Links

1. A Beautiful Prize: Nature Materials editorial on this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

2. Female Science Professor: Imperfectionist. "Over the years, I have marveled at some of the weird things that people put in reference letters." Example:

   "In my opinion, Applicant X is an excellent scientist. Now let me tell you about my credentials. Attached is my CV."

3. Perverse Incentives in Academia.

4. The latest entry in Annals of Awesome Book Reviews is behind a paywall, but you can read the first several paragraphs in Evgeny Morozov's post [via Improbable Research]. Here's a sample:

   This is a book that clatters around in a dark closet of irrelevancies for 450 pages before it bumps accidentally into its index and stops; but that is not a criticism, either, because its author finds it gratifying and refreshing to bang unrelated facts together as a rebuke to stuffy minds. This book infuriated me; but that is not a defect in it, because it is supposed to infuriate people like me, and the author would have been happier still if I had blown out an artery. In short, this book is flawless, because all its deficiencies are deliberate products of art.