Ben Kelmendi

ou might wonder if study section leaders are the best scientists. Rest assured. They aren't. They are typically mid career, mediocre scientists. (This is not just a joke, data support this claim see www.drvinayprasad.com). They rarely have written extremely influential papers.

Software can be rebuilt, because software is a machine. But a software ecosystem is not a machine. It is a living system. When we attempt to rebuild the ecosystem , we’re making a category error. We’re confusing the software for the ecological process unfolding around it.

It appears the study section is as good as a coin flip. Aka. Percentile of 1 is little different than 4 or 11 It's nearly entirely arbitrary. We don't know if percentile 60 is as good bc we don't have enough data

Given that the current system is onerous and likely flawed, you would imagine that NIH leadership has repeatedly tested whether the current method is superior than say a modified lottery, aka having an initial screen and then randomly giving out the money.

Some psychedelic explorers discover the Huxleyian vision of spiritual awakening while others struggle to find solid ground amid layers of drug-colored ambiguity

Although we process information, we do not do it the way that computers do.” Even to ask the question, he argues, of “whether a computer has captured the essence of human reason is a diversion, if not a trap, because the real question — do humans understand the essence of humans? — cannot be answered or resolved by technology.”

This is the most spiritually important place in the world to the aboriginal Australians. The Anangu people who live here, named this place Uluru, and their culture, blood and mythology have been bonded with this land for sixty thousand years.

A modern biology lab applying some of these lessons is the Arc Institute, based in Palo Alto and partnered with Stanford, Berkeley, and UCSF. Investigators at Arc get their labs fully funded for renewable 8-year terms to pursue curiosity-driven research; institute co-founder Silvana Konermann says that they “want to take away the short-term demand... See more

The PI model forces one person to play several roles: research, management, administration, and fundraising; at many universities, teaching is added, not to mention serving as a reviewer for journal papers or grant committees. More importantly, it means that each lab has to sell itself to the outside world, to funders who don’t know the researchers... See more