SBC-NC'08

Open Laboratory - old Prefaces and Introductions

clock — Sun, 09 May 2010 15:22:33 +0000

Open Laboratory - old Prefaces and Introductions

One difference between reading Open Laboratory anthologies and reading the original posts included in them is that the printed versions are slightly edited and polished. Another difference is that the Prefaces and Introductions can be found only in the books. They have never been placed online.

But now that four books are out and we are halfway through collecting entries for the fifth one, when only the 2009 book is still selling, I think it is perfectly OK to place Prefaces and Introductions that I wrote myself online. I wrote Prefaces for the 2006, 2007 and 2008 book, as well as the Introduction for the 2006 one. The introductions for the subsequent editions were written by the year's guest editor, i.e., Reed Cartwright in 2007, Jennifer Rohn in 2008, and SciCurious in 2009.

So, under the fold are my three Prefaces and one Introduction. See how the world (and my understanding of it) of the online science communication has changed over the last few years:

Preface to the Open Laboratory 2006

The idea to publish a collection of science-related blogposts came recently from the publisher of this book, Lulu.com. The timing of the publication of this book, the first of its kind, is designed to coincide with the first Science Blogging Conference in January 2007 in Chapel Hill, NC. This left less than a month for the entire process of building this anthology from start to finish.

There are hundreds of science blogs and hundreds of medical blogs our there on the Internet. Many have been publishing for several years. Thus, there are hundreds of thousands of posts to choose from and pick the best fifty ever written. How does one compile an anthology at such short notice? For a blogger, the solution is obvious: a democratic method. I posted a call for nominations on my own blog and e-mailed several dozen science bloggers about this endeavor. That was on Christmas Eve, when most people are spending time with their families instead of surfing the Web, so the online traffic is very small. Yet, the idea was received with a considerable enthusiasm and within just a couple of days I had received (and, of course, posted links to) 218 nominations to pick from.

Then, I recruited twelve of my blog-friends to help me choose the best 50 posts. They certainly came through, on short notice, with detailed evaluations of all submitted posts. So, this is the place where I should profusely thank Jennifer Ouellette, Janet Stemwedel, John McKay, Carl Feagans, John Beetham, Alun Salt, Moheb Costandi, Heinrich Gompf, Leo Lincourt, Bill Hooker, Karmen Lee Franklin and Jennifer Wong for their willingness to spend a considerable amount of time and effort during the holidays to help with this project, as well as Alun Salt for designing the cover and Anton Zuiker for helping with the techincal aspects of putting together a book. Without them, this book would have been impossible to finish on time.

In assembling this collection, I was looking for the quality of writing as well as the diversity of topics and styles. It is not easy to move the work produced in one medium into another medium. Blog posts are dynamic. Books are static. How does one place hyperlinks on paper? Hyperlinks are the currency of the blogging world. Frequent updates and the comments posted by readers are what gives blogs their life. As a result, the posts included in this collection are, in a sense, the ones least typical for the online environment - those that are capable of standing alone, almost autistic in their resemblance to the essays of the hardcopy-printed world. This is no judgment on their quality, of course, as these are the best essays around, only a reminder that much that goes on online is much more conversational than the material presented here. Thus, I urge you to go to the nearest computer and look at science blogs in their natural medium.

Many of the posts collected in this anthology have garnered numerous - sometimes hundreds - of readers' comments that are worth checking out. See what hyperlinks are embedded in these posts. See some of the color images that had to be omitted for publication in a book. Then look around these blogs, see what else they have written over months and years of their existence and check out what other blogs they link to. Finally, join in the conversation yourself - post a comment or start your own blog!

This is the dawn of a new age of communication. In the beginning there were grunts, tom-tom drums, smoke signals, and the guy on the horse riding from village to village reading the latest King's Edict. Then came Gutenberg, ushering in the beginnings of the Media. That was the first time in history when literacy started spreading from clergy to all the others: professional classes, ruling classes, and beyond. It took a couple of more centuries, and the Industrial Revolution, before the invention of the daily newspaper. Another century passed before radio was invented, followed by television another half-century later.

