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| Credit: Julian West |
Some tech workers are already starting to flex their muscles. Employees from large tech companies led an effort to oppose the travel ban announced by President Trump last year. And employees of Facebook, Google, Intel, Cisco and Stripe attended a demonstration at the headquarters of Palantir to protest the company’s development of surveillance technology for federal immigration enforcers. Just this month, more than 3,000 Google employees signed a letter objecting to the company’s involvement in a Pentagon program that could use artificial intelligence to improve the accuracy of drone strikes.
But these are just warm-up skirmishes. For maximum impact, tech workers will need to scrutinize not just their employers’ government ties, but their products, business models, and basic standards. And they’ll need to do it in public.I am going to guess that the vast majority of tech workers don't do much organizing or demonstrating, and it is unlikely for unionization to happen in Silicon Valley any time soon.
2. Failure to maintain complete data derived from all laboratory tests conducted to ensure your API and intermediates comply with established specifications and standards.Oops! Sorry! Never happen again, I promise.
Your firm performed HPLC assay testing for [redacted] API release to the United States, along with stability and intermediate testing, on your Waters HPLC system between September 25, 2011, and May 5, 2017. Official quality control data packages presented to the quality unit for batch disposition decisions reported the results of testing performed during this timeframe on this equipment. During our inspection, when we sought to reconcile assay results reported in the quality control data package for a released batch with the underlying electronic data, you responded that you could not provide the electronic data from laboratory analyses on this equipment for the above period of several years. You explained that the electronic data in question had been deleted by accident and was no longer available. (emphasis mine)
In your response, you stated that the electronic data had been downloaded to a “mobile hard disk for backup” and that you would be able to recover the data after you have upgraded your HPLC software. However, you did not include evidence to support recovery of deleted electronic data or demonstrate how you will prevent such deletions from recurring in the future.
Macau’s $30 billion annual casino revenue pays for most of its government budget, which means that, indirectly, the casinos pay for scientific research in the city. The tax revenues provided by gambling are so large that the 600,000 residents of Macau not only pay no income tax but also enjoy free health care and receive a check of $1,000 per year, courtesy of the Wealth Partaking Scheme policy.
Scientists seeking funding for specific projects obtain it through Macau’s Science & Technology Development Fund (FDCT), a government agency with a budget of $28 million per year and climbing. This may not seem like a lot given that the budget for the National Natural Science Foundation of China—one of the main funding agencies in the country—is $4 billion. But Macau’s FDCT funds researchers in a relatively small city where only two universities, already well endowed, engage in scientific research. FDCT funds about one-third of the requests it receives.One-third! That's pretty good. "Your gambling dollars at work."
The U.S. biomedical research enterprise is gradually crumbling under the weight of thousands of trained scientists who cannot get jobs in academia, a new report from the National Academies of Sciences says. If the situation does not change soon it will undercut biomedical science’s “vitality, promise, and productivity” and, eventually, its critical role in the biomedical industry...
...Lack of data about the outcomes of graduate students and postdocs is a particular problem, the report says. It recommends NIH force universities to collect that information by tying data reporting to grant funding. NSF should also collect more data by linking its existing data with the U.S. Census Bureau.I don't love forcing these sorts of mandates on universities, but I think that we desperately need good data on past graduates and their career outcomes. Good news, if this is implemented. (that's a big 'if')
In 1999, fresh out of graduate school, Liu joined Harvard as an assistant professor. He was just 26...
One or two failures are expected from someone with a natural tendency to push boundaries—both professionally and personally. Early in his career, Liu was banned from MGM Grand casinos after a night in which he made too much money playing blackjack. Soon after, he began informally teaching a group of card-counting Harvard undergraduates. Over the course of four years, they developed nearly optimal solutions for winning the game.
“We went everywhere in the U.S.,” Liu says. “It was an amazing experience.” He still keeps a case full of poker chips from their travels.The number of Ivy League/elite university card-counters must be quite high. I wonder how many people come out ahead?
Postdoctoral Fellow – Synthetic Organic & Medicinal Chemistry
A post-doctoral position is available in Professor Orellana’s research group at York University (Toronto, Canada). The successful candidate will support a medicinal chemistry effort by conducting hit-to-lead optimization, and will be responsible for the multi-step synthesis, purification and characterization of small drug-like molecules.
For a full description please visit: http://orellangart.wixsite.com/orellanagroup/join-us
Interested candidates should submit application materials (CV, research summary and references) directly to aorellan@yorku.caBest wishes to those interested.
