Blogging
clock | June 30, 2008SCIENCEBLOGS ACHIEVES RECORD GROWTH
NEW YORK (July 1) - ScienceBlogs (www.scienceblogs.com), the web's largest science community, announced today that traffic for the first six months of 2008 increased by more than 60% over the same period last year, with total visits through June 30 reaching approximately 14 million, an all-time high. "We are extremely happy with the sustained monthly growth of our network, and the increasing vitality of our community," said Sarah Glasser, Vice President, Marketing for Seed Media Group, the parent company of ScienceBlogs. "ScienceBlogs has become a must-read…
clock | June 30, 2008Blake wrote a long and excellent post about the question. Brian, swansontea, SciCurious, PZ Myers and Chad have more. What they say....
awild | June 28, 2008I'm leaving shortly for the 2008 International Congress of Entomology in Durban, South Africa. This means another break from the blog for me, but when I return in mid-July there will be plenty of African insect photos. St. Lucia, where I'm headed the week before the conference, has African weaver ants, Polyrhachis, Tetraponera, and host of other photogenic critters. Apparently, they also have a problem with inappropriate mingling of wheelchairs and crocodiles (photo in St. Lucia by flickr user Chuha):
Fortunately, you won't be left all alone at Myrmecos blog. Jo-anne will be guest-…
laelaps | June 26, 2008Through the magic of the intertubes, Blake has a dump-truck full of reflection on the current state of science blogging and what science blogs can't do. The question at the center of the post is "Can someone get a fair science education from reading science blogs?" and Blake says no, citing the general lack of interest in laying out the basic concepts of science. Unless you're personally motivated to contribute there isn't much incentive to write such introductory material; many of us write because we enjoy it and there just isn't an incentive to try and come up with a textbook chapter.…
clock | June 25, 2008ResearchBlogging.org is getting ready for a big upgrade, or so I hear. You can be a part of the process by helping shape up the new categories and subcategories - all you need to do is go to this blog post, see what is already there and post your suggestions in the comments.
neurophilosophy | June 24, 2008The incredible case of Phineas Gage has now been translated into Spanish.
neurophilosophy | June 24, 2008Here are some more new members of the ever-growing online neuroscience community:
The Brain and the Sky
Illusion Sciences
N-Cog-Neato!
Neurophilia
Neurotonics
clock | June 22, 2008Mad Hatter suggests an Alternative Careers blog. I like the idea a lot!
I've been spending some time on FriendFeed, especially in the Life Scientists room. Cameron explains how it works.
Dave Winer (who brought us blogging software, RSS and the concept of Unconference) has another good post about organization of conference sessions. He quips about the abuse of the term "unconference" - I wonder what he means by it?
I am excited that the Carrboro Coworking project is moving along - I will be a part of it.
There is another dinosaur journalist using precious newspaper column real-estate to show…
awild | June 22, 2008We celebrated the repair of our computer by having a KitKat. A British Kitkat, that is. I never liked the cheap corn-syrupy flavor of the American version.  But the original british kitkat is a world apart- it's really quite good. The chocolate actually tastes like chocolate.
aardvarchaeology | June 21, 2008The forty-third Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Paddy K's Swedish Extravaganza. Archaeology and anthropology, and all regulated by the rota system!
The Rota System, from the Old Church Slavic word for "ladder" or "staircase", was a system of collateral succession practiced (though imperfectly) in Kievan Rus' and later Appanage and early Muscovite Russia, in which the throne passed not linearly from father to son, but laterally from brother to brother (usually to the fourth brother) and then to the eldest son of the eldest brother who had held the throne. The system was begun by…
clock | June 20, 2008New issue of the Italian Journal of Science Communication is out with some excellent articles (some translated or abstracted from Italian, all in English):
Cultural determinants in the perception of science:
Those studying the public understanding of science and risk perception have held it clear for long: the relation between information and judgment elaboration is not a linear one at all. Among the reasons behind it, on the one hand, data never are totally "bare" and culturally neutral; on the other hand, in formulating a judgment having some value, the analytic component intertwines -…
neurophilosophy | June 20, 2008My post about overturned neuroscientific dogmas has been translated into Polish by Jedrzej Kaminski, the author of a blog called Neurotyk.