Right now, we are in the middle of another Media revolution - the Internet is taking over. And for he first time, the Media is not a top-down production, a few with the loudspeaker talking down to the silent masses that are unable to respond and be heard. Today, the Media is a many-to-many communication. Unlike traditional journalists who are jacks of all trades, many of the participants in the new media are the true experts on the topics they communicate about. This includes scientists and physicians whose work is showcased in this anthology. Blogs, podcasts, video-files and social software are the way of the future. Don't allow yourself to be left behind!

January 11th, 2007
Chapel Hill, NC

Introduction to the Open Laboratory 2006

Science is one of those areas of life (sex being another) where nationality does not really matter. Let me be perfectly clear here that I am not talking about technology, engineering, or most of the applied science - those can be quite well kept within the borders of one country (and strictly enforced by patent and property laws, or kept secret within the confines of the DOD). I am talking about the pure, basic science driven by curiosity about the way world works.

The global nature of science is, of course, an ideal not quite yet supported by reality. There are rich and poor countries, countries with rich scientific traditions and those with none, countries in which science is highly regarded and those in which it is frowned upon. This means that different kinds of science are done in different parts of the world.

When I published my first scientific papers a few years ago, I received only very few requests for reprints from bigwigs at big US Universities. Most requests were from people working at small colleges and, surprisingly for me at the time, from people working in places like Argentina, Algeria and Poland. I was wondering why. Well, it is obvious, big Universities in the States have money to subscribe to many scientific journals. Small colleges and foreign schools cannot afford such a luxury.

Over the past five years or so, Internet has dramatically changed this picture. Almost nobody sends requests for reprints any more. People at big schools log into their online libraries and download PDF files. People from smaller places and abroad send e-mails asking for the PDF to be sent as an attachment. Search engines like ISI Web of Science and Medline bring to one's fingertips almost everything published in science practically as soon as it is published. Google Scholar is allowing people not affiliated with big Universities to find literature online. More and more journals are starting their online editions. Even big rich schools, like Harvard, are dropping expensive subscriptions for hardcopy versions of top scientific journals. Online journals, like PLoS, are fast becoming as respected as any print journals in the field.

Until about WWII the global centers of science were in Europe. Since about the 1950s, the USA had an absolute primacy in the world of science. We are experiencing another shift right now. The number of foreigners coming to the USA to study has about halved in the last couple of years. There are a number of reasons for this. The Patriot Act certainly makes it more difficult for people, especially from some countries, to get visas to study here. The anti-scientific atmosphere in the country is certainly a repellent. Creationist actions in Dover, PA, Cobb Co. GA, and Kansas are certainly not great PR for the state of our science (and science education). Slashing of funding for science (except for defense-related research and the crazy Moon/Mars project) does not look promising for a potential foreign student. Outright ban on some types of research (e.g., stem cell research) has even lured some American-born scientists to move to Singapore and similar places abroad.

But it is not just a repellent effect of today's America that is keeping all those smartest foreigners from coming here. They are also attracted to the new possibilities for success at home. Fall of communism, unification of Europe, lightning-fast economic development of a number of Asian nations, all these factors contribute to a new sense of optimism in so many parts of the world. One can, these days, actually do good science in many countries in which it was impossible a decade earlier. Universities and Institutes are being built, money is coming in, the old ways of doing science business are being rethought and reformed in many places, thus luring many young people to choose countries other than the scary USA for their professional development.

These kinds of concerns have been voiced repeatedly here in the States, and science has been quite politicized lately. Many articles in mainstream media, as well as posts on blogs, have been written lamenting these recent developments. Organizations have been formed (e.g., the Union of Concerned Scientists), and some blogs are almost entirely devoted to this problem (e.g., Chris Mooney's The Intersection). However, the scientists themselves are feeling more conflicted. On one hand, being good Americans, they would like to see the US retain its leading role in the world of science. They want to continue being able to do good science in this country. On the other hand, being good scientists, they feel that the globalization of science is a good thing. While most other human endeavors are parochial, science is universal, and the latest trends promise an internationalization of science never before seen in history. The increased communication and collaboration between scientists in many countries, coming from different scientific traditions, will lead to creative cross-pollination that can be only good for the progress of science.

