Major Revisions

Jon and Jeff are back and talking future directions and making plans--with a big announcement and a fair amount of navel-gazing

Grace, Jon, and Jeff talk about the hidden costs of publishing, referencing Josh Schimel's famous blog post on the subject. Where does open access and preprints fit into the current state and future of publishing? How would we alter the publishing landscape? How do you decide where to publish? Also, Jeff gets his license plate stolen.

Jeff and Jon sit down with Patrice Connors and Marc Kissel, two of the folks behind March Mammal Madness 2019 (#2019MMM). Marc and Patrice give us the behind the scenes, inside baseball look at the process of creating the narratives and organizing #2019MMM as well as sharing their love and interest behind the amazing science communication juggernaut. Did you know that MMM reaches over 100k students? All this and more! We are also announcing the Major Revisions 2019 MMM tournament. It's a multi-round game where every round is based on MMM. The points are cumulative, but you get to make new picks every round! No busted bracket worries. Whoever picks the most right gets to pick a topic for a future episode of Major Revisions!

Dr. Ben Cook from NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies joins us on the show to talk about drought, the climate system, working across scales/disciplines, how we think about hazards, and his soon-to-be-released book. Ben is a climate scientist who is broadly interested in land surface and climate system interactions with a focus on drought. This show was recorded live at the 2018 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in Washington, DC.

Jon and Jeff ask the age old question, when do the statistics get so wonky you call in the quants? The gang minus one talk about the trade-offs between learning new, powerful techniques and just collaborating with folks who have already climbed that mountain (e.g. statisticians and quantitative ecologists). Also, old car or new car? Doom metal or screamo? Did you know we are the world's leading ecology podcast? So much and more on this episode of Major Revisions!