blogosphere
bioephemera | September 22, 2008For the past two years, Scibling Bora has shepherded the creation of an anthology sampling the best of science blogging, called The Open Laboratory. Blog posts written since December 20, 2007 are eligible for consideration; you can nominate your own posts, as well as posts by other bloggers. The rules are here.
My first nominee? This smashing post by Mo on Wilder Penfield, the man who mapped the brain. It's incredibly long, though. Perhaps Mo should write his own book. . .
Things to consider:
-The deadline is December 1, 2008.
-Multiple submissions are okay - in other words, don't worry if…
grrlscientist | September 17, 2008I am writing a piece for the print media about scientists and science blogs, and I am running across some interesting numbers that I thought I'd share with you (with many thanks to my friend and colleague, Bob O'Hara, for his advice and help);
According to Technorati and Dave Sifry's reports, as of April 2008, 175,000 new blogs appeared in the blogosphere daily;
Image: Adam Thierer, based on Tachnorati data and data collected by Dave Sifry.
(I'll guess this rate of new blogs appearing has increased since then).
Here's an interesting counter; according to a running total, based on…
scientificactivist | September 11, 2008As ScienceBlogs prepares to receive its one millionth reader comment, ScienceBloggers are planning parties around the globe in celebration of the event. For our readers in London, Mo Costandi (Neurophilosophy), Ed Yong (Not Exactly Rocket Science), Selvakumar Ganesan (The Scientific Indian), Kara Contreary (Pure Pedantry), and I have planned a party on Saturday, 20 September. So, if you are in the area, please come and join us at the Calthorpe Arms, a pub near Russell Square and King's Cross (see details here,) from 7:00 pm until close. ScienceBlogs has given us $100 per blogger ($500…
scientificactivist | September 2, 2008If you've gone to ResearchBlogging.org lately, you may have noticed that it's been given a face-lift. Actually, it's more than just a face-lift, as cofounder and president Dave Munger points out, including these new features:
Multiple language support (and 30 new German-language bloggers!)
Topic-specific RSS feeds
Post-by-post tagging with topics and subtopics
"Recover password" feature
Email alerts when there is a problem with posts
Users can flag posts that don't meet our guidelines
Customized user home pages with bios and blog descriptions
Blogger photos/other images displayed with each…
scientificactivist | August 12, 2008You may have noticed a link on the right sidebar advertising the ScienceBlogs/Seed reader survey. Either way, I'd encourage you to spend a few minutes of your time to give some feedback. The powers that be certainly take your comments into consideration--and you could even win an iPhone 3G, a MacBook Air, and a 40 GB Apple TV. Based on current turnout, you might even have a decent chance of winning. Click here to take the survey. (The survey closes at 11 pm EDT, this Friday, August 15th.)
bioephemera | August 9, 2008So far, the Sb meetup has been tres fun. Last night I met PhysioProf, Bora, Dr. Signout, Brian, Josh, Janet, Grrlscientist, Erin, Kate, Ed, and Mark, and got to see Zuska again. (Whew -did I forget anyone in there? Probably! Sorry!)
It's excellent to put faces with names, especially over martinis and Korean food.
Today there will be more festivities - Seed is hosting a reader meet-up from 2-4pm at Social bar and lounge. I'll be there, as will many of my fellow bloggers, so stop by if you're in NYC! All are welcome, and Seed's buying the first round of pitchers.
Meetup details:
2pm-4pm on…
bioephemera | August 8, 2008
This great retro-tech image is by Swedish artist Tomas Zackarias Westberg, via Imaginary Magnitude.
Today I'm taking a bus up to NYC for the annual Scienceblogs Meetup. I expect I'll still be blogging, because you must blog from a blog meetup, right? And Seed has kindly arranged WiFi for us, so I have no excuse.
In the meantime, if you haven't already done so, consider taking the Scienceblogs survey; you could win a yummy iPhone 3G from Apple. (If you win it and don't want it, I'll be happy to take it off your hands)!
scientificactivist | August 1, 2008Because they've let in another Aggie. Matt Springer, who writes ScienceBlogs' newest blog, Built on Facts, is a graduate student in physics at Texas A&M University, my alma mater. His blog is live now, so go check it out.
bioephemera | July 31, 2008On Tuesday, The Kaiser Family Foundation hosted a panel on "The Health Blogosphere: What it Means for Policy Debates and Journalism," starting with a twenty-minute keynote from HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt (yes, he has a blog). The webcast is here.
My favorite quote, from Tom Rosenstiel at the Project for Excellence in Journalism:
Blogs are like muffins. They range from everything from bran to chocolate cake. They're more of a shape than they are defining a particular type of content, and I think that the point that they put you in the conversation, and tonally there's a similarity, and…
bioephemera | July 22, 2008Can anyone out there fill me in on what happened to the Athanasius Kircher Society website? It went down, then promised to be back up, and now seems permananently down . . . which is a tragedy, because it was one of the best wonderkammers on the web.
bioephemera | July 17, 2008As I sit here waiting for Al Gore to start speaking, I'd like to note that Scibling Chris Mooney over at the Intersection has really annoyed me. Apparently the fact that I didn't like the film Sizzle is evidence that I, too, am likely a terrible communicator of science who lacks self-awareness. (Since there is no other possible reason for me to fail to LOVE the film!)
