Science Blogging Conference
jstemwedel | January 16, 2009Abel Pharmboy set up a wine-tasting for this evening with a selection of wines from Wine Authorities for us to taste.
Abel professes to be an "amateur" at wine-tasting, but I'm coming here from Northern California, so I have to represent! Also, after this morning's coffee tasting, I'm kind of sold on the idea that looking, smelling, and tasting carefully can give me something like a better appreciation of the complexities of fermented grape juice. So, I'm going to attempt something more detailed.
I'm taking my guidance from this article, and will be describing:
Color: (what color the wine…
jstemwedel | January 16, 2009Counter Culture Coffee generously invited us to join us for their regular Friday morning cupping at their Durham, North Carolina headquarters.
Here are the dimensions on which the coffees are evaluated in the cupping:
Fragrance:
smell of coffee when it's dry (undertones, first thing that comes to mind)
Aroma:
smell off coffee just off the boil (under 200 oF)
Break:
Crust forming on top from brewing -- from CO2, unless the beans are stale. After coffee has steeped 4 min, breaking crust of coffee and smelling it.
Brightness:
acidity that bring their own flavor (cf. acids that distinguish…
jstemwedel | January 15, 2009Once again, I'm sitting in my favorite airport with free wifi, bound this time for Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, for ScienceOnline'09. The conference has grown to feature two days of official sessions, plus a third day of semi-official goings on, and the place will be lousy with blogospheric glitterati.
I'm going to be leading a session late Saturday afternoon on "Online science for kids (and parents)". I'll be highlighting a selection of the good content that's out there already, and I'm hoping that there will be some folks at the session interested in talking about how to create…
jstemwedel | October 22, 2008I've talked about a number of these issues before, but since Abel and PalMD are having some conversations (here, here, here, here, here, and here) in preparation for their session at ScienceOnline09, and since I've experienced the blogosphere on both sides of the pseudonymous line, I thought I'd pipe up.
Some good reasons (from the top of my head) to blog under a pseudonym:
Your workplace frowns on blogging (even if you are not blogging about work at all) and you want to stay employed.
You are a student whose advisor will equate your blogging with time not spent doing research (even though…
grrlscientist | September 15, 2008tags: annual science communication conference, ScienceOnline'09, SciO09, Sigma Xi, Research Triangle Park, science blogging conference, nature blog writing
You are all cordially invited to the third annual ScienceOnline'09 conference which is scheduled for 16-18 January 2009 at the Sigma Xi Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. I am determined that I will be present this year, and that I will speak about something useful while I am there! So far, things look promising because my topic suggestions have been met with positive feedback. (Since I am so optimistic, I have already…
jstemwedel | January 23, 2008One of the things that came out of the discussion of the ethics of blogging about science at the 2008 NC Science Blogging Conference was a clear sense that we don't yet have general agreement about what kinds of ethics should guide science blogging -- in part, because we haven't come to an agreement about just what kind of activity science blogging is.
Is science blogging more like journalism or the scholarly activities of scientists reporting their findings to their peers? Is it education or punditry? Is it a profession or a hobby?
Different bloggers (and different blog readers) seem to…
jstemwedel | October 31, 2007At the upcoming North Carolina Science Blogging Conference on January 19, 2008, I'll be leading a discussion on the ethics of science blogging (not about blogging about ethics in science). If you attend the conference (and if you're not sucked in by one of the other attractive discussions scheduled for the same time-slot), you'll be able to take part in the conversation in real time.
But even if you won't be able to come to North Carolina for the conference, you can help set the agenda for our discussion by editing the wiki page for the session.
Here's what I've posted to get things going:…
jstemwedel | February 3, 2007During the discussion after my talk at the Science Blogging Conference, the question came up (and was reported here) of whether and when tenure and promotion committees at universities will come to view the blogging activities of their faculty members with anything more positive than suspicion.
SteveG and helmut both offer some interesting thoughts on the issue.
SteveG takes up the idea that academic blogging can often be a productive way to communicate the knowledge produced in the Ivory Tower to the broader public. Arguably, public outreach is part of the larger mission of institutions…
jstemwedel | January 22, 2007
While I'm readjusting to my own time zone (just in time for the start of spring semester -- whee!), I thought I'd share some pictures from the Science Blogging Conference. Here, for example, is intrepid conference organizer Bora Zivkovic. He could have sat back and just enjoyed his pre-conference dinner, but instead he stayed busy taking pictures and circulating to greet the conference-goers and find out what was going on with them. Actually, in real life Bora seems a bit more laid-back than he does on his blog. Still, compared to my typical energy level? He could be a hummingbird.…
jstemwedel | January 21, 2007The wifi at the hotel is a little tentative, so I'll save detailed posting about the Science Blogging Conference until I'm back on the west coast. In the meantime, I wanted to note some of the questions raised in various sessions during the conference:
Is it enough (for the good of scientists and/or society) for the population at large to think science is cool, or is it also important that most people have at least a basic understanding of science?
What's the deal with scientific publishing and the news cycle? In particular, is it scientists, scientific journal editors, the traditional…
jstemwedel | January 20, 2007I promised the folks who were listening to my talk at the Science Blogging Conference that I'd post the links to the various blog posts whose screenshots I used to illustrate my points. Here they are:
Results of "tone deafness" test published.
Reversal of Progress on Folate Supplementation
First take on a Philosophy of Science elective
Republicans made science for-profit only
ToI on reforming India's R&D
RNA Export Diagram
Gene Expression Differences between Populations
Hawaii, the New York Times, and triggered seismicity
The human factor.
Does circadian clock regulate clutch-size in…