The Week in ScienceBlogs

8.13.07 to 8.19.07

Homepage Buzzes

8/13: Science Panel on C-SPAN
On Saturday, C-SPAN aired a televised broadcast of the "Science, Politics, and Activism" panel that took place on August 3 at the YearlyKos Convention. The video of the panel, moderated by Tara Smith and featuring science bloggers Sean Carroll, Chris Mooney, and Ed Brayton, is available online.

8/14:Karl Rove Out
Karl Rove, who has been a political adviser to President Bush for over 10 years, has announced his plans to resign as White House deputy chief of staff. He will leave his position on August 31, bringing to an end an influential and high-profile tenure in Washington. Rove cited a desire to spend more time with his family in Texas as a factor in his decision.

8/15: Bloggers on Peer-Reviewed Research
The Cognitive Daily blog has long used a visual icon to distinguish their posts on peer-reviewed research from posts of a more newsy or personal nature. Prompted by a suggestion from another blogger, Cognitive Daily is now leading a group effort to come up with a peer-reviewed research icon suitable for all science blogs, and guidelines for its use. For now, they call the initiative BPR^3, or Bloggers for Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting.

8/17: Bashing Bottled Water
Every year, Americans trash 38 billion plastic water bottles. Not only is that environmentally unfriendly--the oil used to make those bottles could fuel 100,000 cars a year, estimates the Earth Policy Institute--but expensive. As a recent New York Times editorial pointed out, your recommended eight glasses of water each day in bottled water would cost $1,400 a year. The same amount in tap water? Forty-nine cents.

8/19: Bloggers in the City
Until recently, most of the ScienceBloggers had never met outside of cyberspace. On Friday afternoon at the Seed offices in New York City, about three dozen sciblings kicked off three days of "framing" talk, museum excursions, booze, and--oh yeah, karaoke.

Quotes of the Day

8/13: "Europe isn't the paragon of health and safety regulation, no matter what liberals like to think." -Angry Toxicologist

8/14: "Computers keep on getting faster, but we still can't design a version of Microsoft Word that doesn't crash." -The Frontal Cortex

8/15: "How many times have you seen pallets of bottled water coming off the forklift at the grocery store, and felt your stomach turning in disgust?" -Deep-Sea News

8/16: "Eventually it becomes clear that our bodies did not evolve in an environment of constant, abundant, and calorie-rich food." -Retrospectacle

8/17: "Crows definitely use tools, and they'll even modify tools if the initial material isn't sufficient for their purposes." -Mixing Memory

8/19: "I do not care if a politician visits a strip club. People choose politicians for what they say they'll do in public policy." -Evolving Thoughts

Three Most Popular Posts:

1. Pure Pedantry: Britney Spears is the high priestess of trailer trash

2. The Loom: Branded With Science

3. Deltoid: Did NASA report that 1998 was the warmest in the US?

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