science reporting
clock | February 1, 2007I first saw about this on Pharyngula the other day and I think it is a majestic idea! A group of Brits are trying to build a replica of HMS "Beagle" and, on the Darwin Bicentennial in 2009, sail around the world following the exact path Charles Darwin made on his historic voyage. Have scientists, journalists and, yes, bloggers, on board who will do research, take pictures and videos, and write their ship-logs for everyone to read (if a ship-log is on a blog, is it called shlog?). Stop at every port and promote evolution!
Most definitely take your time to check out their website and blog…
clock | February 1, 2007If so, you should read this, print it out and stick it on the side of your computer monitor. Then re-read it every time you sit down to write a post discussing actual scientific research.
clock | January 29, 2007The 'Basic Concepts in Science" list is getting longer and longer every couple of hours or so, it seems. Try to keep up with it. You may even want to Google-bomb (by linking using the same words as Wilkins does) some or all of the posts if you think they should come up on top in Google searches for these terms. Dan adds his own contribution on Cell Migration and Jennifer makes a wish-list for the Top Ten Physics Concepts that need to be included. To those, I'd add the series on statistics by ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES: Part 1: Samples, Part 2: Probability, Part 3: Sample Statistics, Part 4:…
clock | January 25, 2007Speaking of the role of blogs in science communication, today's NY TImes has an interesting article about the way a sloppily reported story about research on gay sheep got all out of proportion: Of Gay Sheep, Modern Science and the Perils of Bad Publicity (also mentioned by Dave this morning).
Apparently, the media reporting was heavily influenced by PETA, and much of the blogosphere fell for it, except for a couple of notable exceptions, including 'emptypockets' who is a co-blogger on Next Hurrah and a Diarist on Daily Kos who focuses mainly on science topics.
His analysis of the way story…
clock | January 16, 2007 *N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences
/Downtown Raleigh/
**Thursday, January 18
"Flock of Dodos" screening with filmmaker, Randy Olson
7:00 p.m. Museum Auditorium
Free
*Filmmaker and Evolutionary Ecologist , Dr. Randy Olson, presents his
new film */Flock of Dodos/*: /*The Evolution / Intelligent Design Circus.*/
"Flock of Dodos" is the first feature-length documentary to present both
sides of the Intelligent Design / Evolution clash and tries to make
sense of the issue by visiting Olson's home state of Kansas. The film
digs below the surface of the debate by examining the language being
used by…
clock | January 1, 2007The conference is only 19 [13] days from today! It's getting really exciting!
The program is shaping really well:
On Thursday (January 18th) we will have a teach-in session. About 20 people have signed up so far (update: 30, thus the session is now full). We'll use Wordpress to help them start their own blogs, so I'll have to make one of my own in advance and play around to figure out the platform before I teach others.
On Friday (January 19th), we'll have dinner and all the bloggers present will read their posts. We have not decided on the place yet, but perhaps a site that has wifi, or…
clock | December 20, 2006The 29th Carnival of Feminists is up on The imponderabilia of actual life containing posts by several of my favourite bloggers, including Zuska who has her own pick of favourites there.
Speaking of Zuska, she also has a cool article in the inaugural issue of the new science-culture Inkling Magazine, the brainchild of the magnificent blogging Trio Fantasticus of Inkycircus.
And while we are on the topic, Razib exhibits a complete lack of sense of irony, i.e., the inability to see sarcasm and seeing seriousness instead.
clock | December 10, 2006Nature is going crazy starting a bunch of new blogs:
* Methagora: The Nature Methods blog and comment forum.
* Nautilus: A blog for past, present and future authors.
* Peer-to-peer: A blog for peer-reviewers and about the peer-review process.
* Spoonful of Medicine: Musing on science, medicine and politics from the editors of Nature Medicine.
clock | December 2, 2006Dave explains the incident and gives some excellent background information way beyond what the media reported.
clock | November 30, 2006You may remember when I mentioned the announcement of the new open-source online journal JoVE, a peer-reviewed journal of scientific methods in which submissions are provided in video form. Pimm, Eva, Jonah and Nick have also commented on it and Pimm prvides a look at the rate at which the news about the journal spread over the internet.
I have been thinking about this a little and I am wondering if we can predict what kinds of techniques are most likely to be found there - and what kinds will not.
I am assuming that showing how one uses a standard kit with no alterations of the protocol…
clock | November 26, 2006 I am sure glad that others have started parsing the numbers of the new report on 'The Internet as a Resource for News and Information about Science'.
Duane Smith takes a close look at a couple of tables in the report and concludes that, while relatively few people say they get their information on evolution directly from the Bible and Church, many do so indirectly, by beeing steeped in their comunities' beliefs transmitted by family, friends and neighbors (as well as local and church-run media). Interesting take (and I agree with him on this). What have you found so far?
clock | November 24, 2006Pew Internet and American Life Project just issued a new report: The Internet as a Resource for News and Information about Science (pdf). It states that:
Fully 87% of online users have at one time used the internet to carry out research on a scientific topic or concept and 40 million adults use the internet as their primary source of news and information about science.
The report is chockful of statistics of great importance to us science bloggers. For instance:
Each respondent to this survey received questions on one of three specific scientific topics: stem cell research, climate change,…
clock | November 19, 2006Brummell continues to review the last issue of Seed Magazine. Part III is here and Part IV is here. You can read most of the articles online now - just go to the very bottom of my blog and click on the links on the bottom bar.
clock | November 17, 2006Have you ever read a paper in your field and wondered "how'd they done it?!" You read the "Materials and Methods" closely, again and again, and still have no idea how exactly was the procedure done. You want to replicate the experiment, or use the same technique for your own questions, but have no clue how to go about it.
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and I guess that a video is worth a thousand pictures. So, learn the experimental techniques by watching videos of people actually doing them. You can do that on the brand new journal, just starting November 30th:
Journal…
clock | November 2, 2006...but I have to note that The Brummell loves Seed Magazine and reviews the whole last issue, article by article.
clock | October 29, 2006Just a quick note. I finally got to meet Chris Mooney, my fellow Seed Scienceblogger and the author of The Republican War on Science.
On Saturday, we met early enough to have coffee and a little chat before his book-reading and signing event at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh. The long weekend in local schools (Friday off in Orange Co. and Monday off in Wake Co.) and a break in bad weather we had recently propably prompted a lot of locals to make that last trip out of town for the year this week, so the size of the crowd was not as impressive as it could have been, but those present were good…
clock | October 18, 2006The latest issue (Fall 2006) of the Social Research Journal has as its theme "Politics & Science: How their Interplay results in public policy", based on a recent conference. The table of contents looks very promising. Unfortunately, none of the articles are online (yet?), so I cannot comment on any one of them. The upcoming Winter issue also looks promising - the topic is "Politics and Science: An Historical View".
I hope all the articles come online soon (with permalinks so we can link to them) so we can all read them and dissect them on our blogs.
clock | October 17, 2006Razib and commenters are commenting on this article which appears to be 19th century SF-fantasy repackaged as "serious science" about the future evolution of the human species. Actually, the article is so silly, Razib does not even want to waste time on it and points out only one of the obvious fallacies of the argument, the one about skin color. On the other hand, Lindsay does a thorough and delightful fisking that you may enjoy!
I don't even know in which 'channel' to put this post. I guess it is "biology" but only nominally... as we do not have a "nonsense and having fun with it"…
clock | October 14, 2006John bemoans the state of science journalism, with some added history of the Atlantis hypothesis.