blogosphere
scientificactivist | September 15, 2006Yep, that's what I was up to last night.
I've added some useful content to the left-hand sidebar of the site. Specifically, I've listed a few recommended books that readers of my blog might enjoy, and I've also listed several worthy science-related causes for prospective donors. The causes come from a recent post on the topic. There seemed to be quite a bit of interest, so I've now added it as a permanent feature.
The list of books is currently short, only consisting of four recommended readings. This section will mostly be for links to books that I've already reviewed, but I've included…
scientificactivist | September 7, 2006Student Pugwash USA (SPUSA), an organization that encourages the inclusion of social responsibility considerations in our scientific dialogue, has started a new blog called MindFull. The blog has already tackled a variety of issues from "ethical stem cells" to defense policy, and it should be an interesting source of information and commentary.
scientificactivist | September 6, 2006It's on now. Janet of Adventures in Ethics and Science has challenged us all to a nerd-off. It doesn't look like David Bowie is going to be there, but, hell, we can do better. Maybe James Watson? Anyways, here's the challenge:
Perhaps not every ScienceBlogger is hot, but almost all of them are nerds. The time has come to see just how high those geek flags fly.
It's time for a nerd-off.
OK, I'll throw my towel into the ring. How's this for size: science-themed valentines. Back in my undergraduate days, one of my friends, Jen Dulin, came up with a way for scientists around the world to…
scientificactivist | September 5, 2006Yes, that's right, you're looking right at him (on the sidebar, at least).
No?
Go down a bit...
...a little bit more....
There you go.
According to the blog Flags and Lollipops, yours truly is the third hottest science blogger (and the hottest male science blogger) on the internet. Yes, screw Nature and its Top Five Whatever.... This is much better.
Here are the top five:
Shelley of Retrospectacle
Karmen of Chaotic Utopia
Nick of The Scientific Activist
PZ Myers of Pharyngula
Roland of Notes from the Biomass
I notice that four out of the top five are at ScienceBlogs.com. Hmmm... it…
scientificactivist | August 28, 2006...but I needed an excuse to congratulate The Scientific Activist for it's 100th post since the move to ScienceBlogs.com. So, happy one-hundreth-post-iversary (huh?) to me! It's a sign of just how much more prolific I've been on the new site that what took over four months on the original site only took about two and a half months here. Cool.
I just hope the other 99 posts were a little more substantial....
Some other numbers: since the move there have been 275 comments posted from a total of 48,589 visitors. That's great! Let's keep it up.
scientificactivist | August 26, 2006...since Bush announced his restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, according to SexDrugsandDNA.com.
Well, not exactly, but close enough. I think it's actually been five years and seventeen days, but who's counting?
...
Ummm... anyways....
From the site that brought us the Bill Frist Stem Cell Clock, now comes (you guessed it) the George Bush Stem Cell Clock. Michael Stebbins, who kept pressure on Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist during his year-long delay of HR 810 has now set his sights on President Bush, whose veto of the eventually passed HR 810 is the one obstacle standing…
scientificactivist | August 15, 2006Since I've been on the road so much lately, I haven't really had a chance to follow up on some of the more interesting links forwarded to me lately. Each probably deserves its own post... but I'm going to dump them all into this post anyway. Besides, there seems to be a common thread running through all of them.
First up is an interview with climate scientist Ben Santer in Environmental Science & Technology. Santer was a lead author on the president's recent Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) and has been a target of anti-environmental groups since he was a lead author on a 1995…
scientificactivist | August 1, 2006As part of the constant and inevitable march of progress here at The Scientific Activist, I've fixed my blog template so that now when you click on the "Read on" link at the bottom of an entry on the main page, you'll be magically transported to the spot where you stopped reading before.
Try it out.
Cool, huh?
Thanks go to Razib of Gene Expression for pointing this out.
scientificactivist | July 10, 2006It looks like everyone has a new angle on the recent Nature science blog rankings. Now, my blogging platform, Movable Type, is claiming its own bragging rights, noting that 30 of the 50 top science blogs are "powered" by Movable Type. (I guess Movable Type's idea of empowerment is making you deal with so many commenting/posting problems that your entire site basically grinds to a halt over the course of a weekend....) When you consider the fact that 22 of those 30 use Movable Type because they blog on the ScienceBlogs.com site, this fact becomes a little less impressive. To be fair, using…
scientificactivist | July 10, 2006It looks like the good folks at Seed (thanks, Tim!) have fixed some of the posting problems that were plaguing ScienceBlogs over the weekend. This means that the system is no longer keeping me from, among other things, using the word "drugs" in my posts. Therefore, I'd encourage you to go back to the now fixed entry from Saturday on problems with the progress of HR 810. Since the site is no longer drug-free, make sure you visit the link to a story from Sex Drugs & DNA that I wasn't able to post before because of the problems.