This isn't the first time that something I've written has been translated into another language. Last year, my post about Phineas Gage was translated into Italian.
aardvarchaeology | June 19, 2008It's been almost a year since the last de-lurk. Aard currently has over 150 returning visitors daily (out of about 800 uniques). Since not everyone checks in every day, this translates to several hundred -- possibly a thousand -- regulars who read the blog at least once a week. So, everybody, please comment away, as briefly or verbosely as you like, and do consider telling us a little about yourself!
skookumchick | June 16, 2008I've been giving some thought about the value I as an assistant professor find in blogging in part because it's the current Ask a Blogger question, in part because I just gave this presentation on blogging at the Inclusive Science conference, and in part because I have some blogger meetups scheduled and chatting about why we blog is always part of those conversations.
So why do I blog?
I've blogged pseudonymously as well as as me, and each kind of blogging has served a different purpose. When I was blogging pseudonymously, I used my blog to find community, to keep track of my progress on…
clock | June 16, 2008A number of my SciBlings (and their commenters) try to explain:
Janet
Chad
Martin
PhysioProf
DrugMonkey
Brian Switek
Alice
Jeremy Bruno
Grrrrrl
laelaps | June 16, 2008
Aw, man. Just when I promised myself I'd cut down on the meta stuff along comes the latest "Ask a ScienceBlogger" question;
There are many, many academic bloggers out there feverishly blogging about their areas of interest. Still, there are many, many more academics who don't. So, why do you blog and how does blogging help with your research?
I should probably make it clear at the outset that I would not consider myself an academic, a scientist, or ascribe any other title to myself that makes me sound like a professional. I have no ongoing scientific research project that this blog feeds off…
aardvarchaeology | June 16, 2008Asked a reader,
"There are many, many academic bloggers out there feverishly blogging about their areas of interest. Still, there are many, many more academics who don't. So, why do you blog ..."
As I've noted before, I blog because it makes me feel like a ten-foot diamond on a Christmas tree. To me, blogging doesn't really follow from being an academic. Both my academic work and the blogging I do in my spare time follow from a common cause: I just wanna have fun. I make no effort to cover global archaeology news in my blog, and I'm far from comprehensive even on Scandy archaeology news: I…
clock | June 15, 2008It's always interesting to hear what Eszter has to say about academics and blogging. She is right that the environment has changed and that more and more people know what blogs are and appreciate them (not everyone, though, but those are not academics, really).
She is also right that the term "blog" is not very useful - a blog is a piece of software: it is what you do with it that affects how you are perceived by peers, which in turn can affect your career trajectory. There are examples of people who lost prospects due to their blogging, but that was either because they were foolish (their…
aardvarchaeology | June 15, 2008The 43rd instalment of the Four Stone Hearth anthro & archaeo blogging carnival will come on-line at Paddy K's Swedish Extravaganza on Wednesday 18 June. Send links to good recent anthroblogging to him! It needn't be your own stuff: submit all the goodies you've read lately.
The next open hosting slot is on 16 July. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome to volunteer to me. No need to be an anthro pro.
clock | June 14, 2008You have to act quickly, though:
We've been airing audio comments on our new national public radio
show, The Takeaway (http://www.thetakeaway.org), for the past couple
of weeks. On Monday, we want to highlight your scientificky thoughts
on "THE INCREDIBLE HULK" and "THE HAPPENING".
There's a lot of genetics and plant biology and global warming stuff
there to sink your teeth into. Here's what we're looking for: By
Sunday at 3 p.m. Eastern, tell us two things about whichever movie you
saw:
1. ONE-PHRASE CAPSULE REVIEW -- IT'S QUICK AND EASY!
Say, "It was __________". Put an adjective or…