This Month in 2024

At some meetings, one gets to know all attendees. But at large conferences, that’s rather impossible. Some first-time attendees share how they navigated the sizable Society for Neuroscience annual meeting.

The Australian bearded dragon is so called for its distinctive ‘beard’ of spiky scales that can darken and expand during social and defensive displays. This lizard has become a reptilian model system to study the evolution, function and dynamics of neurons and neural circuits (including during sleep) in the amniote brain.

When spouses are both scientists, they mix the typical research career decisions with some marriage-related ones.

Miniature, transparent Danionella fishes, which are among the smallest living adult vertebrates, allow investigation of general principles of brain-wide neural circuits and evolutionary and developmental mechanisms for neurobehavioral innovations.

Developing new methods takes passion and a penchant for risk-taking.

I don’t have good luck in the match points. —Rafael Nadal, Spanish tennis player.

Early-career scientists shared some of their plans, hopes and dreams about being a principal investigator at the 2024 annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

Being first in a family to aim for a science career takes resilience and resourcefulness.

Bats, the only flying mammals, comprise almost 25% of mammalian species. They are excellent navigators, highly social, and extremely long-lived. Their sense of echolocation has been studied for many years — but many species possess also excellent vision and olfaction. In recent years, bats have emerged as new models for neurobiology of navigation, social neuroscience, aging, and immunity.

Amid the brutality of war around them, some Ukrainian scientists find calm in bioinformatics.

Sometimes their queer identity is one that people set apart from their science identity. Others find unique ways to integrate multiple facets of their identity.

For a postdoctoral fellowship, it’s advisable to be selective about lab choice and to be clear about expectations.

After having been largely neglected for more than a century, the tiny marine animal Trichoplax adhaerens is enjoying a revival and is now poised to become a mainstream model organism for the study of epithelial evolution, diversification and specialization.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. —George Orwell

To select the best postdoctoral fellows for their labs, principal investigators assess scientific qualifications and more.

Brown seaweeds are multicellular eukaryotes that have been evolving independently of animals and plants for more than a billion years. The filamentous brown alga Ectocarpus has been used as a model to understand the biology of these enigmatic organisms and to shed light on a range of major questions, from the molecular basis of complex developmental patterns to the evolution of sex.

In a group interview, early-career researchers in proteomics share how they plan for the future and navigate divides over methods.

The grant deadline approaches but budget details are still missing. Experienced budget-makers share how they manage budgets and the ‘boom–bust’ cycle.

Scientists have successes to celebrate but must also cope with the sting of failures. In the way she handles both, Nobel laureate Katalin Karikó inspires others.

It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision that the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible. —Aristotle