ksharpe
Posts by this author
June 15, 2006
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?
June 12, 2006
Hi there. If this is your first visit to the newly-designed ScienceBlogs homepage, welcome. And if you're a return visitor, welcome back.
I want to take a moment to walk you through the new features and functionalities on the page, but first, a reminder.
If you're feeling disoriented by the new…
June 9, 2006
Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why?
June 9, 2006
Dear Visitor,
Welcome to the new ScienceBlogs! Beginning today, you'll notice a newly designed homepage (built from your feedback) at scienceblogs.com and the addition of 25 new blogs to our network.
Science is driving our global conversation unlike ever before. From climate change to intelligent…
June 7, 2006
Ask a Big Question, get...fewer answers. But really well-considered, provocative ones.
This week, the ScienceBloggers mulled:
"Do you think there is a brain drain going on (i.e. foreign scientists not coming to work and study in the U.S. like they used to, because of new immigration rules and the…
June 5, 2006
This week, I'll post the Ask A ScienceBlogger question early, before the roundup. Here's the query that the ScienceBloggers will be mulling over this week. Look for their answers, accumulating until Wednesday:
"Do you think there is a brain drain going on (i.e. foreign scientists not coming to work…
May 31, 2006
This week, ScienceBloggers tackled the question of how much control the public ought to have over the scientific research that its tax dollars pay for. The question was phrased like so:
"Since they're funded by taxpayer dollars (through the NIH, NSF, and so on), should scientists have to justify…
May 24, 2006
This week, the ScienceBloggers lined up to take a crack at this fine question:
"If you could shake the public and make them understand one scientific idea, what would it be?"
Below the fold, in their own words, twelve ScienceBloggers name the ideas they'd be happier if we all grasped firmly.
But…
May 17, 2006
For this week, ScienceBlogs editorial asked its cabal of bloggers to answer, if the spirit moved them, the following question:
Will the 'human' race be around in 100 years?
More consensus this week than last -- but that is the nature of a yes/no question. Luckily, there was some fine exposition…
May 12, 2006
Drumroll, please.
ScienceBlogs can now be enjoyed on the go, in podcast form.
In our first podcast, Sb editors talk with Janet Stemwedel of 'Adventures in Ethics and Science,' who presents her views on plagiarism in the sciences: why it matters, who it hurts, and what, just maybe, can be done…
May 11, 2006
Last week, we at the Seed mother-ship taxed the collective brain-power of the ScienceBloggers with the following question:
If you could cause one invention from the last hundred years never to have been made at all, which would it be, and why?
Their responses have swooped from the sublime to the…
May 8, 2006
Thanks, Tim, for the link to this story in Kuro5hin, by an individual who claims to have cured himself of hay fever and asthma by deliberately infesting himself with hookworms.
This first-hand story, as its author notes, "isn't for the faint hearted and for some should not be read while eating."…
May 8, 2006
This is the debut of a new weekly feature on ScienceBlogs. It's called Ask A ScienceBlogger, and it is Sb's own mini blog carnival -- a chance for the bloggers to weigh in, briefly, about a question of general interest.
This week's question is:
If you could cause one invention from the last…
May 3, 2006
Hay fever, as those of you who have it know, can be a most remarkable feeling.
Your eyes itch, and your joints ache. You feel as though you were coming down with the flu.
Time itself can seem distended, warped. Your hands feel like balls of dough, and you're sleepy...so sleepy.
You feel…
April 25, 2006
I find it funny, somehow, that I learned it's National Poetry Month by reading ScienceBlogs. 'The web's largest conversation about science' seems a strange place to find contributions to a celebration of poetry, but maybe it's not. Scientists and poets are alike in being keen observers of the world…
April 21, 2006
You know what they say about great minds.
In the April 14 issue of Science Magazine, two environmental scientists opine that scientists can, and must, become active bloggers and readers of blogs, for two main reasons. First, hard-blogging scientists will ensure that sound scientific information…
April 20, 2006
Non-U.S. Stochastic readers, we've heard you. You tried to answer the Seed survey, tried to fill in the questions about where you live, and all you got was a lousy selection of U.S. states to choose from.
We're sorry. Seed knows (and loves) that we have readers all over the world, and we're…
April 19, 2006
Seriously. Who are you, yeah you, the one reading ScienceBlogs, right now?
Seed wants to know, and we're hoping that you'll tell us, by replying to the brief survey that you can find in the right-hand column of the ScienceBlogs homepage.
As though love alone weren't enough to motivate you, survey…
April 19, 2006
An interesting piece posted on Slate.com yesterday called attention to the results of a NIMH study that might help rank existing antidepressant medications in order of effectiveness.
The study, which goes by the awkward moniker of STAR*D (Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression),…
April 14, 2006
On Tuesday, April 4, Boston-area Seed friends and contributors gathered for dinner and conversation at Cambridge's Oleana restaurant.
Seed founder and editor-in-chief Adam Bly hosted the event. Steven Pinker, Seth Lloyd, Irene Pepperberg, Jonah Lehrer, Karl Iagnemma, and Alex Palazzo were some of…
April 12, 2006
Seed's daily science news aggregator, phylotaxis.com, has been nominated for a Webby Award in the category of 'Best Navigation/Structure.'
Designed for Seed by artist Jonathan Harris, phylotaxis is based on the mathematical elegance of the Fibonacci Sequence, and the ordered growth of leaves on a…
April 7, 2006
Polish science-fiction author Stanislaw Lem, author of The Cyberiad, Solaris and His Master's Voice, died on March 27. His ashes have been buried in the Salwatorski Cemetery in Krakow.
Link to a short article on Candada.com, here.
Born in 1921 in Poland, Lem began training as a medical student in…
April 7, 2006
Earlier this week I asked about the best science books of all time.
Today, a related question crossed my mind: what novels do scientists like to read...and why?
A couple of years ago, I took a grad-school English class devoted to postmodern fiction. Six weeks of the thirteen-week semester were…
April 4, 2006
I'm not the first here to post about it, but sharpen your pencils, because Seed Magazine has just announced its first annual nonfiction science-writing contest.
The instructions ask people to write an essay, in 2000 words or less, about the future of science in America, and what the country can do…
April 4, 2006
I'm between books right now. As an inveterate reader, this makes me feel antsy and unmoored. I want to get my hands on something good--and specifically, I'm thinking of going on a science-book spree.
The science-books-for-laypeople genre is one that I haven't explored as much as I would like. (…
April 4, 2006
Welcome to Stochastic, the new in-house blog from Seed Media Group. This is the place where Seed editors weigh in about matters great and small. In case the launch passed you by unawares, check the link back to the first entry, which will give you a clue what we're all about.
March 31, 2006
Here's some jollity, just in time for Friday. Chevrolet has launched a promotion in which people visit a website and use online modules to create a 30-second advertising spot for the Chevy Tahoe SUV.
The early entries might not have been what Chevy corporate was hoping for.
More screenshots and…
March 30, 2006
...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…