So, what is the role of blogs going to be in the future of science? I believe the blogs are going to speed up the internationalization of science, with positive effects for both American and foreign scientists. What expert science bloggers are doing right now and will do even more in the future is take expensive information and make it free. People with access to expensive journal subscriptions will link, excerpt, and comment on technical papers as soon as they are published, thus making them available to scientists in small schools, in foreign countries, and, importantly, to amateur scientists.

Science teachers in elementary, middle and high schools will have the information at their fingertips and so will their students, resulting in a better communication and a kind of learning that is more fun. With online book publishing, textbooks will probably become a little less than ten years out of date at the time of publication. Journalists will know where to go to find correct information about a topic that requires scientific explanations. Random blogsurfers will pop in and see some really cool science-stuff with who knows what consequences - perhaps piquing an interest in science in a kid? The best science bloggers are able to also write well, translating difficult scientese into ordinary language, thus removing some of the mystique that keeps people afraid of science, as well as demostrating how science works and how controversies and food-fights are the best generators of new ideas and cool findings.

At the same time, the openness of the Internet is changing the way scientific findings are published. Open-access online journals and public peer-review are becoming more and more favoured over the traditional journals by the scientists themselves. It was recently shown that papers published in online journals are more frequently cited than those published in traditional journals (especially if the traditional journal does not post papers online at all, or hides them behind a subscription wall). Some scientists are starting to publish data and even day-to-day lab notebooks on their blogs. The new ways of publishing science are slowly changing the way science is done. And when the way science is done and published changes, this will change the way science is funded, taught and appreciated by the wider society.

Preface and Introduction were partially based on the following blog posts:
http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2006/07/smoke_signals_blogs_and_the_fu.php
http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2006/07/blogs_and_the_future_of_scienc.php
http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2006/08/science_blogging_what_it_can_b.php

Preface to the Open Laboratory 2007

Open Laboratory 2007, the book you are holding in your hands right now, is the second science blogging anthology. The first one, the 2006 edition, was a complete surprise in every way. The idea itself, seemingly preposterous, was a surprise. The immediate, overwhelmingly positive response by science bloggers was a surprise. The number of posts submitted for consideration (over 200) was a surprise, particularly considering that the entire process was happening during the Christmas holidays, when many people go offline to travel and spend time with their family and friends. The dedication of a dozen colleagues from the scientific blogosphere who spent their holidays reading and evaluating all the submissions was a surprise. The speed at which the entire process ran was a surprise: it took less than a month from the first mention of the idea till the first copy of the book was sold. The overwhelmingly positive reviews of the book in the media and on blogs was a surprise.

At the time the first anthology was in preparation, there were a little over 700 science blogs written in English or other 'Western' languages. I had a list of all of them and visited them on a regular basis. All of those bloggers I consider to be my personal friends, even if we have never met in the physical world. Related blogs, e.g., those focusing on healthcare, medicine and nursing, also had similar numbers. There were probably about the same number of nature end environmental blogs at the time as well.

Since then, the field exploded with the number of science blogs, at least doubling over the course of the year. It is now impossible to track and list all of them, let alone read them all regularly. Due to a number of factors - and I like to think that the Science Blogging Conference and the first anthology had some impact - science blogging has hit the mainstream in 2007. Almost every major science journal and magazine published an article on science blogging during this year and most of them started their own blogs. The two oldest and largest science blogging communities that were formed the previous year, Scienceblogs.com (hosted by the Seed Media Group) and Nature Blog Network (hosted by the journal Nature), became online centers of scientific blogging and are both very well represented in the second anthology.

All of those trends were already apparent early in the year, just after the first book was published. Many took it for granted that publication would become an annual event. It quickly became obvious that the challenge of editing the second anthology would be too big for just one person's labor of love and a few weeks of work during the holidays. I needed to start the process early and I needed some help. The solution I came up with is to ask a prominent science blogger, each year a different person, to serve as the Editor of the anthology, while I would provide continuity and consistency by acting as a series editor.