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| Credit: abbeycjackson |
FMC Agrochemical Solutions has multiple Ph.D. (Synthetic Organic Chemist) positions open in Newark, DE. These positions are analogous to medicinal chemistry positions, but compounds are optimized and developed for ag use (herbicides, fungicides, insecticides).Link here. Interesting chemistry, interesting challenges. Best wishes to those interested.
A chemistry experiment gone awry resulted in at least one severely injured student at Westside High School on 103rd Street.
First Coast News has confirmed that the February accident resulted in extensive second-degree burns and hospitalization of the male teenager.
The Duval County School District does not appear to have told the general public or even parents of other students who witnessed the accident. But litigation is likely pending – which could end up costing taxpayers countywide.
According to information obtained from sources and the sole public record that district officials have released, the incident happened at Westside High School on Feb. 28 during a class science experiment.
According to people familiar with the case, it occurred in the lab of chemistry teacher Asante Dean.
Dean has been chair of the school’s science department since June of 2015, according to his LinkedIn page, and has taught at the school since June 2013.
First Coast News requested the incident report, which teachers are required to file after any classroom accident. The school district refused to provide it, citing an unrelated public records exemption which applies to personnel records.
District officials also declined to say if parents were notified – including those whose kids witnessed the accident. Asked for any notice sent home, school district officials cited FERPA -- a federal exemption designed to protect students academic and discipline records...We will see if this ends up being related to an alcohol fire. We're about due for the first one of 2018...
1. Your firm failed to maintain adequate separate defined areas necessary to prevent contamination or mix-up (21 CFR 211.42(c)).
You manufacture several over-the-counter (OTC) drug products and medicated otic and oral care products under contract. These drugs include [redacted] Ear Wax Drops, [redacted] Oral Rinse, and fluoride toothpastes. You also manufacture numerous non-pharmaceutical materials in your facility, including a weed killer and adhesive remover.
You did not utilize any quarantine markings or physical segregation of finished drug products from the lawn care and cleaning chemicals in your warehouse. You did not designate your quarantined finished drug products with quarantined status. During the inspection, your Vice President of Operations stated that your firm does not quarantine any finished products before they are released by quality because you “thought of the product as good once it was manufactured.”Just in case you were thinking about mixing the lawn care products and the toothpaste...
Your response stated that your warehousing space is “tight,” and you have recently acquired additional off-site space to store packaging components. You also stated that you would implement a procedure by July 1, 2017, for labeling the status of finished drug products.
I read your article about biofuels in the March 5 issue with interest. Since I retired, I have volunteered aboard a WWII ship located on the Ohio River in Evansville, Ind.: LST-325. LST stands for landing ship, tank. This ship landed tanks and supplies at Normandy, in addition to other beaches of Europe. It is an operational museum ship that transits the rivers of the Midwest annually, opening for public tours.
I think it was in 2011 when the ship was going up the Illinois River heading for Henry, Ill., [that] we stopped in Beardstown, Ill., to receive a donation of 10,000 gal [about 37,850 L] of biodiesel. We added it to about another 5,000 gal [about 18,900 L] of conventional diesel we already had aboard. When we returned to Evansville from this cruise, we had a few thousand gallons remaining in our tank.
The ship was inactive for about a year, but when we tried to restart its engines in 2012, we had great difficulty. After 11 months of storage, as your article clearly states, the biodiesel was a gelatinous mess. We had to clean our tanks, all the fuel lines to our filters, and then on to our engines. After flushing with conventional diesel fuel, we finally were able to start our engines.
There needs to be a warning label on biofuels indicating that they need to be used almost immediately. It should not be stored.
Robert J. HargroveI can't imagine the mess that must have been to clean out a 10,000 gallon tank with a gelatinous mass of biofuel; did they just solubilize the mess and pump it out? Yuck!
Macon, Ga.
I have an interview coming up for a job with [redacted government research organization]. They have advised me that the interview will be for an hour, where in the first 15 minutes I'll be given the interview questions and time to prepare answers. Have you come across this style of interviewing before? Do you think it says anything about the type of questions to expect?I've never heard of such a style, although I do remember the campus interview I had with a top 50 chemical company where someone asked me what my proudest accomplishment of 6th grade was - I was given a few minutes to think on that one. (didn't help.)
...Faculty openings in Canada are few and far in-between so [I] have been exploring the possibility of Europe, but [am] not sure about the whole foreign language thing? [I] know of a couple examples of English-speaking people working at non-English institutions but were wondering if you have any experience or advice? For example is there a way to know an institution would be open to hiring someone that is not fluent in the institution's operating language?
Sorry for the lack of specific questions. We really aren’t sure where to start... any insight would be appreciated.I'm not sure if I have anything helpful to add, other than that I have notice that many European professorship advertisements will have some kind of statement about language requirements.
