Blogospheric science
jstemwedel | June 9, 2006It's like the blogoverse suddenly got more concentrated or something.
Oh wait, I remember! It's move-in day at the newly completed ScienceBlogs Towers! Look at all those moving vans! Look at all those bloggers! A quick run-down of my new neighbors (and their previous addresses) after the jump. And mad props to Sb Towers architect and interior designer Tim Murtaugh!!
The Loom
Carl Zimmer's excellent blog moves from Corante to Sb!
(Old address: http://loom.corante.com/)
The Frontal Cortex
A new blog by Seed's Jonah Lehrer
The World's Fair
A new blog by science educator Dave Ng and…
jstemwedel | June 8, 2006This week, the National Review Online's media blogger revealed the secret identity of dKos blogger Armando, who says that this unwanted decloaking probably means he will no longer blog.
While I'm not heavy into the political end of the blogosphere (until someone can provide me with more than 24 hours per day), Armando's story resonates with me because one of my favorite science bloggers, BotanicalGirl, had to stop blogging when members of her department became aware of her blog. So I've been thinking a lot about blogging anonymously versus blogging under one's own name, not just in terms of…
jstemwedel | April 10, 2006After the fall of humanity, when the hyperintelligent cockroaches are trying to reconstruct the ancient human practice of "commenting on a blog", this is the entry they will end up putting in the textbooks.
I disagree vehemently with the entry itself, but the comments come as close to the Platonic form of constituents of a comment thread as you will ever get in imperfect, materially instantiated cyberspace.
(Hat tip: Crooked Timber)
jstemwedel | January 23, 2006I'm excited to be one of the many fine nominees for the "Best New Blog" Koufax Award for 2005. Because I know you want to make an informed decision about your vote (or, you know, put off doing actual work for a little while), here's a quick tour of my posts back at the pre-ScienceBlogs location.
Also, let me point out that two of my sibling bloggers here (Aetiology and Living the Scientific Life) are also up for "Best New Blog" -- as are a number of the blogs in my blogroll (right sidebar -- you know you wouldn't be here if you didn't have a little time to procrastinate!). Holy vote-…
jstemwedel | January 15, 2006Thanks to all the commenters on the last post that raised, in a somewhat half-assed way, the question of what -- if anything -- we should make of the gender (im)balance of the pool of bloggers on the science beat. To paraphrase Homer Simpson, I'm not sure I have enough data and insight yet to use my whole ass on this topic, but the comments have given me enough to start pressing the second cheek into service.
The follow-up questions I'd like to take up today to the original question ("where are the women science bloggers?") are:
Who cares?/Why should it matter who's writing the blog?
What…
jstemwedel | January 13, 2006Regular blog readers are familiar with the rule of thumb that every three months or so there will be another outbreak of blog posts wondering where all the women are. Clancy at Culture Cat provides and extensive list of links to discussions of this question up to March 2005; I'm not sure this data supports the hypothesis of a three month period for the cycle, but then again, Clancy acknowledges that the list is not complete. The point is, the issue seems to come up a lot.
There have been numerous hypotheses floated to explain the apparent absence of women bloggers (in terms of "visibility"…