The Tennessee State Senate

..a venerable chamber that performs sterling work for the people of the state (and the University of Tennessee).

However, were the senators sponsoring bills to be a little less clueless about what it is they are actually proposing, then certain birth pains would be avoided ....

Good Science Takes Time

One of the things about Martin Karplus that many of us impatient, ambitious young co-workers at Harvard used to complain about was how long it took to get one's work published with him. One of my manuscripts sat on his desk for 18 months then he lost it. But Martin is a perfectionist - for him a piece of scientific research needs time to mature, to develop, and he wanted to make sure all was rounded, completed, cross-checked, watertight. And so now Stefan Fischer, another perfectionist, has an article on haemoglobin with Martin just accepted in PNAS. The work was started in 1992 and so they have been polishing on it off and on for nearly 20 years. One would work on it a bit, then the other, then neither for a while. The result was a high quality piece of work. I'm sure every sentence was thoroughly thought through.

So why am I bringing this up? Firstly, to demonstrate the futility of funding agencies micromanaging projects and asking for immediate impact. This distracts from innovation. The impact of the money funding the above PNAS paper will be felt only 30 years later. This is not to try to circumvent accountability. Rather, that more emphasis on judging us should be placed on what we did years ago, rather than last week. And secondly, to my irritated students complaining about manuscript slowness after hearing nothing from me for a few weeks - think yourselves lucky, you might have ended up at Harvard! Happy 81st, Martin.

Setting Fish Free Bridge

This is the Fangsheng Bridge in Zhujiajiao, a Venetian-style Water Village near Shanghai that our host Dongqing Wei kindly took us to visit a week ago. Fangsheng is a 16th century "setting fish free" bridge, at the foot of which vendors sell bags of fish and turtles. Buyers then set them free in the water, thus smugly gaining merit according to Buddhism. (Did anyone ask the fish and turtles if they would rather have not been caught in the first place?).

In some ways the fish are an analogy to what China is trying to do with basic science - set it free. Funding for basic science is now doubling in the space of two years. Sounds impressive (although the actual dollar numbers will in the near term only approach those of NSF or BES, not surpass them). But judging by what we saw at Shanghai Jiao Tong University the building infrastructure is also in place. What seemed to me to be missing was a critical mass of top quality faculty. SJTU has started this recruitment, and we talked to some recent recruitees - all originally Chinese who had been in top positions in North America. Indeed, one of the natural consequences for the USA is that this funding increase, when coupled to the equivalent defunding proposed by the US Congress, should lead to a potentially large proportion of the brilliant young Chinese, of the type that have been dominating the contests for leading science positions in the USA over the last 20 years, preferring the exciting challenges beckoning in their country of origin.

Scientists are fish in bags - we can swim only wherever we happen to be set free.

Baron Cut-and-Paste

The German Minister of Defence resigned today. "Baron Cut-and-Paste" was found to have copied large parts of his law doctoral thesis without attribution. He lives in a castle in Bavaria with a beautiful wife, an aristocratic "dream of a politician" earmarked as a possible successor to Merkel. The poor dear is now undone by "Xerox-gate".

Will he now be consigned to oblivion? Will anyone even remember his name? Unlikely, given the length of it: Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jakob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. He could at least take out the "Maria". That wasn't serious for a defence minister. I suspect Donald Maria Rumsfeld wouldn't have had quite the same clout in the Oval Office back in 2002. Yes: shorten the name as well as the thesis, mate. After all, few remembered the name of Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern Schleppenden Schlitter Krasskrenbon Fried Digger Dingle Dangle Dongle Dungle Burstein von Knacker Thrasher Apfel Banger Horowitz Tikolensich Grander Knotty Schpelltinkel Grandlich Grumbelmeyer Spelterwasser Kurzlich Himbeereisen Bahnwagen Gutenabend Bitte Ein Nürnburger Bratwurst Gerspurten Mit Weimacht Lueber Hundsfut Gumberaber Schönedanke Kalbsfleisch Mittler Aucher von Hautkopf of Ulm(*), did they?

[There's something about stories such as zu Guttenberg's that makes me feel illicitly warm and smug inside.......]

