Announcements
thusspakezuska | November 8, 2007Hi folks. Just wanted to say that blogging's going to be a bit thin in the next few weeks. Got some family health issues I have to deal with. I don't know how long this will take to sort out, and don't know if I'll be able to do any blogging at all in the near future, though I'm going to try.
If I do manage to post, please bear with me if I don't respond to comments, or if a comment of yours gets hung up in moderation and I don't get to it right away. I'll do my best to check in at least once a day if I manage to post but I can't promise.
You'll see me when you see me!
oracknows | November 8, 2007It's Thursday, and I can hardly believe that it's time for the Skeptics' Circle again. Time flies between these every other week exercises in critical thinking. This time around, it's Holford Watch that's hosting the 73rd Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle. However, before you can enjoy skeptical bloggy goodness submitted to the carnival, you're asked to answer a little questionnaire to verify that you're of the proper mind (or maybe the improper mind) for all the posts contained therein. (Particularly amusing is this homeopathic investigation.)
Don't forget that it won't be long before the next…
oracknows | November 7, 2007
I demand the sum of.....two MILLION visits! Muhahahahahaha!
Yes, I know I did that bit before, but I liked it so much that I wanted to do it again.
Sometime yesterday, this blog hit another milestone. Sometime yesterday morning, Respectful Insolence⢠recorded its 2,000,000th visitor. Unfortunately, "sometime yesterday" was while I was at work, and, due to pesky duties like meetings, I was unable to record the 2,000,000th visit for posterity, as I did for my 1,000,000th visit.
That was on January 22, 2007. To reach the 1,000,000 mark took 2 years, 1 month, and 11 days. To go from 1,000,…
illconsidered | November 5, 2007Congratulations to Chriss Mooney whose book, Storm World, was just named one of the best books of the year by Publisher's Weekly. Head on over and congratulate him!
oracknows | November 4, 2007The latest edition of Pedatrics Grand Rounds has been posted at Aetiology. Enjoy!
thusspakezuska | November 4, 2007October has come and gone, and the Scienceblogs Donors Choose Challenge is over. You helped TSZ raise $1500 of a total $54,335 from all Scienceblogs challenges. That plus the $15,000 matching funds from Seed brings the total amount raised for Donors Choose to $69,335!!!! Over 155 classroom projects have been fully funded, and thousands of children affected by the generosity of Scienceblogs readers.
I promised you at the beginning of October that everyone who donated to my challenge would be entered in a raffle for a special TSZ t-shirt that reads "Zuska Says: Don't Make Me Puke On Your…
oracknows | November 2, 2007Don't forget, once again the time is fast approaching.
Soon yet another installment of the Skeptics' Circle will be upon us. In fact, it's less than a week away and due to land at the Holford Watch on Thursday, November 8. Skeptical bloggers, there isn't much time left for you to get your entries done and submitted.
Finally, if you're a blogger and want to host an edition of the Skeptics' Circle yourself, drop me a line. For some reason, the Circle doesn't have as many hosts lined up as far into the future as I would like. Indeed, the wait to host is shorter than I can remember its ever being…
thusspakezuska | November 1, 2007Yes, it's November 1, and that means Scientiae time! Over at Yami's place, Green Gabbro.
I begged and begged my fellow male Sciblings to take up Yami's challenge and participate in this Scientiae, and two - count 'em, two! - of them responded! Kudos to Abel Pharmboy at Terra Sigillata and Chris Rowan at Highly Allochthonous. Which is better than none, and I am sure the others were preoccupied with many pressing tasks, and will find time on some other day to ponder gender issues. I should also note the two posts that Bill Hooker at Open Reading Frame contributed.
Yami's version of the…
thusspakezuska | October 29, 2007Dave Munger at Cognitive Daily introduced today a new set of icons that will help readers identify blogging on peer-reviewed research. You can find the full announcement below the fold, including info on where to find the icons, how to use them, and how to find blog posts tagged with the icons.
We're pleased to announce that BPR3's Blogging on Peer Reviewed Research icons are now ready to go! Anyone can use these icons to show when they're making a serious post about peer-reviewed research, rather than just linking to a news article or press release.
Within a month, these blog posts will…
oracknows | October 25, 2007This has been a bad week at skeptics' school. Apparently, skeptical bloggers have been misbehaving left and right. Apparently we as the skeptical blogosphere have been very, very naughty indeed. Worse, the essays that we've handed in are apparently not pleasing to the teacher. Worst of all, we've been mischievously copying a screed against homeopaths and dispersing it far and wide across the blogosphere. Fortunately, Le Canard Noir is there to oversee detention in the 72nd Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle over at the quackometer blog. Head on over to detention and see what's going on.
Also,…
oracknows | October 19, 2007Don't forget, once again the time is fast approaching.
