Maintained by Seed's editors, web editors, and the other people who make Seed tick, Page 3.14 points you in the direction of some of ScienceBlogs' finest offerings, plus the tastiest tidbits of science news and opinion from around the web.
In this post: the large versions of the Education & Careers and Medicine & Health channel photos, comments from readers, and the best posts of the week.
Reader comments of the week:
On the Education & Careers channel, Janet Stemwedel has recently had a Minor epiphany about framing. The much-debated approach to science communication, she realized, is really designed to reach mass audiences; the blogosphere and the classroom can rely on more personal interaction to guide conversation.
But reader Tony Jeremiah is unsure of the effectiveness of framing even to reach a general population:
Presumably, if the goal of framing is persuasion, it would really be only effective for person's holding no pre-existing attitudes. And my sense is that the percentage of person's holding an ambivalent attitude toward science and religion, is probably few and far between.
On the Medicine & Health channel, revere discusses federal shortcomings in produce safety in Spoiling the tomato barrel. The recent Salmonella outbreak which has sickened over 1,000 people was originally linked to tomatoes, but investigators from the FDA and CDC had great difficulty—and ultimately failed—in identifying the source of the suspect tomatoes. While federal standards are in place for meat and poultry, no such standards are used for produce, and no adequate systems exist to track its distribution.
Reader Jared is unsurprised by the investigation's failure:
Ahh, yes, this is a prime example of our wonderful FDA completely missing the chance to prove that our government is at least partially competent in something...
Some other Education & Careers posts we thought were cool this week were:
Journals - the dinosaurs of scientific communication
Ignorance is This, or: A Science Writer's Apology
A Question of Publishing Ethics
And from the Medicine & Health channel:
Plastinated haemorrhaged brain
The US is one of the better off developing nations
"One donut, decaf, no glaze, no powdered sugar"
Race-based vitamins: no, it's not The Onion (Updated)
Look for highlights from other channels coming up!
Education & Careers
Medicine & Health
Having problems commenting? (UPDATED)