While I generally am a lurker on other people’s blogs (I admit it), I have a long list of blogs that I subscribe to in my Google Reader feed. And since it’s Friday, I thought it time again to share some of the postings from around the blogs that caught my eye.

On the Five Stages of Proposal Writing - Professors, for the most part, are writers. Grant proposal writers, especially. One prof describes the stages behind her writing.

Life Science Ph.D.s as Industrial Strength Technicians? - Sandra discusses some of the issues for PhDs trying to find jobs, and the biotech companies who find them overqualified.

Walking the Line Between Grades and Experience: My Life as an Undergraduate Researcher (Part 2) - Continued from Part 1, Tim discusses the struggles between getting laboratory experience and earning high marks in his coursework.

The Future of Cell Biology: Organellar Shape - Alex shares some insights regarding what we don’t (yet) fully comprehend, with commentary.

Bacteria on Rocks - A recent paper in Nature reveals that microbes have been found thriving on fresh volcanic basalt on the ocean seafloor, implying that our understanding of carbon cycling and deep-sea systems is missing an entire food source and web.

And from last month:

Serial Endosymbiosis and Intelligent Design - Allen makes an excellent case how science progresses and that while science may resist change, the only way to change science is to do hard work, research and show how your ideas form scientifically relevant contributions.

There is no doubt that the internet has revolutionised science by making information freely available. But when it comes to actually getting work done, the internet can be a problem.

With all of that lovely information available right at your fingertips it’s easy to get sucked into surfing when you are trying to work.

Here are 5 ways to avoid the lure of the internet and stay efficient

1. Leechblock is a Firefox extension that will block access to any website for any period you specify. So you can block all of those sites that suck up your time, or schedule a set time each day where you can view them. You could allow access to your favorite news sites only during your lunch hour, for example.

2. Temptation blocker is a bit more of a blunt instrument than Leechblock. It allows you to lock yourself out of applications for a set amount of time - so you could use it to block your browser, games, email or whatever is distracting you. If you need to get back into the application before the time is up you can, but the program makes you type in a 32-digit alphanumeric code as a disincentive before unblocking the program.

3. Deleting all bookmarks to websites that eat up your time is a simple way to make it more difficult to navigate to your favorite time-consuming site. But that can be a bit drastic as sometimes you might just want to surf. Alternatively you could use Firefox’s multiple profile capabilities to create one profile for work and one for play.

4. Mozilla’s Prism, is an intriguing piece of software that allows you to run web applications you use/need often as if they were on your desktop. So there is no need to actually open a browser, meaning less opportunity for distractions.

5. Lo-tech options include unplugging/switching your wireless off while working, using pen and paper instead of a computer and exercising some self control!

How do you avoid online distractions? Let us know in the comments.

To accompany Dan’s article on choosing a grad school, I thought I’d relay my experiences and thoughts on this subject. As Dan said, these articles were prompted by a suggestion emailed to us by one of our readers (thanks Vida). We are always glad to hear you article suggestions so if you’d like us to cover something, feel free to drop us a line.

Being in the UK, my experiences of grad school and the grad school entry process will be a bit different from Dan’s US experience because the systems are quite different. Read more »

A reader recently asked for an explanation “about choosing grad schools, taking the GREs, visiting campuses, speaking to potential advisors, and how you guys decided on where to go.” For me, to be honest, I think that I was astoundingly naive in my decision-making for where to go for graduate school. Read more »

This week is dominated by career-related posts discussing life in science. Check ‘em out! Read more »

You know what it’s like. You’re committed to your career, you work long hours so you don’t get to socialise as much as you needed to meet that special someone.

And those people you do meet wouldn’t know their a-factor from their elbow.

So what options are there for the lonely scientist who wants to find someone with whom they can share their copy of Molecular Biology of The Cell? Read more »

I’ve been in a small European country (Cyprus) now for about five months, and recently spent a whole lot of time preparing grant applications to the national Research Promotion Foundation (RPF) here. Some observations: Read more »

Time for our weekly look around the best of the blogs… Read more »