Blogging community
terrasig | October 26, 2009
Over the weekend, registration opened for ScienceOnline2010, the fourth annual science communicators conference to be held January 14-17, 2010, in the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina.
Please join us for this free (but donations are accepted) three-day event to explore science on the Web. Our goal is to bring together scientists, physicians, patients, educators, students, publishers, editors, bloggers, journalists, writers, web developers, programmers and others to discuss, demonstrate and debate online strategies and tools for doing science, publishing science, teaching…
terrasig | October 23, 2009Before my colleague DrugMonkey gives me more grief about not yet having a CafePress shop (theirs here) to sell and give away paraphernalia related to this blog, I have a question for you, the always erudite and good-looking reader of this humble blog.
You see, I don't know exactly what text to put on T-shirts, coffee mugs, and thongs, that properly reflect the name recognition - dare I say, "brand" - of this blog. When I first started the blog on 15 December 2005, I thought that Terra Sigillata was a great name and a great metaphor for the natural product medicines I try to write about…
terrasig | October 18, 2009The always-outstanding neuroblogger, SciCurious, put up an excellent post overnight on a presentation she saw at the current Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) in Chicago. Therein, she wrote about a poster presentation she saw on the relationship between iron, cholesterol, and Alzheimer's disease.
All was quite well until near the end of her post. That is where my writer's block of the last week dissipated and manifest itself as a blogpost-length comment.
This is a lovely post otherwise but you've obviously been drinking if you think you could get away with "an enzyme…
terrasig | September 20, 2009I'm not drinking these days but scribbler50 at Behind the Stick is still my favorite bartender.
This week, it may be the Devil or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody.
Yea verily, go forth this morning and read.
terrasig | September 18, 2009Prof Tara Smith thought it important enough to come back from her hiatus to explain why she's doing the same for her kids.
That's why.
Addendum (20 Sept 2009): In my rush to put up a very quick post on Friday, I just saw that Revere at Effect Measure put up a detailed post on why we should always get the regular seasonal flu vaccine regardless of the current H1N1 pandemic.
terrasig | September 15, 2009As I've been more than swamped as of late, I wanted to offer up some of insightful posts my colleagues around the blogosphere (I can just get in about 20 of the my most recent feeds from Google Reader while making the coffee, although putting the laptop on the range top is probably a bad idea.).
Dear Freshman - FSP's take on a nine New York Times essays on advice for the incoming college student
What To Expect When You're Clueless - Two students with comparable records are applying for grad school. Which of the two faculty reactions do you have in response to Student 2?
Regular programming…
terrasig | September 7, 2009
. . . or as Dr Barrett refers to it more accurately, Insurance Reform.
On Friday, Sarah Avery of the News & Observer reported on her interview with the now-retired Pennsylvania psychiatrist who started the Quackwatch.com website in 1996 following years of investigating fraudulent health practices.
From the Quackwatch Mission Statement:
Quackwatch is now an international network of people who are concerned about health-related frauds, myths, fads, fallacies, and misconduct. Its primary focus is on quackery-related information that is difficult or impossible to get elsewhere. Founded by…
terrasig | August 18, 2009
A couple of four years ago, a few dudes I just met around town had this idea to bring together a few bloggers who write about science. One was Anton Zuiker and the other was Bora Zivkovic, also known as Coturnix or He-Whose-Mind-Teh-Intertubes-Pass-Before-Going-Out-To-The-World. Anton also has a title, bestowed upon him by News & Observer columnist Dan Barkin back in 2007:
He's a quiet visionary. He's a low-key doer. He's a let's-get-together-and-see-where-this-goes guy. It's the Zuikers of this new, interwoven world who may play a significant role in determining how far Web 2.0 goes…
terrasig | August 15, 2009
Yes, this is my second post on Derek Lowe of my last three.
No, I am not his publicist.
But Derek has another nice post on how drug company scientists could do a better job on educating the public on the drug discovery process:
I do a lot of talking around here about how the general public doesn't really have a good idea of what goes on inside a drug company. But a conversation with a colleague has put me to thinking that this might be largely our own fault.
One of Dr. Lowe's talents is the ability to put a lot of ideas into very concise posts. So take two minutes to read about the 90%…
terrasig | July 19, 2009No, this is not mean - we all like GrrlScientist, the evolutionary biologist/ornithologist and freelance science/nature writer who blogs at Living the Scientific Life (bio here).
But yes, we want to send her to Antarctica. Far away. For a month.
There are currently 338 bloggers competing in "Blog Your Way to Antarctica," a competition sponsored by Quark Expeditions.
The Official Quark Blogger will travel with a guest to Antarctica in February 2010 and blog about their experience, chronicling the action, the emotion, and the drama as their polar adventure unfolds.
Following her latest update…
terrasig | July 17, 2009
Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum have released a new book entitled, Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future. Mr Mooney and Ms Kirshenbaum also co-author the blog, The Intersection, a Discover Magazine online.
