What’s wrong with this picture?:

You’re looking at a screenshot of a map detailing the origins of each of the last 500 visits to Terra Sigillata. I took this shot at about 2 pm local time in Durban, South Africa, home to cognitive science blogger Michael Meadon at Ionian Enchantment. Michael is a graduate student at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and I learned about him via a Twitter referral – from whom I can’t recall.

Be that as it may, last week Michael put out a call last week for “Africa’s science nerds”:

Africa, then, needs skeptical, reasoned, and scientific voices, not only to foster development and growth, but to serve as merchants of light: to hold out a candle in the dark in a demon-haunted world. It is for this reason that I have long been trying to organize, promote and otherwise advance the skeptical/scientific blogging community in South Africa, and latterly Africa as a whole. So if you are an African skeptical or scientific blogger (or know of such bloggers) please contact me on ionian.enchantment@gmail.com. Participate in our carnival, post and get listed on our blogroll, and join our email discussion group. And, of course, if you have a blog, keep up the good work! If you don’t, start one!

There are an awful lot of blank spots on that world map. I’m embarrassed both that we have so few hits from African countries but that I am also guilty of having no African bloggers on my blogroll-under-reconstruction. I understand that our South American audience might be limited by language (although many of my Brazilian readers have better English than I). But English is the language of instruction in the majority of African nations. Moreover, my research area of natural products had its birth in Africa – in fact, Michael has a cross-campus colleague working currently on chemistry of indigenous Zulu medicinal plants.

There’s a lot of opportunity for cross-fertilization here. So, if you are blogging from Africa and send a note to Michael, please be sure to also leave your blog link in the comment thread below.