Science Blogging at Duke

Duke University, after years of being behind the curve, is now striving mightily to establish itself as a leader in online science communication. As a recent news article shows, the school is activelly encouraging its students to keep blogs and make podcasts.

I have already mentioned Sarah Wallace and her blog about genomics research in Chernobyl.

Nicholas Experience is a blogging/podcasting group working on environmental science (OK, Sheril is their most famous blogger, but she did it herself, without being prompted by the Nicholas Institute).

At the Howard Hughes Precollege Program Summer 2007, 15 local high school students blog about doing research in the life sciences at Duke University.

Finally, 30 undergrads are writing fascinating stuff about their research experiences, each on a separate blog, with the central place (with a complete blogroll on the right sidebar that I urge you to explore) being the Student Research at Duke blog.

Much of that activity can be traced back to an old blogger meetup and, now that Anton Zuiker is starting to work on their health/science/medicine communications this week, Duke really has a chance to become cutting edge.