Friday links: the war on researcher degrees of freedom begins, accidental aRt, and more (UPDATED with new link!)

From Meg:

On the same general theme as my Ada Lovelace Day post, here’s a great article on Elzada Clover, a pioneering botanist. She was the first woman to navigate the Colorado River, and the article focuses on some of the barriers she faced (and overcame!) in order to take her journey in 1938.

If you, like me, are bad at identifying poison ivy, then this quiz is for you! I once spent a whole summer avoiding what ended up being black raspberry because I thought it was poison ivy.

Accidental aRt (that is, R plots that ended up looking quite pretty/interesting from an aesthetic standpoint – if not a data standpoint) (ht: Kara Woo via Jarrett Byrnes)

Female Science Professor posted a comment from a reader saying that academic life is good, including for parents, and that failing to acknowledge this is needlessly scaring people away from academia. I mostly agree with this person’s sentiments – though, of course, there are some days where things seem better than others (as is true with everything).

And finally, just in case anyone is still harboring illusions that ecology is immune to the sorts of sexual harassment that have been in the news lately, here’s a post from Kelly Weinersmith describing her experience.

From Jeremy:

Don’t say “I’m not a math person.” Anybody who works at it can become a math person. Relevant to the debate a while back about E. O. Wilson’s column suggesting that we ought to cater to the (acquired) math phobia of students rather than helping them overcome it. Also relevant to more recent discussions of the role of mathematical theory in ecology.

The war on researcher degrees of freedom has begun: As a matter of ethics, medical and psychological studies are now likely to be required to pre-register their designs in a publicly-accessible repository. Previously this was the case only for clinical trials. Maybe ecologists should consider it too? Relatedly, the top journal in psychology has added methodological disclosure requirements to their online submission form. Authors will now have to disclose any data they excluded and the grounds for exclusions, all treatments conducted including ones that failed, all variables measured including those not reported in the ms, and how they determined sample sizes and decided to stop collecting data. (HT Ed Yong)

Tim Poisot maps out the most tweeted-about ecological concepts.

And finally, this has nothing to do with ecology, but it’s too good not to share. College marching bands are very much an American thing, but I think readers from around the world will be able to appreciate the Ohio State University marching band’s tribute to Hollywood blockbusters. I like the “Superman righting a falling building” formation best, but the “Harry Potter catching the snitch” and “T. rex from Jurassic Park” formations are a close second and third. 🙂 (HT my dad)

UPDATE: Scary scientific Halloween costumes! The best idea is to go as “peer review”. 🙂 (HT Jeremy Yoder, via Twitter)