I was fortunate to receive a review copy from the publisher but must admit, sheepishly, that the book has sat unread beside my home office desk because of other responsibilities. The advance paperwork says it is to be released officially on 20 July. So, my plan is to get to it this weekend and get some magnitude of a review written.
During my relative…
terrasig | July 16, 2009If so, could you please e-mail it to me or put the URL in the comments section?
I realize that this request might have gotten all caught up in my lengthy post the other day where I spoke about the case of Dr. Doug Bremner at Emory University.
Bora Zivkovic noted that a reader had sent him a draft proposal from a "Big Research Institution" in April 2009 and they had a nice discussion on his blog. Among the unrealistic provisions of that policy was that the institution reserved the right to the intellectual property of faculty blog content.
However, I've not received any other input from the…
terrasig | July 12, 2009For those of you in the North Carolina Research Triangle area wanting to extend your weekend as much as possible, you'll want to catch a a local music showcase at The Berkeley Café in Raleigh (217 W Martin St, 27601) tonight, Sunday 12 July at 7 pm. Yours truly will be playing a 30 min solo acoustic set of mostly original songs.
(Addendum: Cool! Eva Amsen just posted her interview of me yesterday for her Musicians and Scientists project)
Most notable on the bill are two fantastic roots reggae bands, Anchants and Curry Don (de Doc). I'm supposed to go on 8 pm or so.
Figure 1. This lovely 2001…
terrasig | July 8, 2009Great news hit my e-mail box overnight: one of the premier literary physician-bloggers of my childhood days in the blogosphere has returned.
Hi all, I missed you. I missed blogging.
Just wanted to let you know that I'm returning to writing at http://theexaminingroom.com
I hope you'll stop by, and I look forward to catching up with you all!
Dr. Charles
back from 2007 retirement
This is VERY good news for all of us, especially if you never had the pleasure of reading The Good Doctor before.
I cannot write with his clarity, of course. But I can say that Dr. Charles has a tremendous gift for…
terrasig | June 19, 2009
Get Your Cyborg Name
Get Your Cyborg Name
h/t Karen James and Brian Switek (Laelaps)
terrasig | June 19, 2009I am bursting with local pride this morning at the summer camp stunt of a NC State University materials scientist and his students.
Ginny Skalski (@30Threads, @GinnySkal, Ginny from the Blog), local media maven and founder of the Research Triangle blog distiller 30Threads, was on the scene yesterday as - well, the title says it.
For the past three years, high school students at N.C. State University's materials camp get to find out what happens when you drop Silly Putty from the roof of the D.H. Hill Library. Last year, the camp dropped 30 pounds. This year they dropped 50 pounds (…
terrasig | June 13, 2009WordCampRDU is a community oriented one-day conference on all things related to the blogging and website platform WordPress. There are tracks for beginner and advanced WordPress users with presentations and useful information. WordCampRDU will be highlighted by a much anticipated keynote speech by WordPress Founder, Matt Mullenweg. http://wordcamprdu.com/2009/
This is my first "camp" conference after having gone exclusively to science-related blogger gatherings. I'm also very excited that this conference is being hosted at the School of Education at North Carolina Central University in…
terrasig | June 5, 2009
Just a quick note to dial up Ira Flatow's Science Friday show on NPR today at 3 pm EDT. Supporting information and the archived show can be found here.
Guy-who-I-would-kill-to-be, Tom Levenson, will be on with Ira to speak about his new book, Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist.
Here is also a link to other appearances Professor Levenson will be having related to the book.
For those of you who don't know Thomas Levenson, he is currently a Professor, Interim Program Head, and Director of the Graduate Program in Science Writing at the…
terrasig | May 24, 2009Award-winning investigative journalist friend, Barry Yeoman, passes along this morning a fantastic post from awesome local Durham, NC, blog, Bull City Rising.
Heh. Rising.
Now Men's Health magazine has given Durham another trumpeting tribute, having taken a long, hard look at one of the rankings that only such a periodical could bring.
Durham found itself in stiff competition -- one hundred other cities and metro areas, to be precise -- but stood tall to prevail, ranking sixth in the U.S. among...
...cities that don't need Viagra.
Just what we need: another reason for the University-That-…
terrasig | May 20, 2009About four years ago, I started reading blogs. One of those, Respectful Insolence, was written by a surgical oncologist who writes under the name, Orac. This was before he was asked to be at ScienceBlogs and about a year before Terra Sig was. He has since become my friend and colleague.
Orac is one of the most consistently excellent medical bloggers in the sci/med blogosphere. But today's post resonated exceptionally with me. In discussing the ongoing case of Daniel Hauser, a young man with Hodgkin's lymphoma whose parents are fighting to withhold his chemotherapy, Orac writes a concise,…