Blogging community
terrasig | January 20, 2009
It'll be a few days before I can get together posts on this past weekend's ScienceOnline'09 conference in frigid North Carolina. The Friday Fermentable Live! was a terrific success and it already looks like there are seven posts out there (for example, Eva Amsen on her Nature Networks blog, Expression Patterns, put up an account with vasectomy-like precision).
I had the honor of participating in two sessions: one on gender and allies in STEM, online and off, with the youthful Alice Pawley and Zuska and another on pseudonymity/anonymity and building online reputation with PalMD. Speaking…
terrasig | January 18, 2009Just as I was starting to put together a few posts about my experiences at this weekend's ScienceOnline'09 soirée, I get a Tweet from Pam Spaulding that openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson didn't appear on HBO's inaugural coverage today and, at least for Kenny Yum of Canada's National Post and others in attendance, could not be heard.
As Pam says:
Remember, this was the supposed salve on the wound to the LGBT community for the upcoming high-profile appearance of Rick Warren at the actual inauguration on Tuesday, which will be seen by millions and will float out there on YouTube in…
terrasig | January 15, 2009Let me just start off this post by thanking Mark and Chris Hoofnagle for inviting PalMD to join them at denialism blog. Through Orac, I had followed Pal at his White Coat Underground and was delighted when the Hoof-gents invited PalMD to a bigger forum in their ScienceBlogs digs.
PalMD has now metamorphosized with his old blog now on ScienceBlogs. Congratulations, friend!
My Mom, a retired nurse, will understand completely when I say that PalMD is the kind of doc I once thought I could be (and Mom, you've got to put this guy in your bookmarks!).
Many speak of Pal's criticism of…
terrasig | January 14, 2009Well, PalMD and I have been working tirelessly on putting together a plan of discussion for the upcoming ScienceOnline'09 session on Anonymity and Pseudonymity - Building Reputation Online. Over the last several months, we have had a tremendous outpouring of comments on our own blogs and numerous other blogs that gives us far more fodder than could be discussed in a 75 minute unconference session. (Pal, I foresee a palcast on pseudonymity.).
I still contend in all seriousness that the following 18 October 2008 quote from PhysioProf (cross-posted on his solo site) deserves to be the opening…
terrasig | January 8, 2009With tears in my eyes and my head bowed in deep respect, I share with you the account of Kevin Leitch's vasectomy via Twitter:
http://twitter.com/kevleitch
Kev is an autism and manic depression advocate in West Midlands, UK, who blogs at LeftBrainRightBrain and was one of my earliest followers on Twitter. (P.S. you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/abelpharmboy)
All Twittering in response, which includes Kev's own tweets, can be found using the hashtag, #kevsnip.
I first learned of his plans via Twitter but he also posted his scheme here. I am largely credited with the first…
terrasig | December 31, 2008I just sent out an e-mail to a bunch of friends asking what they were doing this New Year's Eve.
We'll be at home in the City of Medicine drinking a bottle of 1997 Grongnet "Special Club" Champagne. Then I'll try to do a 8K trail run being held tomorrow at Duke Forest. Feel free to join me - I'll be the 151-year-old dead guy wearing these shoes.
But in Brasstown, NC, (right at the NC-TN-GA tri-state border) they will be dropping the opossum - yes, the famed New Year's Possum Drop. It's a non-alcoholic family event that begins with a blessing and singing of church songs followed by the…
terrasig | December 28, 2008Blame Isis:
Figure 1: New Balance 908 trail shoes with my Polar S1 footpod (to go with my four-year-old Polar RS200).
And don't give me grief about my Smartwool Light Hiking Socks - best trail running sock on the planet.
terrasig | December 15, 2008And happy 3rd blogoversary to Terra Sigillata.
Must be some sort of blogging stimulatory hormone in the water each December since both Orac and Greg Laden also celebrated a few days ago the anniversary of their respective blog launches.
But the reason I picked 15 December to launch Terra Sig with, "A Humble PharmBoy Begins to Sow," was because it was PharmSis' birthday and I knew I'd never forget that.
We won't mention what birthday this is for the ever-devoted little sister of mine (*cough*), but I just wanted to send best wishes out to her when she should be here in Key West with us. Turns…
terrasig | December 10, 2008Driving home tonight, I learned that NPR is cutting staff and canceling two shows produced at NPR West: News & Notes with Farai Chideya and Day to Day with Madeleine Brand. (Full memo at HuffPo)
Farai put up a blog post late this afternoon entitled, We Love You! (And, Yes, We Are Cancelled). I don't know if I'd have the gut and optimism to be so gracious in the face of having my show terminated effective 20 March 2009. The companion blog post at Day to Day certainly lacked this optimism. But Farai has many, many things going in her favor despite this setback:
Chideya, who was born and…
terrasig | December 6, 2008Brothers Bora and Drug reminded me that it is time for the early December traditional meme of recording one's first sentence of each month's first post.
Just as an aside, on my visit with this week with Anton and Bora to Ernie Hood's Radio In Vivo show to promote ScienceOnline'09, Ernie asked, "how do you pronounce Terra Sigillata?"
