I'm being productive today, working on my revisions, but I've noticed a few really good posts around the blogosphere the last few days, so I wanted to share them with a broader audience.
First, ScienceMama at Mother of All Scientists discusses going back to work after the birth of her daughter (and promises us that this is part 1 of infinity):
I want to find a better balance between work and raising my child(ren). There is a dearth of flexible work situations in science. And it makes me sad that while the women's movement has made great strides in getting women into the workforce, there aren't very good options for the significant number of women who choose to have children. Choosing to have a child is almost always a handicap for women in their careers. But since raising a child is considered a selfish choice, mothers are left to fend for themselves.
Next, Saxifraga contemplates what makes science blogging compelling.
The reason I do read academic blogs to name an example, is that here I find a community where I can listen to conversations and speak freely about topics I find that most people in my everyday life don't want to talk about all the time. So why would anyone be interested in a scientific blog if it is not giving the feeling of belonging to some sort of wider community and to some degree triggers interests this person has already.
On a related note, Dave and Greta Munger at Cognitive daily have introduced icons to signify when you are blogging about peer-reviewed research.
Thousands of thoughtful bloggers report on the latest studies, use blogs teaching tools for the classroom, and even speculate about future directions for their own research. But sometimes they also use their blogs to share links to news articles or press releases, or even photos, jokes, or personal rants. The Research Blogging icon makes serious blog posts by serious researchers, teachers, students, and others easy to locate.
Finally, today is election day in the U.S. Even though it's not a presidential race, local elections directly affect you every day because they decide whether more freeways or mass transit options are built and whether open space is preserved as parkland or turned into townhomes. So if there's an election in your community, and there probably is, please go vote.
