science reporting
clock | March 4, 2009....to PZ Myers for getting a monthly writing gig in The Guardian. This is going to be fun to watch! The other three science writers they hired also sound interesting.
clock | March 2, 2009Archy does an amazing detective job on who stole what from whom in the old literature on mammoths, going back all the way to Lyell!
Then, as much of that literature is very old, he provides us with a history and timeline of the ideas of copyright and plagiarism so we could have a better grasp on the sense of the time in which these old copy+paste jobs were done.
clock | February 26, 2009Another editorial about science blogging today, this time in Nature Methods: Lines of communication:
The public likes science stories it can easily relate to, and we have to admit that most science, including that published in Nature Methods, is unlikely to get more than a snore from nonscientists. In contrast, science stories that have a human interest or other emotionally charged angle require the concerted efforts of both journalists and scientists to ensure that the public understands the story well enough to make an informed personal decision. A failure in this regard can lead to a…
clock | February 26, 2009I'll be in Boston in about 10 days from now. On March 8th, I'll go to the Science Cafe - the website is not updated yet so I don't know what the topic is yet, but it's going to be fun for sure: science+pizza+beer, who can ask for more? So, if you come to that, try to spot me in the crowd and say Hello.
The next day, on Monday, March 9, 2009 at 6:00pm, we'll meet at Casablanca Restaurant which is at 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA. If you are a scientist, blogger, reader, come and let's eat and drink together. If you are on Facebook, I have made an Event page so you can get all the…
clock | February 20, 2009Just had a very pleasant lunch with John Timmer, the editor of Ars Technica. I learned about the history and concept of Ars Technica, we talked about science journalism, science communication, science blogging, and even about science itself: his and my old research:
clock | February 15, 2009Being quite busy lately, I accumulated a lot of links to stuff I wanted to comment on but never found time. Well, it does not appear I will find time any time soon, so here are the links for you to comment on anyway (just because I link to them does not mean I agree with them - in some cases quite the opposite):
In Defense of Secrecy :
Given the pervasive secrecy of the Bush-Cheney administration, and the sorry consequences of that disposition, President Barack Obama's early emphasis on openness in government seems almost inevitable. One of the first official communications issued by the new…
clock | February 10, 2009Remember a couple of weeks ago, when I complained that Triangle is too narrow a term for a Hub at Nature Network, as there is really no humongous city where everything is centered but the science is distributed all around the state of North Carolina, with people collaborating with each other and traveling back and forth between various regions of the state.
Well, now, to reflect that situation, the Triangle group on Nature Network was renamed the North Carolina group. If it grows in size, it may one day become a proper Hub. So, if you are in any way interested in science and live anywhere in…
clock | February 7, 2009Science coverage in New York Times is good because they can afford a whole stable of people, each expert in one field only. If Carl Zimmer was forced to cover, on a daily basis and without time to research, everything from astronomy and physics to archaeology and materials science, he would do a bad job, too. But he is given time to pick his own area - evolution - to study it for years, and to write whatever the heck he wants on any given week. So Carl is an expert on what he is writing.
A small paper with one science beat reporter will have to cover everything and that reporter will thus…
clock | January 25, 2009There.
How's the taste of your own medicine?
Yup, there was an editorial meeting. Coturnix, coturnix, @coturnix, BoraZ, Bora Zivkovic and @borazivkovic were there. I was there, too, and I could have said something, but I decided to remain silent as the traffic of this blog, which - cha-chink - means more money, is more important than accuracy.
Very few readers will read your article. But everyone will see the cover.
Very few people will read this post to the end, especially the links on the bottom that really contain the meat of the argument. But everyone will see this post title in their…
clock | December 21, 2008There was a good reason why the form and format, as well as the rhetoric of the scientific paper were instituted the way they were back in the early days of scientific journals. Science was trying to come on its own and to differentiate itself from philosophy, theology and lay literature about nature. It was essential to develop a style of writing that is impersonal, precise, sharply separating data from speculations, and that lends itself to replication of experiments.
The form and format of a scientific paper has evolved towards a very precise and very universal state that makes scientist-…
clock | December 13, 2008New York Times has compiled a whole slew of essays about the interesting ideas that people have come up with during 2008. And three of them are written by Rebecca Skloot, who is the special speaker at the WiSE event (on Friday night) at ScienceOnline09.
Her three essays are:
Avian Dancing:
If you aren't one of the millions who have already done so, go immediately to YouTube and search for "Snowball the Dancing Cockatoo." There you will see a large white bird balanced on the back of an office chair, bobbing his head, stomping his feet and doing something that -- until now -- scientists…
clock | December 12, 2008Why is mainstream media obsessively focused, out of all the cool science out there, on silly titillating EvoPsych garbage, presented in a "shocked! shoked!" tone? Here is today's crop - feel free to savage them on your own blogs:
46% Of Women Prefer Internet To Sex, Says Intel Survey
Fertile women more open to corny chat-up lines
20% of teens say they've put nude pics of themselves online
Science Dweebs Often Virgins
Orgasms During Childbirth?
Are daughters-in-law to blame for the menopause?
clock | December 12, 2008CNN reports: Scientists baffled by mysterious acorn shortage:
Up and down the East Coast, residents and naturalists alike have been scratching their heads this autumn over a simple question: Where are all the acorns? Oak trees have shed their leaves, but the usual carpet of acorns is not crunching underfoot. In far-flung pockets of northern Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other states, scientists have found no acorns whatsoever.
But closer reading reveals that it is lay people and amateur naturalists who are baffled, while scientists are not. Scientists are well aware…
clock | December 12, 2008Prime time makes a scientific discovery
"My husband, who's a physicist at CalTech, says, 'Physics is the new black,' " says Jennifer Ouellette, who regularly blogs about the subject on cocktailpartyphysics.com. The author of such science-friendly books as "The Physics of the Buffyverse," in which she deconstructed the science of " Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Ouellette is also the new director of the Science and Entertainment Exchange, a new program developed by the National Academy of Science to help Hollywood understand scientists and visa versa.
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"Most people in the…
clock | December 11, 2008Scott Derrickson, director of the new version of The Day the Earth Stood Still, talks about his take on the iconic sci-fi movie. And Nobel laureate, Richard Roberts, discusses the importance of open-access science publishing. Plus, we'll test your knowledge about some recent science in the news.
Listen here.
clock | December 6, 2008Deborah Howell, the WaPo Ombudsman (for a few more days), wrote her thoughts on science reporting in the Washington Post (and in general) - Making Sense of Science Reporting:
The job of science reporters is to take complicated subjects and translate them for readers who are not scientifically sophisticated. Critics say that the news media oversimplify and aren't skeptical enough of financing by special interests.
That led me to review papers that are to be published soon as part of a project sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on how the media cover science and technology,…
clock | December 6, 2008erv and Ed Yong discuss science, blogging, science communication, HIV, and, er, vampires....
clock | December 5, 2008Oh, there was before? Anyway, the story that everyone on science blogs is talking about these days is that CNN has ditched their science and tech team. I was going to comment on it, but Chad puts it the best and there is no way I can best it. So go on over and add your 2c to the interesting ongoing discussion in the comments.
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