What will the 21st century institutions of basic science look like?
Boston
Joined November 2020
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New Science retweeted
.@JacobTref runs the science program at Open Philanthropy, directing about $100m/year in philanthropic funding.
For @newscienceorg, we ended up talking about academia, peer review, grant-making; and also about love, the meaning of life, and our personal histories.
Enjoy!
Timestamps
0:00:00 - Introduction
0:01:11 - On Open Philanthropy's decision process
0:06:48 - Is it possible to make expected value calculations for basic scientific research?
0:16:27 - Non-profit funding vs for-profit funding
0:17:19 - Why the NIH rejects grants
0:19:39 - Jacob's "PhD" working side-by-side with biochemists for 5 years
0:25:22 - Today's system of federal funding are not supporting generalists
0:28:34 - How will AI affect the pace of scientific progress?
0:41:53 - AI Baumol Disease
0:54:41 - Can AI speed up aging research?
0:58:20 - The wisest people Jacob & Alexey know
1:13:31 - The future of science in academia
1:19:26 - How Open Philanthropy uses neglectedness to make funding trade-offs
1:35:16 - Jacob's advice for a talented 20 year old watching this
1:45:24 - Jacob's favorite joke
New Science retweeted
"Peer review...for centuries the standard tool to determine an academic paper’s suitability for publication".
nature.com/articles/d41586-0…
No. The term is only a few decades old and Nature itself didn't it routinely until the 1970s. 1/3
New Science retweeted
I think if you're a v busy founder trying to learn technical topics, it's sooo silly not to use Anki - i.e. you have 10 hrs/week to learn stuff, and they're off hours (nights + partial recovery wknds)
(would love counterexamples / other suggestions!)
New Science retweeted
Are you a recent college grad or early career researcher who is looking to get more mol bio/biochemistry experience in the lab? New role open for a Research Associate @ArcadiaScience, please share 🙏 jobs.lever.co/arcadiascience…
New Science retweeted
In the dozen years after solving DNA’s structure, all but one of the 18 scientists who received a Nobel Prize in molecular biology were supported by Rockefeller Foundation funds.
Learn more about their funding principles and history in our latest essay: newscience.substack.com/p/ro…
New Science retweeted
Once again, New Science publishes something very much worth reading -- hat tip to @RogersBacon1
For 350 years, scientists have been urged to "reject all the amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style." But have we gone too far? A brief history of science writing & style.
newscience.substack.com/p/sc…
New Science retweeted
A few years ago, I compiled a list of papers that were repeatedly rejected but nonetheless stood the test of time and became very influential.
Please suggest additions to the list.
blog.slavovlab.net/2014/08/1…
New Science retweeted
Excited to be growing the core CR team!
We aim to launch 10-20+ moonshot science projects over the coming yrs, and will need exceptional people with the right mix of ‘crazy’ and ‘grounded’ to accelerate our core org + FROs across ops, talent search, etc.
5 roles open now 👇
Come join us & the incredible teams @E11BIO @CultivariumFRO on our moonshot mission to revolutionize science.
Our goal is to accelerate scientific research by targeting key bottlenecks with Focused Research Organizations (FROs).
Check out our open roles: jobs.lever.co/convergentrese…
New Science retweeted
so stoked to be working alongside this incredible group of people!!
Today we announce the recipients of our inaugural summer fellowships. Five fellows, six labs, three months. Projects will probe the origins of endosymbiosis, map protein binding sites, and more. Each has transformative potential.
Read the announcement: newscience.org/2022-summer-f…
New Science retweeted
Hey everyone, me and a few friends close to EleutherAI have (re)started a Discord community dedicated to open-source machine learning for biology. Here is an invite link: discord.gg/hq4BvpkGaW.
1/3
New Science retweeted
If you’re an independent writer/researcher/youtuber interested in writing a piece like this, but would need support to do it, please DM or email me sharing some previous work! Depending on context Open Phil may be able to help.
New Science retweeted
Finally finished @faherty530’s electronic doorstopper on the NIH newscience.org/nih/. Lots of interesting details.
In the spirit of putting your dreams out into the world, I’d love to read similar opinionated pieces on some other public institutions below:
New Science retweeted
After reviewing the announced 2022-23 stipends for bioscience and humanities/social science Ph.D. programs at twelve institutions, we found that only TWO universities, Princeton and Brown, pay more than the local cost of living. Public universities pay even less. 2/x
ALT Table comparing Ph.D. stipends to the local living wage at twelve universities. Rough rank-order: Brown, Princeton, UPenn, Yale, MIT, WashU, Cornell, JHU, Northwestern, Harvard, UChicago, Columbia.
New Science retweeted
What are the most important experiments that NIH and other government funders won't fund?
New Science retweeted
Very interesting and thoughtful report on the NIH:
(Getting on a flight, cutting off wifi, so posting when only 20% of way through.)
In current terms, the NIH spent more than a trillion dollars between 1990 and 2020. Here's our new, 33,000-word examination of how it works: newscience.org/nih/
New Science retweeted
I know what I'll be reading this weekend.
In current terms, the NIH spent more than a trillion dollars between 1990 and 2020. Here's our new, 33,000-word examination of how it works: newscience.org/nih/
New Science retweeted
Super interesting essay on the NIH: newscience.org/nih/.
New Science retweeted
To be clear: Arcadia is intentionally separate from academia & will not take grad students. We have for-profit & metascience goals that require experimenting with new structures & incentives. Only by being fully independent of existing systems can we truly explore what's possible
The Senate is hosting a town hall on potential UCSF academic affiliations with outside institutes with Chancellor Hawgood, Grad Dean Blake, & SOM Vice Dean Morgan. on 4/8, at 3 p.m. in Byers Hall with Zoom webinar. senate.ucsf.edu/outside-inst…
