a prize for young scientists? 🔥

Good morning! ☕️ It’s April 23rd, 2024. On this very day, 19 years ago, a young engineer uploaded his zoo visit, and today we’re all still enjoying cat videos and mastering the art of online procrastination, thanks to YouTube! Grab your coffee and enjoy the most pleasant 15 minutes of your day.

Scholars whose language differs from English “struggle to publish” their work

Universities in countries that speak Dutch or German have higher research performance scores than those in Japan.

While it has long been known that non-English speakers find it harder to publish their work, the new paper in Research Policy shows that the nature of the language a researcher speaks might also be a determining factor.

Universities based in countries where people speak 🇳🇱 Dutch, 🇸🇪 Swedish, or 🇩🇪 German – all languages similar to English – tend to have higher research quality scores than those in nations such as 🇯🇵 Japan and 🇫🇮 Finland, whose languages diverge more significantly from English.

👀 Are you a non-native English speaker? Here are some examples of potential solutions to reducing disadvantages for non-native English speakers in each type of scientific activities:

Hidden gem alert: a Notion template tailored for researchers and PhD students

An avid task and time management geek has created this next-level template inspired by Tiago Forte’s brilliant article on “How to Build a Second Brain” and the C.O.D.E. and PARA methods.

Log all work meetings, research tasks, deadlines, and personal tasks in the 🎯 Targets & Planning Database to visualize monthly activities.

• Tag tasks for easy reference in the 🎓 homepage linked views.

• Maintain a bibliography in the Paper Database, exporting data from sources like Endnote, Mendeley or Zotero, and set target reading dates.

• Organize each topic as a sub-page on the Literature Review page for structured data and later use.

• Use Notion web clipper to automatically add links to the Weblinks database.

The current template is around 400 blocks, so anyone with a free account can duplicate and test the template.

👉🏼 TL;DR: This notion template is specifically tailored for researchers and PhD students who can use it to manage their daily research routine and work-related tasks.

👉🏼 Why I use Notion to organize my PhD research (Maya Gosztyla, Nature 🔒)

Game on: Mendeley versus Zotero, which one is better?

The rivalry between Mendeley and Zotero’s fans goes back a long way and is comparable to the division caused by Pepsi & Coke. 🤼‍♂️

This article breaks down the main differences between the two (here at et. al. we’re team Zotero but, you know… whatever floats your boat 😄). The next step is to become an expert in the tool, and that’s where Raul and Mushtaq come in…

👉🏼 How to use Mendeley, explained by Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco on X)

👉🏼 Zotero 101, explained by Mushtaq Bilal, PhD (@MushtaqBilalPhD on X)

Have you heard about the ‘Young Scientist Award’?

Are you in any of these research areas?

‘Cell and Molecular Biology’
‘Genomics, Proteomics and Systems Biology approaches’
‘Ecology and Environment’
‘Molecular Medicine’

The Prize for Young Scientists, presented annually by Science and SciLifeLab, recognizes early-career scientists from around the globe.

Requirements:
🎓 Applicants must have completed their doctorate within the past 2 years.
📝 Submit an essay describing thesis work in one of the qualified categories.

🤑 A winner from each category will compete for the grand prize.
- Grand prize winner: $30,000 USD
- Category winners: $10,000 USD each

📅 Application deadline: July 15, 2024

AI did this for me
AI helped me with that

Generative artificial intelligence tools continue to grow in popularity. Here are four ways faculty members in higher education are teaching about or with AI.

1. To improve student writing - Pamela Bourjaily, a business communication professor at the University of Iowa, created an assignment that requires students to experiment with ChatGPT and learn how to create the best prompts. Students learned to edit and revise prompts to produce more accurate and helpful outputs.

2. To prepare slide decks - Rodney B. Murray, host of the 🎙️ Pulse podcast, used AI-powered tools to put together a presentation for his podcasting course. Murray compares working with MagicSlides and SlidesGPT in design, images and prices.

3. To provide students with feedback - Harvard University’s Computer Science 50: Introduction to Computer Science course uses an AI tool to highlight areas of code that could be improved, as well as provide solutions. The tool is designed to make the work of TAs and professors more efficient as well as provide students with a personalized learning experience.

4. To provide workforce tools. Anand Rao, professor of communication at the University of Mary Washington, introduces students to low and no-code options to build their own generative AI tools in his special topics course on digital studies.

For your mental health

Nearly every PhD student has struggled with mental health at some point. The work can be isolating, the academic pressure can be intense, and you're faced with difficult problems that can take years to solve…

Here, Alexander Sneyd, a PhD student in Physics at Cambridge University, asks a bunch of current and former PhD students what they do to take care of their mental health. They talk about actual strategies that helped them, ranging from creating a support network of friends to dedicating weekends to watching K-dramas.

Kudos of the Day

🎉🎉🎉 Today we’re giving kudos to Nat (@life_and_sunshine on Instagram)! She has just achieved an incredible milestone by becoming a two-time published author! 🤩 Nat's hard work and dedication have paid off with the release of her latest research, which is now available for everyone to read as an open access article. We're thrilled to celebrate Nat's accomplishment and the impact her work will have on the field. Congratulations, Nat! 🔥

🥹 Other papers recently published by our readers

⛈️ Ancient tree rings reveal largest ever solar storm 14,300 years ago
👏🏼 Kudos to Edouard Bard | Read or 🎧 listen to the full paper

🦟 More malaria on horizon? As temperatures rise mosquitoes migrate
👏🏼 Kudos to Colin J. Carlson | Read or 🎧 listen to the full paper

☄️ ‘Bouncing’ comets may be able to spread life throughout the universe
👏🏼 Kudos to R. J. Anslow | Read or 🎧 listen to the full paper

Have you recently published your work and want us to echo it? Reply directly to this email and we look forward to including you in our next digest!

Together with @PHDcomics