Zen. This weekend, I finished Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The unfinished task of reading this book has followed me through my entire academic career. It was initially given to me as a gift for being an anatomy tutor in medical school. Independently, I received it as a gift when I passed my German child neurology boards. I started this book several times, but never finished it, and reading this book took me 25 years. As my professor’s thoughts about various approaches to studying medicine have echoed with me since I was a student tutor, this book deserves its own blog post and an enquiry into values (as Pirsig would say) of anatomy versus physiology. Continue reading
Category Archives: Motivation
Three things the beach told me about science in 2018
Baggersee. With an unprecedented heat wave hitting the northern hemisphere, I eventually found my annual vacation blog post. I wrote blog posts about our beach vacation in Marielyst, Denmark, or Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. However, this year, it took me the better part of two weeks to realize that I had this year’s beach right beneath my feet – the small artificial beach of the Rossenray Lake, a small lake in my home town in Germany where we spent our summer vacation. And here are the three things the beach (and the lake) told me about science in 2018. Continue reading
My three holiday reads – reflections on science and life
The holiday season. On Dec 25th, I was forced to disable the long-range communication device of the Stellosphere – and all I had was a simple screwdriver. It was a tough choice, but when you’re out there by yourself, you have to make bold choices. If you now believe that I have a MacGyver-like engineer skillset, I hate to disappoint you. All I did was take out the batteries of one of the toys that our kids got for Christmas so it would stop making noise every time you touch it. Here are the three books that I am trying to read over the holiday season. I probably won’t get through them completely as I want to spend as much time with my family as possible, but here is what they have told me about epilepsy genetics so far. Continue reading
Weekly updates – a Halloween exome ghost story
Boo! Rather than giving you an update about the most recent genes, I would like to tell you a mysterious gene discovery story that reportedly happened a few years ago. It is a story that I heard from a friend of mine. This story took place in a small University town, somewhere in Northern Europe, located on a towering cliff above the sea. Continue reading
Here are the three things the beach told me about science
Rehoboth Beach. Two years ago, I wrote a blog post about our beach vacation at Marielyst in Denmark that I blended with my reflections about present-day collaborative science, which many of our readers liked a lot. Admittedly, there wasn’t all that much time for the beach ever since, but we managed to squeeze in a weekend at the Delaware beaches two weeks ago. Two years after my Marielyst post, here is what the beach told me about science in 2015. Continue reading
Red Johanna Day, Ninja Turtles and my decade in epilepsy genetics
Where do you see yourself in ten years? You probably might not imagine yourself wearing Ninja Turtle pajama pants, getting up at 4:00 in the morning for a teleconference. For some reason, I kept track of my very early beginnings in epilepsy genetics when I was still a medical student. According to my calendar, today is precisely my tenth anniversary in epilepsy genetics, a day that I refer to as Red Johanna Day. Let’s revisit what happened over the last decade and what I learned from my mentors and friends in the field. And let’s find out about the Ninja Turtles. Continue reading
How to become a pediatric neurologist
Milestones. Today I passed my board exam for pediatric neurology or neuropediatrics, as we call it in Germany. Even though I am usually not big on celebrating occasions like this, I wanted to use this blog post to reflect upon a journey that led me to three different continents and started eleven years ago in the foothills of Appalachia. Continue reading
Program or be programmed – the EuroEPINOMICS bioinformatics workshop 2014
Join the genome hacking league. We are preparing a EuroEPINOMICS bioinformatics workshop in Leuven and I really, really encourage you to join us, as there are handful of place left. This will be the workshop that I always wanted to attend, but never got a chance to take part in. And yes, there is a final exam, but there is a chance that you might pass it. If you’re worried, skip ahead two paragraphs.
The surprising truth about your motivation in epilepsy genetics – 2014 update
Update. I re-read one of my older posts when I went through Dennis’ recent discussion on the lessons learned during his PhD, which also included his advice on how to keep your motivation up. Two years ago, I actually wondered where motivation for science comes from in general. Are we driven largely by egoistic motives like money or fame, or are there different factors at play? I am re-blogging one of our old posts from 2012 with minor 2014 updates. These were the answers that I came up with back then. I think they are still relevant. Continue reading
“Dark social” or “Who is afraid of email?”
Heathrow. Dark social? Threat? I’ll get back to that. I am writing this wrap-up post for the SpotOn 2013 meeting overlooking the British Airways planes on their way to take-off. In the last two days, we caught a glimpse of what online science communication is about. On Saturday, we had our own session #solo13blogs on using blogs for peer-to-peer science communication. As a science communication newbie, I am happy that our session was well received and stimulated quite some discussion. I have taken away three things from this meeting – a new understanding of our readership, an appreciation for Open Access and data sharing, and finally, a fear of the destructive power of dark social that also applies to epilepsy genetics research. But first things first. Continue reading
