“Well summed up”

“Well summed up“, says Hélder Barbosa over Twitter about this cartoon (@HelSimao). I agree.  It’s quite easy to “translate” from apples to oranges. However, to do something really new, first requires know-how, a well-heeled technique, absolute reconnaissance of the state-of-the-art, and then the hardest – soul; … imagination and courage. As well as to test the new idea, indefinitely, during months if necessary, with great patience. At this point, ironically, science needs inner faith, or the courage to drop everything on the trash can if it’s not good enough, starting all over again. Not all scientists share these features, altogether. Some are doomed to produce low impact papers all their life, translating the work of others from apples to oranges.

[Cartoon is from VADLO, a growing search engine in Biology, as well as in all branches of life sciences, including Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, Structural Biology, Evolutionary Biology, Genetics, Genomics, Proteomics, Botany, Zoology, Biochemistry, Biophysics, Biotechnology, Biostatistics, Pharmacology and Biomedical research.]

Your detour ends here

fig. – Photo taken near my house, today in down-town Lisbon (Portugal). “Fim de Desvio“, which can be translated more or less as: your “detour ends here“. [April 2010]

A good smart traffic sign for scientists working on full paper works encompassing a broad range of phenomena and consequences, while having their full set of experiments results complete. Do note, however, that all scientists should have detours. They are part of the job while arriving at something new. Without it, they can simple turn themselves into mechanical parrots – most of them are. Being always at “home”, it’s easy. Science do needs courage, being a successive detouring voyage, while getting at home in time, quickly reinforcing energies for the next one. And while doing it, back and forth… and back and forth again, do mind yourself that, your next voyage will always pass some parts of your previous detour. So, get the courage of having yourself lost, but do arrive on time for supper…