SiBlings

Since my move here to SEED scienceblogs, I made a mistake of assuming, quite wrongly, that most of my visitors are aslo science bloggers (or people interested in science) who, almost by definition, regularly read all of the other SEED sciencebloggers as well.

I forgot that some of the readers are not new readers, but people who came over here with me, people who have read one of my three old blogs for a long time before my move.

They may be liberal/progressive bloggers, or fans of John Edwards, or North Carolina bloggers, or Balkans bloggers, or edubloggers or academic bloggers. Not to mention skeptics and atheists. And many more...

So, I am really remiss at linking to interesting stuff posted by my fellow SEED sciencebloggers (aka SiBlings). I'll try to remedy that by doing a link-fest every now and then, starting right now. But before I start, let me introduce you to the SEED scienceblogs as a concept first.

It is a project by the Seed Media Group that publishes SEED magazine. You can see the links to the most interesting science news (the Daily Zeitgeist) and SEED articles at the very bottom of the page of each blog.

They are hosting 44 (and more to come) science blogs on their website. We get a tiny little bit of money every month (plus technical support) and they do not in any way interfere with the style and content of our blogging. You can read more about the whole concept at the About SB page (linked to from every individual blog on the top right corner). You can susbcribe to any one individual blog, or to a collective SB feed if you go to this page.

If you got to the SB front page you will see a bunch of different things there:

There is a strip showcasing the most recent blog posts.

There is a big quote on the right from one of the bloggers, changed every day.

There are lists of most e-mailed and most active blog posts, and most popular and most recent searches.

You can narrow down your experience by chossing one of the ten channels, so if you are interested only in physics, or politics, or medicine, or brain & behavior, you can safely ignore the rest. On the bottom of the page you will see the last three posts in each Channel, and on the top left margin you can click and find the aggregator for each channel.

On the bottom of the left margin you will find the links to all the individual blogs.

Right up on top in the middle is The Buzz - showing last five posts that contain a particular word (or group of words). This also changes every day.

On the bottom right you will find a link to the latest post on the SB Editor's blog Page 3.14 and the aggregated responses to the weekly AskTheScienceBloggers question. Page 3.14 is a great starting point (a "base") for your daily visits to the site. They link to the most interesting posts of the day (Quick Picks), interesting news and the ATSB questions and answers. They highlight our Friday fun blogging themes, and provide information if there are planned changes to the site (e.g, introducing newly added blogs, and 3-4 of those are coming very soon). Go say Hello and post suggestions (and praise) in the comments.

On top of every page of SEED empire, you will see a narrow grey strip. It shows a couple of links to the most interesting blog-posts and SEED articles of the day. This strip is hosted on a different system than the rest of the site, so if something happens and the site is down, you will still be able to see the grey strip and find the relevant information on it.

The best way for the "regulars" to check out the SB blogs is by checking the Last 24 Hours page, which is the complete aggregator of all the recent blog posts from all the SEED blogs. You can also subscribe to e-mail notifications to any individual blog or to all of them.

Yesterday, Technorati turned three and launched a new look and some new toys. The SEED scienceblogs is regarded by Technorati as a single blog, although each individual blog is also separately ranked. Right now, SB is up on #32 [update - #31] on the Top 100 Most Popular list, overtaking Cute Overload just yesterday. You can help us move up by linking both to our individual blogs and to SB homepage from your blogrolls and occasional blogposts.

We have not cracked the Top 100 Most Favourited list yet [update - we did at #100]. You can help us do that by choosing any individual blogs (e.g., mine) - plus the SB blogs as a whole - as your "favourites". Just click on the links I placed on my left margin to do so.

Let me now introduce you to some of my SiBlings, but not all of them at once, lest you get overwhelmed and run away. Instead, I will split this into chewable chunks, i.e., into four posts, published over the next four days, each introducing eleven (or so) blogs. I have already introduced Page 3.14 above, so today, you get only ten (and I am excluding myself asuming that you already know me if you are reading this)....(under the fold)

Janet of Adventures in Ethics and Science, with degrees in both chemistry and philosophy, is the resident ethicist, looking at the practice of science, the life in academia and much more. Check out here latest series on how she got her degrees and a job while having kids at the same time: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4, or enjoy her Friday Sprogg Blogging series.

Tara of Aetiology is an epidemiologist. There, you'll find her story of balancing work and family, many posts on emerging diseases and zoonoses and malaria, and she often has to deal with crazies in her comments, e.g., AIDS/HIV denialists.

Afarensis is a physical anthropologist, following the latest news on evolution, zoology and paleontology. Check out his recent posts on dinosaur eggs, transitional forms and the graveyard of 600 bison.

Karmen of Chaotic Utopia is a "...full-time student, seeking a double major in philosophy and ecology/evolutionary biology, and a part-time website and graphic design artist...". Check out her amazing recent series, really a historical photo-assay on early 20th century Lillybridge: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and the modern-day Coda. Also, do not miss her Friday Fractal series!

Cheerful Oncologist is a physician and a wonderful writer. See Slow Down, Doctor!, Good Doctors Leave Good Tracks or Cancer in the Great Outdoors for a sample.

Dr.X of Chemblog on rainforests and the way pharmaceutical industry works, in Of Drugs and Forests.

Dave and Greta Munger blog as a team - she does the research, he does the writing (most of the time) on Cognitive Daily. Each post is a gem about the way our brains and minds work. Violence in sports fans, Why we can't all be divas, Fetal stem cells can enter the maternal brain, Do women perceive color differently from men?, Perceiving beauty: Do we really all agree on what's attractive? and much, much more. You can also participate (but not during summer vacation) in their quick online studies on Casual Fridays.

Joseph at Corpus Callosum is a psychiatrist with a broad range of interests, from politics to science to medicine to food. See Genetically-Modified Mosquitoes To Control Disease?, Heisenberg's Social Uncertainty Principle: Manipulation, Deliberate or Otherwise and Friday Nutrition Blogging.

Alex Palazzo of The Daily Transcript studies the Endoplasmic Reticulum (that is a part of a living cell) and writes about Family and Academia, Public Understanding of Stem Cells and postdoc salaries, as well as runs the Map That Campus quiz every Friday.

Tim Lambert of Deltoid is not one to shy away from a good fight. Most of his blogging consists of debunking pseudoscience and political/religious assault on science, especially in the areas of globa warming and DDT, so he makes enemies, several of whom have their own Archives categories.

Tomorrow - next 11 SiBlings.

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Bora, this is an extremely helpful primer, even for us SiBlings (I might make the observation that it was GrrlScientist who coined the moniker, correct?).

I read a great many of y'all before the first round of Sb'ers and then our addition in pledge class 2.0. However, even I admit it is so overwhelming to learn about the 44 blogs and the 50 or so bloggers, and it's already been almost two months since we joined.

So, I'm taking the approach I took in writing my dissertation - a little bit every day, every paragraph written is one closer to completion: I'm focusing on two blogs a week (current and archival posts) to get to know my SiBlings and, especially, who they link to outside of ScienceBlogs. You people are so freakin' deep AND wide in your understanding of the natural and life sciences, medicine, academia, and bioethics that I could do another PhD or two just working with y'all.

Nice round-up so far, Bora! Thanks for doing this--it'll be a great reference when it's all finished.