(*) lifted from Monty Python (It's the Arts).

Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi

Two Moments of Life beyond my control, on New Year's Eve, and yesterday:

31 December 2010: My partner Stephi is diagnosed with pulmonary metastatic myxoid liposarcoma. Multiple visits to Vanderbilt University Hospital ensue. Thoracotomy February 15th. Chemotherapy with highest-possible doses of doxorubicin (the "red devil") and ifosfamide (liquified mustard gas) planned starting in March. Prognosis: tough, uncertain battle ahead.

21 February 2011: Pathology results indicate that the resected masses were histoplasmosis, a fungal infection. No chemotherapy. No life-threatening disease. Prognosis: A slow but sure recovery from the pulmonary surgery ahead, back to a normal life.

Fortune: Empress of the World.

We are powerless against the whims of Fortuna.
But when her wheel turns in our favour, we must grasp the chance she has given us.

Shakespeare, in Julius Caesar, wrote:

"There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures"

My Salary over the Decades

It's interesting to look at salary ups and downs over the years. Here I have taken my earnings at the time then converted all amounts into approximate 2010 US dollars by converting the local currency to US dollars using the rate at the date concerned here and then correcting for inflation using this site.



1973 (Aged 13).

First ever employment: A Sunday paper delivery round paid by the local newsagent!
Salary: $2.85 per morning for about three hours of work.
Comment: This lasted about three Sundays. I had to get up at 6 a.m., which really went against the grain, then stuff papers through too small letter boxes in doors. I would get it wrong, and then be exposed to irate customers who needed their Sunday morning papers. Furthermore, the coins earned just got lost - I clearly had no desire for the money and only did the paper round because it was the thing to do at the time.


1978 (Aged 18)

Undergraduate stipend: $5,500 per year.
Comment: In retrospect we were very lucky, us seventies British undergrads. Not only had we no tuition fees but we received a stipend. $4000 of the above was sadly removed at source for food and lodging, leaving $1500 per year which went exclusively on beer (not books). That bought a lot of beer because the student union subsidised it.


1979 (Aged 19)

Summer employment: $150 per week.
Comment: pulling live turkeys out of a lorry then hanging them upside down on a moving rail for electrocution. Not very considerate of our squawking friends I'm afraid. Paid for a trip to India later on.





1982 (Aged 22)

Postgraduate stipend: $46,000
Comment: In the money!! The UK funded three stipends per year at the Institut Laue Langevin generously to attract good students and because tuition was subtracted. In my case I registered at a department with small tuition fees (Birkbeck College).


1985 (Aged 25).

Postdoctoral salary: $24,000

Comment: Ph.D. leads to near halving of salary! Anyone know other examples of that?
Interestingly, I didn't seem to notice the difference. I remember I never even asked what the salary would be - just showed up for work.



1989 (aged 29)

Ingenieur CEA: $53,387
Comment: Standard starting salary for a French goverment "engineer." Creeps up very slowly over subsequent decades, (almost independent of performance I would claim). Similar salary to those halcyon graduate student days.



2006 (aged 46) :

German Full Professor: $96, 000

Standard German C4 professor rate, I think. Need to take into account generous benefits when really comparing with US equivalent.



2011: Well, all TN state salaries are published and open information....:-))

Cantona: Director of Football?

Well whoever would have believed it? Eric Cantona, here seen Kung-Fu kicking a Crystal Palace fan, has been named Director of Football at the New York Cosmos. Maybe he was chosen because of the deep philosophy he will communicate to the team? His proposed solution to the global financial slump was a run on the banks. And here's a favourite Cantona quote of mine: "Quand les mouettes suivent un chalutier, c'est parce qu'elles pensent que des sardines seront jetees a la mer (Seagulls follow trawlers because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea)". Important for young players to internalize these things.

Why is it that clubs think the best players always make the best directors? Surely Cantona will go the way of that other footballing great - chemical-crazed Diego Maradona - who, for some reason undeciphered by rational humanity, was chosen to manage Argentina for the last World Cup. Maradona guided the country to a 6-1 rout by Bolivia and a 4-0 hammering by Germany before leaving with the team in chaos.