scientificactivist | July 8, 2006Word on the street is that people have had trouble commenting on some of the ScienceBlogs. I don't think there has been any trouble here, but if you have had any issues, give me an email at scientific.activist@gmail.com so I can fix any problems. Either way, there are a few people back at Seed working feverishly to sort all of this out.
scientificactivist | July 6, 2006Yes, it's true. I've been called a "budding Matt Drudge." In a post on the recent Nature science blog rankings, The Tech Chronicles wrote:
And Nick Anthis is a budding Matt Drudge. His revelations about a NASA official who was accused of squelching interviews about global warming contributed to the official's resignation.
I'm not really sure what to make of that, especially since The Scientific Activist, as a site dedicated to exploring the complexities of the issues, is basically the complete opposite of the Drudge Report. I guess I wouldn't mind it so much if I was getting a cut of the…
scientificactivist | July 5, 2006This Thursday's issue of Nature ranks the top 50 science blogs on the internet and, somewhat surprisingly, The Scientific Activist lands in the #5 spot. The top 5, with their Technorati ranks in parentheses, are as follows:
Pharyngula (179)
The Panda's Thumb (1,647)
RealClimate (1,884)
Cosmic Variance (2,174)
The Scientific Activist (3,429)
You can guess which blog is the odd one out.... Still it's quite an honor to be placed among such prestigious company. Blogs considered in the rankings "as far as can be established, are written by working scientists and are about science (not their…
scientificactivist | July 5, 2006The newest edition of The Tangled Bank is up at e3 Information Overload. As usual, it's a great place to go and check out what people have been writing about in the science blogosphere.
scientificactivist | June 22, 2006We all know that the blogosphere is the most incestuous place outside of Arkansas, so why fight it? In that spirit, here's a post that contributes no new information to the web.
Luckily, though, some people are actually expanding our body of knowledge. For example, Jake Young of Pure Pedantry, one of the other grad students on ScienceBlogs, apparently pulled an all-nighter in the lab last night and in the process posted something in all ten categories on the ScienceBlogs homepage. He starts things off here, and then goes on to write about everything from open access journals to membrane…
scientificactivist | June 22, 2006The latest word on the ScienceBlogs/DonorsChoose fundraising challenge is that as of Tuesday the total amount of donations had reached $12,325.59, plus $10,000 in matching funds from Seed. Here at The Scientific Activist we've raised $345.00 in generous donations, bringing us to 7% of our ambitious goal of $5,000. That's great progress, but I know we can do even better than that! It's a great cause--helping to bring quality science education into our schools--and any donation, regardless of its size, is a positive step forward. To donate, click here!
"http://www.donorschoose.org/images…
scientificactivist | June 21, 2006The latest edition of the science blog carnival Tangled Bank is up at Centrerion Canadian Politics. Go check it out for a good sampling of what people have been writing about around the science blogosphere, which does, you may be surprised to find out, extend beyond the confines of Seed's ScienceBlogs site.
scientificactivist | June 20, 2006It was a huge pain in the ass, and it probably wasn't worth the effort, but I'm happy to announce that I have organized all of my posts from the old site by category and by date. You can now access them from my main archives page or from this post. Enjoy!
By date:
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
By category:
academia
animal rights
basic science
biotechnology
blog carnivals
blogosphere
Bush Administration
capitalism
Congress
creationism
Democratic Party
drug companies
drug war
environment
events
evolution
foreign policy
global warming
Google
health…
scientificactivist | June 19, 2006This week, Seed asks its ScienceBloggers:
How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.), various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?...
As you probably know, I find myself in the grad student demographic, and as such I have a very busy but flexible schedule. When I first started blogging in January, I had only recently started by Ph.D. in biochemistry, and it seemed like I was going to have quite a bit of free time on my hands. It was kind of like working a nine-to-five job, but with more flexible hours, and…
scientificactivist | June 19, 2006It looks like I have quite a few new people coming to the site today to read about some pretty bizarre chemistry, so if you happen to be one of them, I'd encourage you to have a look around the rest of the site. To find out what The Scientific Activist is all about, read my introductory post, or click on the "About" tab. Also, please consider helping out science classrooms by donating to my DonorsChoose fundraising challenge.
One of the more interesting ongoing projects on this site has been chronicling the animal rights movement in Oxford, and the extraordinary response of the local…