You'll recall, I hope, that we named the blog Terra Sigillata because it was the name of the first trademarked drug: a planchet of fat and mineral-rich clay from the Greek isle of Lemnos. However, terra sigillata is also a kind of clayworks that is finished with…
terrasig | December 2, 2008[Point of clarification: I was delighted to use this post to congratulate my friend and blogging colleague, Dr Chris Patil, on his contributions to this paper from the laboratory of Dr Judith Campisi discussed below. As the formal press release notes, "[c]o-authoring the paper with Campisi were Jean-Philippe Coppé and Christopher Patil, members of Campisi's research group in Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division, Joshua Goldstein, now with the Novartis Research Foundation; Francis Rodier and Denise Muñoz of the Buck Institute; and Peter Nelson and Yu Sun from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer…
terrasig | November 25, 2008We had one of our most active comment threads the other day when I posted my thoughts on drdrA's own superb post about what is most important to her in being a woman in science. I noted my own desire to listen to and understand as completely as possible the issues of my women colleagues and discuss, in an upcoming ScienceOnline'09 session with Zuska and Alice Pawley (Sat 17 Jan, 11:30 am, session C), how they can enlist academic allies who have the traditional power and resource structure (i.e., white guys like me) to establish partnerships in working toward fair and equitable treatment of…
terrasig | November 16, 2008Picking up the Sunday paper after walking the PharmBeagle, I saw Dr Misha Angrist of the Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy featured on the frontpage of the local fishwrapper. Ace higher ed reporter, Eric Ferreri, put together a lovely article on this local hero. As Misha notes elsewhere:
In 2007 I became the fourth subject in Harvard geneticist George Church's Personal Genome Project. As the PGP moves forward, I am chronicling the dawn of personal genomics, that is, people obtaining their genomic information for whatever reason(s) and figuring out what to do with it…
terrasig | November 14, 2008While I'm still compiling and formatting yet another fabulous overseas wine experience from Erleichda for today's main Friday Fermentable, I experienced a bizarre convergence last evening after writing my post on my dissertation defense anniversary.
After plowing through my post, I was catching up on Google Reader and was pointed to the latest post by writer-bartender, scribbler50, and his new blog, Behind the Stick. You must go read his post on, "yet another annoying snobbery afoot in that place I like to call bar-land. . .the newly minted single malt connoisseur."
The post by scribbler50…
terrasig | November 7, 2008Please accept my apologies for not letting y'all know in advance that I'd be off to an undisclosed location for activities that would minimize or ablate my blogging for a few days.
In the meantime, I learned of a happy surprise just as I was leaving town: that Dr Isis received an invitation to join ScienceBlogs.com. You'll recognize Dr Isis as the author of On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess, previously here and now up here with her inaugural post in the new digs.
Completely serendipitously, I wrote about Isis in my last post, many moons ago, about her commentary on a recent NEJM…
terrasig | November 3, 2008Now THIS is frightening. A multitude of thanks to BrotherDrug for the gift certificate to their CafePress store, the DrugMonkey Blog SchwagShop. Seems that the good doctor has been rather generous of late toward his commenters as evidenced by other schwag showing up at JuniorProf and Dr Isis.
Isis claims that her sweatshirt runs larger than advertised by I'd have to say that my XL tagless(!) Hanes tee is perfect - I didn't show the back but it also has the large DrugMonkey logo over the grey monkey featured on JuniorProf's mug, similar to the back of Isis' hoodie but with DrugMonkey written…
terrasig | November 2, 2008If you haven't already heard it elsewhere, one of your favorite blogging physicians, Dr Val Jones, has recently hung out her own e-shingle at Getting Better with Dr Val. Many of you know Dr Val from her previous blog at Revolution Health, Dr Val and the Voice of Reason. Dr Val served there as Senior Medical Director and oversaw the growth of the consumer health portal as it grew to 120 million pageviews per month (!).
Here's how Dr Val describes her new digs:
Getting Better is the continuation of Dr. Val Jones' previous blog at Revolution Health: "Dr. Val and the Voice of Reason." The…
terrasig | October 28, 2008I'm swamped again in meatspace but just had to leave a thank-you to all of my tag-ees for responding to my tag by Comrade PhysioProf to post six random things about oneself.
Among the things I'm trying to finish tonight is an interview from a student in Miss Baker's high school biology class in Maryland who will be attending ScienceOnline'09.
Anna has asked me some questions about this conference and why I go. I'm reminded that I first met Tom Levenson last year at this conference and we have maintained a friendly e-mail relationship. What strikes me in my interview with Anna is that Tom and…
terrasig | October 27, 2008The blogger who I thought among all held the greatest disdain for any of these silly little narcissistic blogger games, Comrade PhysioProf, has tagged me with a meme.
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.
So here are six random things about me:
1. I belong to the Y-chromosome haplogroup J2: my markers carry the path of M168 > M89…
terrasig | October 22, 2008In today's laboratory, we will consider cases where bloggers have been involuntarily unmasked, usually with malicious intentions. This is a series of interactive posts which I hope will provide disucssion points for a session I will help to lead on blogger pseudonymity at the ScienceOnline'09 unconference in RTP, NC, USA, 16-18 January 2009.
Many bloggers choose to write under pseudonyms for personal and/or professional issues. I'll leave my session co-chair PalMD consideration of the special issues of the pseudonymous physician blogger. Several docs I know use pseudonyms simply because…