Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)

Okay, I've been hinting that I have a really cool announcement that I want to share with you but a plethora of annoying (!!) technical issues have prevented me from telling you about it. Until now. My surprise announcement is ...

... I have a blog at Nature Network! My new NN blog is called Maniraptora (Tastes Like Chicken).

As you can see, we're still working on getting the name just right (I have to email the cat herders at NN and ask them to change it for me; I don't have direct control over such things as I do here at SB).

Adding me to the Nature Network lineup has been an ongoing series of low-key negotiations for many many months. Actually, for more than a year, I believe. There were several big sticking points that took some time and effort to resolve, at least one of which was a major policy issue (up until a month or so ago, it was NN policy that no one was allowed to write a blog under a pseudonym, and I absolutely refuse to write a blog under anything but my pseudonym).

Does this mean I am leaving ScienceBlogs? Not a chance! I love it here and will remain here as long as the overlords will have me. Well, unless they decide to dump me, which is something I ultimately don't have much control over ..

My first "real" blog entry on Maniraptora is my translation of the latest cool paper from NATURE about sexual development in birds, which I mirrored from my original entry here. That particular essay seemed especially appropriate for setting the overall tone for Maniraptora and it also has been instructive to me as I gain a fuller appreciation for the confusing coding differences that exist between the two sites.

I am still working on learning how to address some formatting issues and how to resolve all those annoying little differences between SB and NN (yes, they're both MT4, but there's a huge difference in the sorts of coding that works here versus there) so I am re-learning everything that I've learned how to do a dozen or more times already. I hope you will be patient with me whilst I learn how to do things at NN.

I plan to write a longer and more thoughtful blog entry very soon regarding each blog's specific focus, although as always, both blogs will continue to evolve over time to occupy their own (probably overlapping) niches.