Living Science

Eve Marder wrote her first Living Science essay for eLife in 2012. Since then she has written about topics as diverse as the importance of clear writing, the benefits of living and working in a foreign country, and why we should "own our mistakes". This collection brings together all of Marder's Living Science essays. Before the launch of eLife, Marder wrote a number of My Word articles for Current Biology.

Collection

1. Living Science: The compliment sandwich

   Eve Marder

   What is the best way to ensure that scientific criticism is heard and understood?.

2. Living Science: Maintaining the joy of discovery

   Eve Marder

   Changes in science over the past 50 years have reduced the chances of trainees experiencing the joy of discovery.

3. Living Science: Authorship then and now

   Eve Marder

   A researcher should only be an author on a paper if they have contributed to it in a substantive way.

4. Living Science: Truth even unto its innermost parts

   Eve Marder

   Challenging anyone who spreads falsehoods is an important part of respecting the truth in both science and the wider world.
5. 1. Neuroscience

   

   Living Science: Theoretical musings

   Eve Marder

   The best theory papers help experimentalists to identify which of their results might be general and to plan a path through the maze of all possible future experiments.
6. 

   Living Science: Intentional text

   Eve Marder

   It is important to read what the authors have written and to pay attention to every word when you write.

7. Living Science: Words without meaning

   Eve Marder

   Many of the words used by scientists when reviewing manuscripts, job candidates and grant applications – words such as incremental, novelty, mechanism, descriptive and impact – have lost their meaning.

8. Living Science: Stepping down

   Eve Marder

   As Eve Marder stands down as a Deputy Editor of eLife, she reflects on the need for journals to change and respond to their environment.

9. Living Science: Watching jellyfish

   Eve Marder

   The natural world is more complex, and also more fragile, than it appears.

10. Living Science: Love writing

    Eve Marder

    Clear writing is the key to success in science.

11. Living Science: Uniting the nations of science

    Eve Marder

    As the world becomes smaller and more uniform, it is important to remember that creativity in science can happen anywhere.

12. Living Science: The voice of evidence

    Eve Marder

    In an era in which evidence is being disregarded, scientists need to speak up in support of the pursuit for truth.

13. Living Science: The importance of remembering

    Eve Marder

    Creativity in science requires the ability to recall information and data, and will suffer if we rely too much on technology to remember things for us.

14. Living Science: The rites of spring, Take 2

    Eve Marder

    Recruiting PhD students can be a frustrating process, but Eve Marder looks forward to welcoming the latest crop in the autumn.

15. Living Science: Owning your mistakes

    Eve Marder

    Most scientists admit to their errors but, as Eve Marder explains, the scientific community as a whole needs to rethink the way it recognizes achievement.

16. Living Science: Lost voices

    Eve Marder

    When a scientist dies too early in their career we miss them as a colleague and as a person and, as Eve Marder explains, we also lose the science they would have done.

17. Living Science: Bars and medals

    Eve Marder

    In science it is more important to recognize excellence in its many different forms than it is to identify a winner.

18. Living Science: Looking out for future scientists

    Eve Marder

    Proposals to reduce the number of students who do PhDs are misguided because they would exclude young scientists with qualities that do not show up in exam results and interviews.

19. Living Science: In numbers we trust?

    Eve Marder

    Scientists go to great lengths to ensure that data are collected and analysed properly, so why do they apply different standards to data about the number of times research papers have been cited and viewed?

20. Living Science: The haves and the have nots

    Eve Marder

    As the equipment needed to perform state-of-the-art research in many areas of biology becomes ever more expensive, Eve Marder worries that researchers in less wealthy institutions might be left behind.

21. Living Science: Grandmother elephants

    Eve Marder

    As new technology makes it possible to perform experiments that were unimaginable a decade ago, Eve Marder argues that we can still learn from the past.

22. Living Science: Luck, jobs and learning

    Eve Marder

    Eve Marder believes that many of the most important events in our lives, both personal and professional, depend to some degree on luck or chance.

23. Living Science: Crossing oceans

    Eve Marder

    Eve Marder explains why all scientists should spend time living and working in a foreign country.

24. Living Science: A good life

    Eve Marder

    Following a career in science involves long hours and hard work, but as Eve Marder explains in the first of a series of columns, it can also be extremely rewarding.