Maybe creativity is just how big a bag of tricks you have; how many different tricks you've seen, applied in different contexts. And perhaps some people have a little bit more skill remembering all those tricks or applying them in different situations. - Arjun Raj, @arjunraj.bsky.social

Tzachi Pilpel introduces two tools for generating ideas in the second episode of the Night Science Podcast: 1. imaginary conversations with scientists and 2. walking while thinking to anchor thoughts spatially. @nightsciencepod.bsky.social

‘Inhabiting the data’ is how CalTech Professor Ellen Rothenberg describes her process for coming up with a new idea, in the very first episode of the Night Science Podcast. (@nightsciencepod.bsky.social)

1906 Nobel Prize winner Santiago Ramón y Cajal's 'Advice for a Young Investigator' makes important points: 1. The only thing in your power is your preparation 2. Be suspicious of “brilliance” 3. Be appropriately respectful of authority, but no more 4. Balance concentration and relaxation 🔽

Looking for ways to keep your excitement for science?! Come to our NYC Postdocs Night Science event July 29th! We're meeting in Mount Sinai for a night science session to improve and practice our creative process! Free RSVP: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... @kelseymonson.bsky.social

🔥 Published today, and just in time for summer conferences, here are your guidelines for presenting badly www.nature.com/articles/s41... rdcu.be/fqa92

The pattern in science is that you get stuck in every project. But the reason is not that you're dumb but because you're confronting the unknown. And not giving up does eventually lead to a discovery! Thank you El País for interviewing me about my day science and my night science!

Unpopular opinion: Going straight to AI limits your creatively, because it short-circuits the iterative process you need to develop new ideas.

Have you heard yet about the Conceptual Biology Forum?! As the organizers Amy Shyer & Alan Rodrigues say, if you're not thinking conceptually, then you're just accepting the existing concepts without giving a possibility for new ones. www.youtube.com/@ConceptualB...

Even Einstein had a tough time with his PhD. He withdrew his thesis, threatening to quit ("the whole comedy has become tiresome for me"), and submitted a second version 4 years later. advan-kt.com/nobel/thesis...

Scientists on moving past being stuck: "Basically I'm just a lazy son of a bi*ch" – they would play music or paint and at some point that would free their mind up enough that they'd get past their block and then come back to the problem. – Root-Bernstein on the Night Science Podcast

A crucial part of the project actually takes place in the exploration phase, where we must turn off judgment.. It was a pleasure to be on the "Better than Your Creator: on AI and Creativity" Podcast with Shirly Coifman to talk about the creative scientific process. podcasts.apple.com/il/podcast/2...

Are you a professor / group leader looking for a course to teach that would be extremely welcomed by graduate students & postdocs? Come train with us in how to teach the tools of the creative scientific process in our European train the trainer event in Heidelberg. night-science.org/train-the-tr...

Doing good science is 90% finding a science buddy to constantly talk to about the project. The Postdoc Night Science NYC club met last week in a Manhattan bar for 5 rounds of scientific buddy speed-dating discussions. Contact me with questions on how to organize such an event in your city!

Night science welcomes beautiful ideas Day science welcomes ugly facts The Night Science Podcast is the story of needing both @nightsciencepod.bsky.social

AI is amazing but the game is still the same: we need to make a discovery and AI won't do that for you.. So NYC Postdocs, join us Thursday for this month's Postdoc Night Science event! We're meeting at a bar near Union Square for some science buddy "speed dating". RSVP: tinyurl.com/3t5us6hp!

NYC Postdocs: join us for this month's Postdoc Night Science event! Having a science buddy is crucial for the creative process. So this time we're meeting at a bar near Union Square for some science buddy "speed dating". RSVP: tinyurl.com/3t5us6hp!

Our inaugural Train-the-Trainer Workshop was held in partnership with The New York Academy of Sciences. We had 40 attendees who became Certified Night Science Trainers! night-science.org/train-the-tr...

After leading workshops on ‘the creative scientific process’ worldwide for 5 years, last week we led our first ‘train-the-trainer’ event to empower faculty to teach it at their universities. Our goal is for all 9 million scientists exposed to the Night Science creativity tools!

What do you do when you get stuck? You need to pop out into the world of night science, into the world of ideas, where you use abstract thinking. You're going to use every trick you got to find the way forward. From Nature's new podcast on cultivating creativity in science!

It's amazing that our CEO Oliver Bogler is representing the Night Science Institute at AACR. And can you see which issue of Nature he got a hold of?! www.nature.com/articles/s41... @oliverbogler.bsky.social @night-science-inst.bsky.social

It's amazing that our CEO Oliver Bogler is representing the Night Science Institute at AACR. And can you see which issue of Nature he got a hold of?! night-science.org www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We're in this week's Nature! We propose a model of how a cell learns by running an evolutionary algorithm: exploring different gene-regulatory combinations and using feedback responses to stabilize those combinations that reduce stress levels. Full text: nature.com/articles/s41...

How does a cell learn? In our new perspective in @nature.com we propose a model where the properties of the AP-1 family of transcription factors – stress-induced feedback, regulatory combinatorics and cellular memory – encode a mechanism for cellular learning. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Friends in CalTech: I can't wait to feel that California sun tomorrow and tell you about about our work on cellular learning! And most importantly, thank you Magdalena Żernicka-Goetz for hosting me! @zernickagoetz.bsky.social caltech.edu/campus-life-...

The new episode of the Night Science Podcast is a must-listen! Art professor Lois Hetland wrote a classic book about the “studio habits of mind” – observe, reflect, envision, express engage & persist, stretch & explore, craft & connect – and we explore how these relate to scientific process!

Data is not transparent! And that's why looking without bias is hard to do. We asked undergrads what correlation they expected between wealth & happiness, before showing them a fictitious dataset. Faced with an identical graph, those expecting a positive correlation were much more likely to see one!

There's a strange myth about science: that theory comes first, and that data cannot show anything new. But anyone who's ever done science knows the truth that there's a long conversation between data & hypotheses. Back & forth.. until the discovery. And if you think about it, it has to be this way!

Do you think you would have discovered a gorilla hiding in plain sight in your data? We found that you are 3 times less likely to do so if you have a specific hypothesis in mind. *A hypothesis is a liability* (Night Science recap, Day 5) genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Doing science requires us to speak 2 different languages: (1) Day science language is a highly precise language for designing & executing experiments; while (2) Night science language uses analogies & anthropomorphizes to give us intuitions about the unknowns we explore. (Night Science recap, Day 4)