Soon yet another installment of the Skeptics' Circle will be upon us. In fact, it's less than a week away and due to land at the quackometer blog on Thursday, October 25. Our host this time has achieved a fair amount of notoriety by being the victim of an attempt by the Society of Homepaths, through the use of legal threats against his ISP, to silence his criticism against it for failing to do anything to enforce its own ethical standards. Sadly, Le Canard Noir's ISP folded and told him to take the post down. Quite predictably, this ham-…
thusspakezuska | October 18, 2007You may have noticed on the main Scienceblogs page that the major categories have been reduced in number and renamed; we now have eight, each with its own spiffy landing page. For example, here's the one for Education & Careers. Each landing page has a photo at the top; these photos will be rotating and guess what? You can contribute yours if you like!
More info on how to contribute your photos is below the fold.
It's not too hard: the image needs to be at least 465 pixels wide. You should send your photos to
photos AT scienceblogs DOT com
and be sure to send only photos that you…
retrospectacle | October 15, 2007In but a few hours I'll be on a jet plane to Amsterdam, to give an academic talk at a meeting. Today has been a mix of stress (blogging scholarship, practice talks) and exhilaration (my friend's thesis defense is today and I'm gonna be in Europe soon!) exacerbated by more caffeine and less sleep than any normal person should function on.
While I'm gone (I get back on the 24th), I am pleased to announce that I will have a guest blogger filling in to keep the ball rolling here at Retrospectacle. That person is my friend Aaron Rowe, blogger at Wired Science Blog and PhD student in Biochemistry…
thusspakezuska | October 14, 2007I just want to remind those of you who have donated and those of you who might be thinking of donating to Donors Choose, that if you want to receive your nifty Women in Math and Science magnet AND have a chance to win the "Don't Make Me Puke On Your Shoes" t-shirt, you need to send me a copy of your email receipt from Donors Choose. Send it to me at bobtownsuz AT yahoo DOT com. Also, include your mailing address. And thank you for donating!
thusspakezuska | October 11, 2007I completely blanked out on Scientiae for October, so I really don't want to do that again for November. Yami is hosting, and you can find her call for post here. The theme is talking to yourself which god knows I do enough of, sitting home all day with the cats. I mean, don't get me wrong, China and Bodhi are great, but they don't talk back. Except for the occasionally meow-y demand for More Food, Plz.
Yami includes this very reasonable request to all you dude bloggers:
Finally... the past few Scientiae carnivals have been composed entirely of women's voices. While I think it's…
thusspakezuska | October 11, 2007Apparently the shabby prizes I am offering are not enough to entice very many of you to donate to Donors Choose.
But perhaps you will perk up and open your wallets when you see what Seed is giving away to generous readers!
In addition to the $15,000 in matching funds that Seed is putting up for the challenges themselves, DONORS can enter to win one of the following:
1 fresh, new iPod nano
21 "Seed Hearts Threadless" tee shirts
21 ScienceBlogs mugs
21 subscriptions to Seed magazine
9 copies of "The Best American Science Writing 2007"
How does this work? Simple: interested donors can…
oracknows | October 11, 2007Yes, it's that time again, time for the latest edition of the Skeptics' Circle to land on the blogosphere like a nuclear explosion of reason, rationality, and science designed to demolish the credulity that is so rampant.
OK, I'm exaggerating a bit, but we here at the Skeptics' Circle do try to do our part for critical thinking.
This time around, the Circle is being hosted at Infophilia. In an unusual take on the Circle, this time around it's been presented as a series of puzzles that will challenge and (hopefully) amuse skeptics everywhere.
Get ye to the carnival!
Remember, too, that it won'…
thusspakezuska | October 9, 2007I know I would. So how do you do that? Well, Seed Media Group will help you by matching your donation. The first $15,000 in donations made through the Scienceblogs Challenge will be matched by Seed Media Group through its Science Literacy Grants. From the press release:
Seed Media Group is launching the Seed Media Group Science Literacy Grants, a commitment valued at $100,000 through a combination of cash (matching contributions of funds raised on its online community site Scienceblogs) and in-kind advertising (in its print magazine Seed and on Scienceblogs).
Today, science affects every…
thusspakezuska | October 9, 2007MentorNet, the premier e-mentoring organization, has recently launched the MentorNet Blog. Mary Fernandez tells us in the inaugural entry:
In this blog, I plan to explore the inspiring, unexpected, and exciting reasons to choose a STEM career, and I am asking the MentorNet community to help me tell their stories. Here's a list of some of the more obvious reasons to explore:
Fun!
Freedom
Flexibility
Challenge
Impact on society
Money
If you would like to contribute a story about your career to MentorNet's blog, just email Mary at blog AT mentornet DOT net, and she'll post your contribution…
thusspakezuska | October 8, 2007Thanks to those of you who have donated so far! You've helped get the TSZ challenge to 39% of fulfillment!
The way Donors Choose works, more than one person can add a proposal to a challenge, and/or individuals could choose to donate to a proposal separate from a challenge. That's why you will see that some of the proposals on my challenge list have been fully funded even though I have not yet reached my challenge funding goal. So I've added a few new proposals to the list for you to choose from, if you are still considering donating. Here are a few of them:
Put Science Back in the…