Thus, for the 2007 edition, I asked Dr. Reed Cartwright, a genetics postdoc at North Carolina State University and the power behind two excellent blogs (The Panda's Thumb and De Rerum Natura), to serve as the Editor. This volume is the product of a year of his hard and dedicated work. He set up an automated submission system and several other online tools used to collect and evaluate the submitted posts, to communicate with the judges and authors, and to edit and prepare the manuscript. All of those tools made the job possible and will certainly be used again next year. He guided the evaluation process, made some tough decisions, put the manuscript together and made the book look beautiful! And not just that Reed did the perfect job, but he was also a pleasure to collaborate with throughout the year.

This year's response of the blogosphere was overwhelming - almost 500 of the best science posts of the year were submitted for consideration - quite a lot to read and evaluate. So, this is the place where we should thank Anna Kushnir, Karen Davis, Tiffany Cartwright, Karen James, Anne-Marie Hodge, Michelle Kiyota, Tara Smith, Jennifer Forman Orth, David Kroll, John Dupuis, Blake Stacey, Greg Laden, Michael Rathbun, Egon Willighagen, Martin Rundkvist, Arunn Narasimhan, Mike Dunford, Steve Matheson, Brian Switek, Kevin Zelnio, John Wilkins, Jeremy Bruno, Mike Bergin, Anton Zuiker, Ian Musgrave, Peter McGrath, Alex Palazzo and Dave Bacon for their willingness to spend a considerable amount of time and effort during the holidays to help with this project, as well as Alun Salt for designing the cover. Without them, this book would have been impossible to finish on time.

In assembling this collection, as was the case last year, we were looking for the quality of writing as well as the diversity of topics, forms, voices and styles. As it is not easy to move the work produced in one medium into another medium, the posts included in this collection are probably the least typical for the online environment. We had to choose posts that are capable of standing alone on the printed page without the dynamics introduced by hyperlinks, trackbacks and readers' comments. Thus, after you finish reading this collection, I hope you will venture online and take a look at science blogs in their natural medium and get the feel for the dynamic, ongoing conversation that goes on in the scientific blogosphere.

Some people are good research scientists. Some people are excellent writers. Science bloggers are both, combining their scientific expertise with the ability to turn it into a riveting story. I hope you enjoy this selection of their best essays.

Bora Zivkovic
January 13th, 2008
Chapel Hill, NC

Preface to the Open Laboratory 2008:

Printing presses, reams of paper, barrels of ink and distribution trucks are expensive. The price of printing limits how much can be distributed to the readers and who gets to write for print. The quality control is performed by a set of experts we call editors. Editors, using their best knowledge and experience, choose, among a myriad of submissions, exactly what pieces of text will see the light of day in a publication -- be it a daily newspaper, a glossy magazine or a scientific journal.

The World Wide Web is changing this in a dramatic way. The expense of writing something and publishing it online is miniscule. Thus, everyone is able to put their thoughts and ideas online, very fast, and practically for free. The quality control comes after publication and is communal -- the best, in theory, will rise to the top. Even the best of editors cannot come close to the combined expertise of millions. New measures, like online traffic, the number of incoming links, and the "Google juice" propel to the top the writings of those considered the best by the greatest number of other people. Of course, small groups of people peddling disnformation are capable of gaming the system and temporarily gaining online prominence, but over time, the larger groups tend to prevail and ensure that true quality wins the day.

Science is not immune to these changes either, but it has its own idiosyncratic challenges to deal with. Communication of research results among scientists still requires a pre-publication quality control -- the peer reviewers. And, for the research to be considered valid, it needs to be published in a proper scientific journal, which requires peer review and the decision-making by editors. Even as scientific journals move entirely online, and thus enabling inexpensive publication of vast numbers of scientific papers, the editorial process remains intact.

