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...long live Stochastic.

Hello, and welcome to Stochastic, the new in-house blog from Seed Media Group, the makers of Seed Magazine and Scienceblogs.com. Come on in and make yourself at home.

Stochastic is our contribution to Scienceblogs--because we couldn't let the other bloggers have all the fun.

As you may know, and as I just found out, the word 'stochastic' is a mathematical term connoting randomness. Stochastic is the opposite of deterministic; that which is stochastic is subject to chance, to wild and unpredictable variation.

In other words: What comes after is not determined by what came before.

Unlike many of the blogs in the Scienceblogs community, Stochastic doesn't cover a particular realm of science. We're not a biology blog, a physics blog, or a blog about climate change. We'll hop around from subject area to subject area, enjoying our mandate to be freewheeling while trying not to become as utterly disjointed as our name could imply.

Here are some of the things that I hope Stochastic will be, and do.

First, I hope that Stochastic will be fine reading material for scientists and non-scientists alike. We bloggers are science-interested (without exception) and science-savvy (to varying degrees), but we're not, by and large, working scientists or doctors of philosophy like many of the other Sciencebloggers. I see this as a good thing, or at least a factor that could shape Stochastic into what I'd like to see it become--a place where we can talk about science, not necessarily as scientists, but as reasonably informed individuals who are curious about what scientific developments mean for our lives as individuals, and our life as a society.

Second, I'd love for Stochastic to become a hub of sorts for the Scienceblogs.com community, especially as that community grows. (And grow it will--look for many more blogs in the months to come.) If Scienceblogs aims to be "the web's largest conversation about science," then Stochastic might be the host or hostess who takes you by the hand, leads you into the party where you don't know a soul, and says, "There's someone here you just have to meet." And as the metaphorical salon gets wilder, Stochastic is re-filling snack bowls, topping off glasses, and generally making sure that everybody has a good time.

Will this analogy prove an appropriate prediction of the future? Can't say--No post on Stochastic can be predicted by any previous post.