clock | March 10, 2010Continuing with the tradition from last two years, I will occasionally post interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January. See all the interviews in this series here. You can check out previous years' interviews as well: 2008 and 2009.
Today, I asked T. DeLene Beeland to answer a few questions.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Where are you coming from (both geographically and philosophically)? What is your (scientific)…
clock | March 10, 2010Almost a year ago, Nature published a set of opinion articles, including Science journalism: Toppling the priesthood by Toby Murcott. I did not react at the time, but JR Minkel and Jessica Palmer did and got some interesting responses in the comments. The article was brought to my attention by Gozde Zorlu who is ruminating on the same ideas and will have a blog post about it shortly (and I will let you know when it's up).
The article covers a lot of ground and has many layers. I finally read it and these are just some really quick thoughts, just to provoke discussion.....
First, Murcott is…
clock | March 10, 2010Saturday, January 16 at 4:40 - 5:45pm
C. Trust and Critical Thinking - Stephanie Zvan, PZ Myers, Desiree Schell, Greg Laden, Kirsten Sanford
Description: Lay audiences often lack the resources (access to studies, background knowledge of fields and methods) to evaluate the trustworthiness of scientific information as another scientist or a journalist might. Are there ways to usefully promote critical thinking about sources and presentation as we provide information? Can we teach them to navigate competing claims? And can we do it without promoting a distrust of science itself?
clock | March 10, 2010There are 35 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Does Tropical Forest Fragmentation Increase Long-Term Variability of Butterfly Communities?:
Habitat fragmentation is a major driver of biodiversity loss. Yet, the overall effects of fragmentation on…
clock | March 9, 2010Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
- Carl Sandburg
clock | March 9, 2010Continuing with the tradition from last two years, I will occasionally post interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January. See all the interviews in this series here. You can check out previous years' interviews as well: 2008 and 2009.
Today, I asked Christine Ottery from the MA program in science journalism at City University London to answer a few questions:
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Where are you coming from (both…
clock | March 9, 2010The Online News Association organizes a meeting every year (and gives Online Journalism Awards there). The next one will be in October 28-30, 2010 in Washington, D.C.
The program is formed by the online news community submitting proposals, then everyone else voting the proposals up or down. I guess that the organizers also have some say in it (especially if the voting produces a horrible gender imbalance - easy to happen with so many proposals put forward by men).
The proposals are now all up online and ready for your votes - you need to register (they have to avoid spammers, robots,…
clock | March 9, 2010Saturday, January 16 at 4:40 - 5:45pm
C. Trust and Critical Thinking - Stephanie Zvan, PZ Myers, Desiree Schell, Greg Laden, Kirsten Sanford
Description: Lay audiences often lack the resources (access to studies, background knowledge of fields and methods) to evaluate the trustworthiness of scientific information as another scientist or a journalist might. Are there ways to usefully promote critical thinking about sources and presentation as we provide information? Can we teach them to navigate competing claims? And can we do it without promoting a distrust of science itself?
clock | March 9, 2010There are 22 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Measuring the Conservation Value of Tropical Primary Forests: The Effect of Occasional Species on Estimates of Biodiversity Uniqueness:
Developing effective conservation plans for multi-functional…
clock | March 8, 2010"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."
- Charles, Count Talleyrand
clock | March 8, 2010Go say Hello to Travis Saunders and Peter Janiszewski, the newest bloggers on the Scienceblogs.com network at Obesity Panacea.
They cover health, physiology, nutrition and exercise - something we did not have here on the network before, at least not in such a concentrated form. Check out the archives of their old blog and then bookmark the new Obesity Panacea.
clock | March 8, 2010Continuing with the tradition from last two years, I will occasionally post interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January. See all the interviews in this series here. You can check out previous years' interviews as well: 2008 and 2009.
Today, I asked Robin Ann Smith from NESCent to answer a few questions.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Where are you coming from (both geographically and philosophically)? What is your (…
clock | March 8, 2010As you may know, I love the Journal of Science Communication. It publishes some very interesting and useful scholarly articles on a wide array of issues pertaining to the communication, education and publishing of science. I wish more science bloggers (and non-blogging scientists) read it and blogged about their articles. Unfortunately, human nature being as it is, most of the excellent papers go by un-noticed by the blogosphere, while an occasional sub-standard paper gets some play - it is so much easier to critique than to analyze or even praise.
One such paper is now making the rounds - it…
clock | March 8, 2010Saturday, January 16 at 4:40 - 5:45pm
C. Trust and Critical Thinking - Stephanie Zvan, PZ Myers, Desiree Schell, Greg Laden, Kirsten Sanford
Description: Lay audiences often lack the resources (access to studies, background knowledge of fields and methods) to evaluate the trustworthiness of scientific information as another scientist or a journalist might. Are there ways to usefully promote critical thinking about sources and presentation as we provide information? Can we teach them to navigate competing claims? And can we do it without promoting a distrust of science itself?
clock | March 8, 2010There are 22 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Genetic Patterns of Paternity and Testes Size in Mammals:
Testes size is used as a proxy of male intrasexual competition, with larger testes indicative of greater competition. It has been shown that in some…
clock | March 7, 2010If you get up one more time than you fall you will make it through.
- Chinese proverb
clock | March 7, 2010Saturday, January 16 at 4:40 - 5:45pm
C. Trust and Critical Thinking - Stephanie Zvan, PZ Myers, Desiree Schell, Greg Laden, Kirsten Sanford
Description: Lay audiences often lack the resources (access to studies, background knowledge of fields and methods) to evaluate the trustworthiness of scientific information as another scientist or a journalist might. Are there ways to usefully promote critical thinking about sources and presentation as we provide information? Can we teach them to navigate competing claims? And can we do it without promoting a distrust of science itself?
clock | March 7, 2010Yesterday I spent the day at the RTP headquarters, attending TEDxRTP. The TEDx conferences are small, locally organized offshoots of the well-known TED conference.
This was the first TEDx in the Triangle region (though Asheville beat us as being the first in the state) and, judging from the response of the audience, it seems everyone expects this will become a regular annual event. You can check out the Twitter account as well as the Twitter chatter if you search the #TEDxRTP hashtag.
The event was livestreamed and the rough videos are already up on the Ustream channel. Better quality videos…
clock | March 7, 2010On Friday, the Bride of Coturnix, Coturnietta, a friend of hers and I went to DPAC to see 'Spring Awakening'. As you may already know, this is a rock adaptation of an old play located in late-19th century Germany, following the growth and maturation of a group of high school students surrounded by a disciplinarian and authoritarian adult world, in which sex is taboo (so they have to learn on their own, feel guilt about it, and suffer consequences) and strict, dogmatic religion trumps every attempt at independent thought or questioning.
I have not seen the play before, though I have heard the…