Alex Cope, PhD

"Recent reports have found the mental health of graduate students and post-doctoral researchers to be on the decline. In this career, where failure and criticism are far more common than success and praise, it is not shocking that so many of us go through fits of despair, depression, and anxiety."

"A good narrative is a powerful tool for communicating scientific results to the general public and other researchers. However, even the best scientist can let a narrative go beyond the evidence. The proverb 'never let the truth get in the way of a good story,' commonly attributed to Mark Twain, implies a power of emotion over logic: a powerful narrative will almost always outpace a convincing piece of evidence."

"The first trial of the century, in the modern sense, began on July 10th, 1925. Formally, the case is known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes. You may know this trial by a different name: the "Scopes Monkey Trial," as it was likely referred to in your high school US history textbooks. The defendant was high school teacher John Scopes for teaching human evolution in violation of Tennessee law."