introduce Microsoft Word integration, OCR for converting your image PDFs, sharing and collaboration features, and exciting 3D visualizations of your library.

But Mendeley Desktop is just the starting point to get more out of your research papers. In the coming weeks and months, Mendeley Web will begin to provide you with personalized reading recommendations, statistics about your own publications, up-and-coming topics in your academic discipline, a network of fellow researchers, and much more

One of the cool features here is that there is a Desktop and a Web component that leverage the strengths of each platform. It will be interesting to see how the collaborative features in Mendeley Web work.
I’ve just began to use the software today so I can’t really get into any technical issues I may have noticed, but from what I’ve seen so far, it looks great. The user interface is functional and the overall design is also quite pleasant, on both Mendeley Desktop and Web.

The friendly folks at Mendeley have given me access to beta test the application along with 20 no more invites for my readers. If you are interested in being a beta tester, feel free to comment below and I’ll send out invites first come, first served.

I’m sure we’ll be hearing much more about Mendeley in the near future as the features start rolling out. Meanwhile, take a look at this demo (youtube) and let me know what you think about this app.

Mendeley = paper management + collaboration goodness

Aside from getting to know the great people responsible for creating OpenWetWare, I have had the opportunity to directly participate in this great project at a core level with the implementation of specific tools like the lab notebook and interact with the great community that makes OWW such an incredible online resource.

I have recently taken on the responsibility of spearheading the OWW Community blog where I’ll be publishing among many things, projects that take place on OWW, tips and tricks that can be used on the wiki, interesting news from the Open Science community and much more.

If you are interested in topics such as experimental biological research, sharing of scientific knowledge, web tools for collaborative research and other similar subjects, I recommend you subscribe to the OWW Community blog. I hope to see you there.

Also, if you happen to be a twitter user, feel free to follow my and/or OpenWetWare’s tweets!

Last but not least, if you aren’t part of the OpenWetWare community yet, what are you waiting for?

Riding the open wave…