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December 10 is a big day for ScienceBlogs. Today, Hubert Burda Media, one of the largest media companies in Europe, and our partner in Germany, launches a beta version of ScienceBlogs.de, a German-language website that brings the ScienceBlogs idea and spirit to Europe.

I've had the pleasure these past few months of working with the team behind ScienceBlogs.de, and I'm delighted to let my editorial counterpart in Germany, Beatrice Lugger, introduce ScienceBlogs.de in her own words.

Dear ScienceBlogs Community,

Just three months after ScienceBlogs.com and the German publishing company Hubert Burda Media decided to partner in order to promote the blog movement in Europe, we are happy to present the beta version of ScienceBlogs.de. We are launching in Germany with approximately the same number of bloggers as ScienceBlogs.com did almost two years ago, and we hope to grow as ScienceBlogs has.

Almost every German scientist or science writer with whom I have spoken about ScienceBlogs.de said he or she is familiar with ScienceBlogs.com and already loves one or more of the blogs found here. So they were really happy being asked to become ScienceBloggers themselves. Our German bloggers have a deep interest in getting closer to the bloggers of ScienceBlogs.com, and Katherine and I are looking forward to facilitating conversations between the two sites.

I encourage you all to take a look at our blogs. I hope you enjoy them!

Here's a preview of what you will find at ScienceBlogs.de:

(1) Well known blogs by established members of the German science blogging community, including:

• German scientists, such as Ludmila Carone, an astronomer, who writes "Hinterm Mond Gleich Links" (Just Beyond the Moon Left Hand), and Björn Kröger, a palaeontologist, who thinks about "Tiefes Leben" (Deep Life).


• German science writers, such as Marcus Anhäuser and Martin Schäfer, who co-author the blog "Plazeboalarm" (Placebo Alarm); Volker Lange, who writes "Darwins Erben" (Darwins's Heirs), and Christoph Larssen, who maintains "Wissen schafft Kommunikation" (Knowledge Creates Communication).

(2) A platform for lots of scientists and science writers who started with blogging as they became part of our community:


• The first entry on ScienceBlogs.de was written by the Ernst Peter Fischer, a professor of science-history in "Die andere Bildung" (The other education).


• Neurobiologist Martin Korte writes "Kulisse" (Scenery).


• The Deutsches Museum presents videos of different experiments.


• Five science writers from the German newsmagazine FOCUS are blogging as "Kritische Masse" (Critical Mass).


• Jürgen Schönstein, a certified geographer and journalist who has been living in New York for 15 years, blogs at Geograffitico.


• Stefan Jacobasch, a biologist and journalist, writes about food in "Mahlzeit!"


• Peter Artman, who is completing his PhD as a biologist, writes about medical topics in "Medlog."

(3) Finally, there's our house blog, Neurons.

With a click on our Neurons blog you can get a closer look at our team: Dr. Marcel Reichart and Steffi Czerny at Burda Media first had the idea to start ScienceBlogs in Europe. Manon Littek is our project manager. And there are other memberrs of the team, such as Sophie Kelm, Franziska Deecke, Heiko Hebig, Johannes Fricke...

Me, I am Beatrice Lugger, the community manager of ScienceBlogs.de. I have studied chemistry and I have been writing about science for 15 years now. I have written for different German newspapers including Süddeutsche and Frankfurter Rundschau, newsmagazines such as FOCUS and Technology Review, and internet portals including Netdoktor FOCUS online. With that background, this ScienceBlogs project is the best thing that could happen to me. I'm really happy about it and enjoy it every day.

We'd love to thank everyone who helped us, starting now!

Sincerely,

Beatrice Lugger
ScienceBlogs.de

A meeting with prospective bloggers at the Hubert Burda Media offices in Munich.

Team ScienceBlogs. From left to right: Dr. Marcel Reichart; Beatrice Lugger; Katherine Sharpe; Sophie Kelm; Manon Littek; Heiko Hebig.

Photos by ScienceBlogsEU, from Flickr.