Blogging
laelaps | August 5, 2009I have been writing a lot about extinct proboscideans lately, but when it comes to essays about elephants and their extinct relatives John McKay can't be beat. His latest is about various representations of mammoths locked in ice and is a must-read. (He even references one of the worst movies I have ever seen, Mammoth.) John promises that he has "lots more to say about this topic", too, so keep your fingers crossed for a sequel to his wonderful essay.
sciencewoman | August 5, 2009I'm heading off line today and won't have any internet access for a few days. After that I should have access again, but life has conspired to hand me the "Weeks of DOOOOM" leading up to September 1st-ish. You know, the usual start of classes (with a new prep), two grant proposals (with a third a few weeks later), my reappointment dossier and statement due, starting Minnow in a new preschool, revaccinating her because apparently all the shots she received prior to 6 months old are "potentially subpotent", etc., etc., etc. So things are going to get pretty quiet here for a while.
Hopefully…
clock | August 3, 2009There is a new science blog on the block, right here in the Triangle - the Wild Muse, written by DeLene Beeland who is a freelance science journalist and writer (and a twitterer).
The blog will mostly cover the 3 Es: ecology, evolution and environment. The first posts are Urban bird strikes, Monster of God, by David Quammen, Malaria in the modern world and Florida's imperiled smalltooth sawfish. Take a look.
clock | August 3, 2009Our photoblog, Photo Synthesis gets a new photoblogger every month or so. Today we have a change of the guard and welcome B. N. Sullivan of The Right Blue blog who specializes on underwater photography - go say Hello.
Seed Magazine's series, Revolutionary Minds, which highlights people who work on bridging the gaps between science and art, architecture, design, communication, and other fields, now has its own blog - go check it out.
awild | August 3, 2009Myrmician, whose lovely aussie ant photos have been livening up the pages of Flickr, has started a blog. Go read!
jdupuis | July 31, 2009My son Sam is a budding scientist and blogger. He came to the ScienceOnline09 conference in North Carolina with me this past January and had a great time.
Needless to say, Bora has tracked him down and interviewed him here.
How does (if it does) blogging figure in your work? How about social networks, e.g., Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook? How much will they in the future?
In Grade 9, I had a science project to do that was supposed to be about anything that had to do with the curriculum. They were pretty loose on this definition: if it in any way had to do with space, biology, physics, or…
aardvarchaeology | July 29, 2009The seventy-second Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at A Hot Cup of Joe. Catch the best recent blogging on archaeology and anthropology!
Submissions for the next carnival will be sent to me. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome to volunteer to me for hosting. The next vacant hosting slot is on 9 23 September. No need to be an anthro pro.
And check out the new Skeptics' Circle!
clock | July 27, 2009Miriam Goldstein of the Oyster's Garter and Double X blogs (follow her on Twitter) is embarking on a sea-faring expedition!
SEAPLEX is a Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego project studying plastics - yes, including the rubber duckies - accumulating in the oceans, specifically in the North Pacific Gyre. Miriam is leading the team of PhD students and volunteers who will be studying various aspects of the plastics in the sea and their environmental impact.
Though the life at sea is hard and busy and they will not have much time (or access) to do so, they will try to keep us all…
emjohnson | July 27, 2009The 40th edition of the Humanist Symposium blog carnival is up at The Evolving Mind. My picks in this edition include:
Daylight Atheism looks at the story of Edward and Joan Downes who decided to die together when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer:
Voluntarily laying down your own life is the ultimate choice of a free individual, the ultimate affirmation that our lives are our own and we may direct them as we wish. However, in the U.K. (and in most of the U.S.), assisted suicide is still illegal - a regrettably irrational view, supported in large part by religious medievalists who want…
aardvarchaeology | July 26, 2009The 72nd Four Stone Hearth blog carnival will run at A Hot Cup of Joe on Wednesday. Submit your best recent stuff to Carl before Tuesday evening. Anything anthro or archaeo goes!
sciencewoman | July 23, 2009Can you spare 50 minutes to help out a graduate student desperate for research participants? If so, please read below:
Dear all,
Within the context of my PhD project at Philips Research and Eindhoven University of Technology, I am developing a questionnaire that will help me to look at the relation between multimedia and feelings about the content. I would like to invite you to help me in validating this questionnaire.
The goal of this questionnaire is to gain further insight in the relation between multimedia and feelings, mostly with regard to how your feelings about the shown multimedia is…
sciencewoman | July 21, 2009Amazing momma-scientist Janus Prof asked me to ask y'all how many hours you really work.
Janus Prof is just completing her first year on the tenure-track at a prestigious university, and in the course of that year, she also gave birth to her first child and was diagnosed with an uncurable, chronic illness that limits her work hours. Yet she's also managed to get her lab up and running, recruit students, teach, and write a CAREER proposal. (I get out of breath just thinking about it.) So Janus Prof was understandably inspired to read a recent post from Dr. Mom, in which she admits that she…
emjohnson | July 21, 2009Dorothea Salo, the Digital Repository Librarian at the University of Wisconsin (see her professional website here) has arrived to teach us a thing or two about information science. She's already taught me something about loading powerpoints as website useful content (see below). It also serves as a great way to learn about her area of expertise.
Save the Cows! Cyberinfrastructure for the Rest of Us
View more documents from Dorothea Salo.
clock | July 20, 2009Walter Jessen of Next Generation Science interviewed me recently, mainly about the Open Laboratory, but also a little bit more about science blogging and Science 2.0. The interview is now live - you can read it here.
sciencewoman | July 20, 2009Have you seen Ethan Siegel? He's the blogger behind Starts with a Bang. The guy has got a lot of hair!
And he's offering to shave his head if 100 unique commenters each give at least $10 dollars or 4 hours of their time to the charity of their choice. What a great way to give people a little kick in the butt to do something good.
Ethan's post reminded me that I still hadn't completed our promised giving for the Silence is the Enemy project. Alice and I promised to double the amount we were paid for clicks in the month of June. We gave half of that money to Doctors without Borders (MSF) and…
clock | July 18, 2009This time, the Seed Overlords could not keep the secret from me - I knew about this move for a month!
Go and say Hello to the newest SciBling, another librarian blogger, Dorothea Salo at The Book of Trogool (you can browse Dorothea's old archives at Caveat Lector to get a feel for her amazing writing).
emjohnson | July 17, 2009
The World's Fair is recreated in all it's glory! Skulls in the Stars is currently hosting the thirteenth installment of the History of Science Blog Carnival. There are some amazing pieces in this edition so head on over right now and check them out. GG was also kind enough to include my post The Grassroots of Scientific Revolution.
Some of the most interesting pieces I read in this edition include:
Brian at Laelaps discusses the controversy of the cuttlefish:
Meyranx and Laurencet's paper played right into Geoffroy's hands. Even though they had not intended on refuting Cuvier, the…
clock | July 16, 2009That is the title of the article in the latest issue of BioScience by Elia Ben-Ari (@smallpkg on Twitter) which just came online today (if you'd rather see the PDF, click here).
It is a nice article about Twitter and the way scientists use it, the difference between 'lifecasting' and 'mindcasting' (with attribution to Jay Rosen for the concept), a brief mention of FriendFeed, and quotes from Jonathan Eisen, David Bradley and myself. It also mentions the National Phenology Network and North Carolina Sea Grant experiments in using Twitter for collection of scientific data.
awild | July 16, 2009I will be spending the remainder of July in Arizona without regular internet access. It is monsoon season in the desert and the insects are at peak activity, so the hiatus now means better photoblogging later.
In the meantime, here's one of our local Polyergus:
Polyergus montivagus, Illinois