What makes a great scientist?

I’ve been thinking recently as to what makes a great scientist. Of course, I’ve been thinking of this instead of concentrating on my own work, which is Lesson #1 of how to be a good scientist: Stay Focused.

But for reals, what is the metric that you use to judge a researcher that you truly admire? Is it number of papers published? Number of grad students supervised? Or something else, something that you can’t quite attach a number to?

I was listening to a CBC program yesterday on Lord Selkirk (which, by-the-by is a pretty fascinating story) and heard a phrase describing him as having “a mind perched in the clouds, but feet firmly on ground”. Now, this is a somewhat common (and more-somewhat cheesy) phrase that I’ve encountered from time to time and never really gave it a second thought. For some reason, however, the program’s use of this phrase (basically a dreamer who was trying to ‘do good’ while remaining humble and realistic) struck me as the perfect recipe for what I consider a “Great Scientist”, someone who is innovative in their thinking and unselfish in their approach. A great mind that doesn’t get wrapped up in his/her own ego.

A think a good line of evidence for this idea is how one’s feelings towards an admired researcher can change when you discover that they are anything but the type of person I have described above. I have never encountered this problem, but do know several grad students who have met their ‘academic idol’ at a conference only to discover that he/she was a colossal jerk-wad (they describe the experience as akin to asking your favourite baseball player for his autograph, only to be shoved aside by his entourage).

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I recently had the chance to write a letter of support for a former mentor (someone I consider to be a ‘Great Scientist’) who had been nominated for a mentorship award. This was actually a really cathartic experience, as it gave me the chance to express my gratitude towards this mentor who had taken me (with my less-than-stellar transcript) under her wing and taught me how to be a researcher. What really struck me though was that every other letter of support from former students said the same thing, that this mentor valued hard work and pushed her students to be good researchers, but never at the expense of developing strong personal relationships and being compassionate human beings. Even after she had WON the award, this former mentor was quick to defer all praise, saying that she had always been fortunate to have amazing students apply to work in her lab, and that “you can’t make a silk purse out of a cow’s ear, you can only make a silk purse from silk”. Worse yet, she wasn’t just saying this, she truly meant it.

You guys, “I AM A COW’S EAR”. Some days I think I’ve only made it this far in science through a healthy dose of smoke and mirrors. Who knows how long this will last, but in a profession full of constant competition it’s still nice to see that people at the top can keep it real.

Suburban Biological Warfare

My lawn has not been doing well this year. I know that no ones lawn has been doing particularly well this year either, on account of the drought, but husband and I have been fighting the good fight, trying to hold back the darkness. We don’t just have dead spots, we have bare dirt spots. Large ones.

We seeded. And watered. And added new lawn soil. And seeded again. And watered more (sorray, conservation! There was no explicit watering ban I swear). But the darkness kept spreading. We cried out to the heavens to curse this damned drought! We lit candles on our Suzuki shrine. We left him offerings of a diversity of native flowers. “Bring the rain, David… Bring the rain!!”. (Cuz you know if there’s one thing Suzuki would be in to, it would be lawns. That man loves monocultures!). For a good two months we have toiled, wiped sweat from our brows, squinted skyward, standing in our barren field, in dust as deep as snow. (Our lawn is actually like 100 sq ft max, y’all).

Yesterday, the neighbour told husband that she had had a ‘lawn guy’ come over and check out her lawn. She told him that we have grubs.

GRUBS!

Guys, I forgot about grubs.

It all makes sense now. Husband and I are new to the whole homeowner thing, and I gotta tell you, it’s real cute all the bizarre things you find yourself needing to become an expert in. I have googled a lot of things I never thought I would google (see: “why my grout gotta be so dirty?”, “the fuck is that noise that keeps happening that sounds like a fire alarm low on batteries but my fire alarms are all hardwired so I’m pretty sure that’s unpossible?”). I read that you need to go out to your lawn and dig a 6” by 6” square and count how many grubs you encounter to get a sense of the intensity of your infestation and make decisions regarding how to proceed with treatment. I broke our garden spade a little. Bent it like a cheap spoon in overly frozen ice cream. I could tell things were dire because I found like eight grubs in the tiny pocket I was able to excavate.

Anywho, in my extensive internet research, it has become evident that we have several options to control the grubs, mostly involving pesticides. BUT. ALSO. THE BETTER OPTION: NEMATODES!

Awww hells yeah, guys. The nematodes burrow their way into the grubs, fuck their shit up, and leave an exploded pile of grub goo behind. Perfect! The internet also told me that there is an urgency – that we need to treat now or never, based on the season and outdoor temperatures and the phase of the moon and whatnot.

So we went to Canadian Tire and apparently every Canadian Tire in the region is sold out of nematodes. We knew it was a bad sign when the pesticide aisle was 90% empty and 10% being restocked with toys (fo’ reals. The aisle sign said like “terrible pesticides/herbicides/chemicals what have you”, and then the aisle was being restocked with children’s toys. Uhhhh wash them first before playing guys? Protip!). Know what else I did? Before I left home? I put four of those grubs into a ziplock bag and put them in my purse. So I was definitely walking around Canadian Tire with several writhing, live to semi-live grubs in my purse, slowly suffocating. Before you call the police, what else was I supposed to do? I needed to be able to compare them to potential pictures that may appear on boxes!

So anyway after being informed that CT was completely out of nematodes forever, we ran screaming to Lowes which did have nematodes in stock THANK GOD.  Stored in a bar fridge in their pesticide asile, actually. Fair enough. Each is packaged in a spherical tennis-ball like package which felt unnecessary. A sphere? What is stored in a spherical package besides novelty gum? We don’t need to talk about how I also had a two inch by one half inch fresh barbecue sauce stain from dinner on my sweater on my boob during this whole adventure. I asked a lot of employees a lot of questions in person. My shirt is a light, plain colour. After getting home and looking down at my shirt I was like… “oh right… that… still there… wonderful…”. It’s like this big guys. It’s not a minor stain. I thought it was weird they kept directing me to the "how to hit your mouth when you eat" aisle, but it all make sense now.

We got them too late to apply tonight which breaks my damn heart. They’re in my fridge right now. Waiting. Somewhere, out on my lawn, I’d like to think that one of the grubs just felt a cold chill run down his squishy, c-shaped body like, “I dunno Gary, I just have the weirdest feeling tomorrow is going to go poorly… I can’t quite put my one-million-gross-wildly scraping-bug-arms on it…”

Have you guys seen the movie contagion?

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sad face darwin