Sleep it off
Or, as titled here, “Do you want to be a loser?”
This ties in nicely with my entirely empirical data that when I am pre-menstrual, I can barely drag myself out of bed and I have a physiological craving for high-fat, high-sugar and salty foods and drinks, that fades immediately upon the onset of the period. Then, suddenly, I’m full of pep again. This feeling is an accurate guide to how thick the pads I carry around that week need to be.
There is definitely an effect on immune and digestive functions as well. Some of this makes sense. Cool!
Sorry if I grossed some of you guys out, but I do think it’s interesting.
Categorized as:GeneralMonday, Monday
Random reflections:
Has anyone already figured out the causal link between the menstrual cycle and migraines yet? (Estrogen, serotonin or prostaglandin levels?) Or that sense of all-encompassing fatigue that strikes for the first couple of days?
Breakfast with the troops – a good communication strategy by Christian Bréchot, general director of INSERM. Once a month at 7:30AM, he calls in three new recruits for an hour’s discussion of what might preoccupy us most. My name was drawn from the hat for last Wednesday. I am left in admiration of Dr. Bréchot’s ability to steer the conversation, of the glimpse I got of serious power (he’s the boss to 13000 people, after all!) and the stamina it takes to deal with the infamous French workers’ unions on a regular basis for the last 4 years and yet get other things done as well. (Click here for link to interviews in French with Dr. Bréchot conducted a couple of years ago or here for a newspaper article).
The importance of publishing well. What weight to attach to the meta-science known in France as “bibliométrie”? It’s complicated – witness the pertinent document in French cited here. From a purely subjective and personal point of view, I think the weight attached to how much I’ve published, when and in what venues has been pretty fair as assessed in context with the other activities I have led. We’ll see how that continues in the future. Impact factors serve committees as a sort of shorthand approach to getting an idea of the exposure a scientist’s findings get in the international arena, but I’ve published in some pretty unheard-of places and not been reproached yet for that. On the other hand, my colleagues in the hospital teaching+basic research circuit have got wind of (and been scandalized by) a rather extreme assessment based on a semi-quantitative weighting of first, second or last author constants multiplied by the year’s impact factor for that journal and some arbitrary if lowish cutoff score for applicants to the rare positions available. Of course you can’t find those rules in writing anywhere, it’s all by rumor. The only other place I’ve seen anyone really discussing “bibliométrie” was at the annual director’s meeting where the national working group got up and scolded everyone because we individuals of the French research establishment have a Byzantine way of citing our professional affiliations, usually to the detriment of the INSERM and to the benefit of such well-known institutions as “Medical School”, “University” and “Hospital”. There are guidelines out there but they are far from imposed or even well disseminated.
Categorized as:General
