Story 2014-05-26

Forgive Me, Scientists, for I Have Sinned

by
in science on (#3MZ)
story imageI stumbled across Science Magazine's Experimental Error column written by Adam Ruben this week. What caught my eye? Adam's latest entry entitled "Forgive Me, Scientists, for I Have Sinned" , where Adam describes numerous ways he has felt and acted in an entirely imperfect and human way, but not as he might imagine a "good scientist" is supposed to feel or behave. Highlights from the article include: (1) "I remember about 1% of the organic chemistry I learned in college. Multivariable calculus? Even less.", (2) "I have gone home at 5 p.m.", and (3) "I have felt like a fraud, not once, but with such regularity that I genuinely question whether anyone has noticed I don't belong here.... I have delusions that people will read this confession and applaud my bravery for identifying a universal fear." Adam Ruben is a molecular biologist-come-comedian who teaches a standup comedy class at Johns Hopkins University, providing a fresh take on the non-meritocracy of science careers, if nothing else.

Story Images

by
in pipedot on (#3MY)
Good news everyone! A new (user-visible) feature! Story images!

Okay, so trying to find an acceptable 64x64 pixel icon for each story got old pretty fast. There never seemed to be enough of them and they didn't always fit the article correctly. But with today's news sites wanting lots of eye candy, most articles already have at least one relevant image of the story. So we'll just make a small thumbnail of that!

You can change the quality of the thumbnail using the "Story Image Style" in your settings page. Or you can opt to keep the icons or disable the images altogether. If you have a high resolution screen (e.g. Apple's Retina displays) with a pixel ratio greater than the traditional 1:1, you can select one of the "High Resolution" options to get a sharper image.