One of the smaller things that I love about science is that the hours are your own. For the most part, no one cares when you come or when you go, as long as you have results. Unless you have a very demanding/anal-retentive boss, of course. None of this 9-5 nonsense, even though I voluntarily put in 9 to 7 or even later hours.
With that said, even though I am, more or less, finished with everything I intend to do today, I am reluctant to just go home. For one, it's only 3p, and I should sit here for another two hours. Second, I signed up for a sailing class at 6p today and it's 2 blocks from work.
So what do I do with all this extra time. Those who chat with me at work (that's you Diana and Shana) know that I run through a list of usual suspects for procrastination.
In no particular order, this included crosswork puzzles, check out Drudgereport and Perez, and blogging.
With these options exhausted, I've decided to move on to something useful. I'm reading scientific papers that appear interesting. I've intentionally avoided papers within my field, mostly because that would constitute being productive, and god forbid that from happening.
Today, I stumbled upon Journal of Biological Chemistry's classics section. This is a section where they feature the seminal papers that establish the field of biology as we know it today. The coolest part about it is the overview and the summaries of the paper chosen. With the luxury of hindsight vision, the authors of these highlights put these classic papers into context, both discussing the career development of the legendary scientists involved, as well as some of the quirkier parts of the papers (ie experimental pitfalls, hubristic claims, etc)
Today, papers published 6-7 years ago are considered as ancient relics, banished to those claustrophobic journal stacks, never to be revisited since they're not on Pubmed. These classics highlight a nice departure from this attitude, allowing us newbies appreciate the historical development of biology as we recognize it today
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