RareCan’s Post

This is going to be a great conference! My talk will be a contrarian take, in a room full of many of my favorite contrarians: "Your Speech Is Freer Than You Think: The Irrational Risk Aversion of (Most) Academic Self-censorship" The crux of my argument will be that demand for truth, rigor, nuance, and "normie" takes is higher than people think and is rising, while self-censorship is reducing supply of such takes and research. Low supply and high demand means the price is high. The long-term incentives in academia are also generally for risk loving and for originality. All of this creates under-appreciated opportunity for people willing to venture into the fray. Most of the pushback you get is annoying at worst, not career existential*, and does not outweigh the above-described benefits. I will describe this theory in detail and then show examples from my career and careers of others. I'll also argue that anyone who has ever uttered something like "[Scientific Institution X] has lit its credibility on fire by [doing act of politically correct pandering Y]" is implicitly agreeing with my thesis. *My title includes the word "most" because I think there are three types of cases where getting into the fray comes with real career risk: when you are on the job market (it's easier to not hire someone, than to fire or not tenure someone, for dubious reasons), when you have a substantial career-risk comorbidity (e.g., being an adjunct, having marginal tenure case, being in a program at risk of elimination), and when you are pushing ideas or lines of inquiry that are deeply taboo or unpopular *in society as a whole* (not just in hyper-progressive corners of academia). But I will argue that most academic self-censorship fits into none of those cases, and that academic self-censorship is probably doing more damage to academia than direct censorship is (though obviously the latter encourages the former, so I'm not absolving the censors!). Free speech and academic freedom are useless if you don't use them! So, go forth and inquire openly! Come to the conference if you want to hear more. https://lnkd.in/gqQqJF5v

In this success story, learn why the Rappsilber Laboratory in Berlin, Germany would recommend the expression® CMS to literally any research laboratory, big or small. They state "the versatility of the system is truly impressive." Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gSrXCCk9

WEBINAR PEDIATRIC BONE HEALTH Are you a researcher working with OI or other rare bone conditions? Check out this free webinar hosted by the International Society for Children's Bone Health. #osteogenesisimperfecta

The newest "Wissenschaftsnarr" column from the "Laborjournal" by Ulrich Dirnagl: How research scandals shake trust in science and reveal systemic deficits. https://lnkd.in/gbCkxsY4 (In German)

Amazing article of Ulrich Dirnagl about the increasing number of fraudulent papers that make it all the way to "top journals" and influence investments and careers. We must change the system, and I think a good first step is, as authors, reporting all results and, as reviewers, accepting some inconsistencies that hampers nice narrative.

In this success story, learn why the Rappsilber Laboratory in Berlin, Germany would recommend the expression® CMS to literally any research laboratory, big or small. They state "the versatility of the system is truly impressive." Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gSrXCCk9

Decades of lab experience, published scientific studies, and our own internal studies have proved to us that weight is the most accurate way of measuring the liquid nitrogen inside a cryotank. But that wasn’t the only thing we knew we could do better for lab professionals and the patients who depend on the safe storage of their biological materials. We could create a system that couldn't be manipulated. We could create a system that couldn't be turned off, despite alarm fatigue. In our March newsletter, our co-founders reflected on the high-profile cryotank failures that occurred in March 2018, discussing what those failures meant for accelerating the launch of the CryoScout™ into the market and how they shaped the alarming system they created. ↘ Read more here: https://lnkd.in/ezqw9E7t

Boundless Automation strategy applied to life sciences. Many industries can benefit from improved data gathering, mobility and localized as well as centralized analytics. Take a look at this short article.

Our blog has your ultimate guide to semaglutide! Explore the science, analyze the efficacy, navigate the results, and embrace the possibilities to rewrite your weight loss story 📖 https://lnkd.in/gJ2urn-K

As I’ve said before, our dissection speeds went from 40 to 90 mm2/min overnight when we converted our ESD practice to include basic rubber band traction. Though we have yet to use the ATRACT device extensively these results seem entirely feasible to me and represent an important step in including adaptive traction as an integral part of the ESD toolkit. It would be interesting to see the data on right colon lesions compared to previous studies; I’d imagine the speed discrepancy would be even more pronounced in those comparisons. At the moment, we are using full curriculum for a basic ESD skill set (akin to traditional ESD teaching) and adding traction as the final step. We find that this way any potential complexities which may not be solved by traction alone can still be dealt with by our trainees, but it increases the amount of training time needed to be able to perform independent procedures. As the evidence gathers, we may need to reverse this approach, so as to emphasise an ‘en bloc first’ strategy for the management of all colorectal lesions even in centres like ours where all procedures are done under conscious sedation. #ESD #traction