Now, Chris, some scientists who dislike Sizzle may dislike it for that reason - but there are a lot of other reasons to dislike the film, some of which I and other Sciblings have mentioned! When you say,
In my view, what's so…
scientificactivist | July 16, 2008When I published my review of Sizzle yesterday, I felt like adding a reluctant-parent-disciplinarian-esque "this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you" qualifier. Although I felt that Randy Olson's heart was in the right place, I just didn't have many positive things to say about his new movie, and I wasn't too excited about the prospect of writing such a negative review. But, since I had been recruited--like so many others--to participate in this science blogosphere-wide experiment before seeing the movie, I went along grudgingly.
Fortunately for me, various events today have helped…
scientificactivist | July 14, 2008Today, science bloggers from across the web (and particularly here at ScienceBlogs) are reviewing Sizzle, a new film by Randy Olson, maker of Flock of Dodos. Sizzle, billed as a "global warming comedy" is part mockumentary and part documentary, and in that sense is difficult to pin down. And, intentionally or not, this confusion emerges as a defining characteristic throughout.
In the movie, Randy Olson plays himself, a filmmaker who sets out to make a movie about global warming featuring climate scientists. There's trouble from the beginning, as the big movie producers won't fund a project…
scientificactivist | July 14, 2008My main overriding goal here at The Scientific Activist is to publicize and comment on issues that I feel are important--particularly issues that would otherwise be under- or misreported in the media. In doing so, I hope to spark productive conversations on these issues, and one place in which such conversations can occur are in the comments to an individual post. In order to keep things civil--and productive--I have formulated my own policy on comments (and emails) over the years. And, although I have been consistent in implementing it, I realize that I have never spelled it out…
bioephemera | June 24, 2008
My friend Jane sent me this link to a wonderful blog, Ptak Science Books, which declares itself "A Blog of the History of Ideas--unusual connections in the history of science and mathematics with the arts and social history."
It's fabulous and bizarre. Witness the latest post, "Fantastic and Unreachable Intellectual Claims: Psychology and Dr. Strangelove":
How could one argue with the simplex simplicity of this slightly mechanical reader's aids, "The Mental Chart, How Your Mind Works"? It continues "The Original and Only Chart of its Kind Ever Published to Simplify the Study of Psychology…
bioephemera | June 16, 2008
Via Rag & Bone Blog
By Christopher Tovo
Are we falling out of love with books?
I realized a little while ago - when yet another book arrived from Amazon and was thrown on the to-read pile - that I'm no longer the bibliophile I once was. I love the idea of reading books, but I'm not making time to do it. Recent fiction isn't appealing - I don't seem to have the patience or interest. (I feel like Jessica Crispin in that respect). And nonfiction, which I have been reading occasionally, seems too much like a part of my job.
I'm really disturbed by this trend. I self-identify as a devoted…
scientificactivist | June 9, 2008Just a bit of self-promotion here, but on Friday I got a nice mention by Curtis Brainard in the Columbia Journalism Review blog The Kicker:
Yesterday, The Scientific Activist blog (part of the ScienceBlogs.com community) carried a keen-eyed piece of media criticism, turning the rating scheme of The Washington Post's "Fact Checker" blog back on the paper itself.
The blog's editor, Nick Anthis, a doctoral student in biochemistry at Oxford University, took issue with a recent Post article by Juliet Eilperin, which claimed a little too much credit for exposing NASA's censorship of climate…
bioephemera | April 27, 2008
. . . wherein whatsoever the hand of man by exquisite art or engine has made rare in stuff, form or motion; whatsoever singularity, chance, and the shuffle of things hath produced; whatsoever Nature has wrought in things that want life and may be kept; shall be sorted and included. . . [Bacon]
Welcome to the sixth edition of the Cabinet of Curiosities carnival. Whether your taste runs to Wunderkammern or Curiosities, blogs are treasure rooms for modern collectors of the strange and marvelous. Let's start with this perfect miniature cabinet of crochet motifs by JPolka at the oh-so-aptly named…
bioephemera | April 25, 2008
This is just plain cool! It's amazing how intuitive data can be when plotted visually. And as of Tax Day, you can plot your own data on a stripped-down version of this software, thanks to Google, which bought Trendalyzer from Gapminder in 2007. I can hardly wait to try this out for myself. . .
bioephemera | April 10, 2008Vanitas, 2008
Nicole Natri
My friend Nicole Natri has finished her new website, updating her blog and portfolio of collage art. Nicole has a somewhat dark artistic vision involving sinister medical implements and bizarre anatomical diagrams - which she seems to have no trouble finding in vintage books. I wonder what bookshops she frequents??
Halloweenhead, 2007
Nicole Natri
Anguish, 2007
Nicole Natri