But communication among scientists is only one part of the ecosystem -- communicating science to the public is just as important. And it is here that the Web and the new technologies are eliciting the greatest changes. The online scientific papers are only at the center of an expanding circle of scientific discourse. Websites, library repositories, pre-publication sites (like arXiv and Nature Precedings), wikis, blogs, social networks (like Facebook) and microblogging platforms (like Twitter and FriendFeed) are all now parts of the ecosystem of scientific communication, all intertwined with each other and with the peer-reviewed papers.

Blogs are probably the most prominent venue of this new world of online communication. In science, blogs can be used in various ways. For instance, some blogs are a means for communication within members of a research group who may be geographically separated from each other. Other blogs are classroom tools in science education. Yet others are a part of marketing outreach by scientific organizations.

Still, the science blogs that are both the most popular and the most novel addition to this ecosystem are those written by individuals who write because of a personal passion for science and a wish to impart this passion to the lay audience. Most of those bloggers are themselves scientists, or on their way to becoming so; thus, their expertise on the topic vastly exceeds that of a science beat reporter for a local newspaper or that reporter's editor. They bring authority to their writing that most journalists in the mainstream media, outside of specialized scientific magazines, do not have. For this reason, they are quickly becoming the voices of authority on scientific topics online and increasingly the "go-to" places for a lay audience wanting their science-related news fix.

In addition, these popular bloggers also reveal their humanity every day. Aside from science, the popular science bloggers often write about other topics they feel strongly about, from politics and religion, and the trials and tribulations of life in the laboratory, to the hottest high-heeled shoes they just bought. They use humor. They use funny pictures and videos in their posts. They use regular, even colloquial language to write their posts. They are putting a human face on science, showing that science is inhabited by interesting, colorful characters far different from the popular stereotypes of insular, socially inept geeks. Their lay audience, often initially attracted to the blog by non-scientific topics, then gets to see how cool science is and how exciting it is to be a scientist.

This book, the third annual anthology of science blogging, is an attempt to showcase the best writing on science blogs to an audience not yet familiar with the science blogosphere. But a book is a print medium. It requires presses, paper, ink and trucks, which are expensive. A book severely limits what gets published and whose words are made available to the readers. How does one choose exactly which, out of millions of blogs posts, to include in such an anthology?

The solution is a combination of a traditional editorial system and the new community-based quality control. More than 520 blog posts have been submitted for consideration over the past year. Many of those were submitted by the readers because those blogs are already popular and considered to be the best by the community. Then, a panel of judges, most of them bloggers themselves, carefully read all of the entries and made suggestions to this year's editor, Jennifer Rohn, as to which blog posts most deserve to be included in this volume. Jennifer and her team took it from there and made the final decision and helped the authors polish their essays and modify them as needed for the move from the Web to print.

The result is The Open Laboratory 2008, containing 50 blog posts, one poem and one cartoon, each on a different topic, each written in a different form, each with a different voice. I hope you enjoy the quality and diversity of writing on science blogs presented in the book and I hope, even more, that reading the book will whet your appetite for more so that you seek out and start reading science blogs online in the future.

Bora Zivkovic
Chapel Hill
January 20th, 2009

clock Sun, 05/09/2010 - 11:22

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So, shall we see you again next year?

clock — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 18:27:50 +0000

So, shall we see you again next year?

Of course! Anton and I met earlier today and started planning the third Science Blogging Conference. We analyzed the responses we got so far from you, in person, by e-mail, on your blogs, on the interviews and via the feedback form (if you have not done it yet, please give us your feedback here, it's not too late) and made the first steps to make the next meeting even better.

So, watch this space! There will be news revealed, one item at a time, over the next few days and weeks. First, in a couple of days, we will announce the date and the venue for the third meeting. The other news about it (and about the Anthology) - later, be patient.

clock Sun, 02/10/2008 - 13:27

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SBC-NC'08

Open Notebook Science - session transcript

clock — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:07:13 +0000

Open Notebook Science - session transcript

On top of screencasts, podcasts and PPT files that are already available, you can now also read the full transcript of the session on Public Scientific Data from the Science Blogging Conference. And much more here....

clock Fri, 02/08/2008 - 05:07

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Thanks for posting Bora

Thank you! All of you who helped Science Blogging Conference be a success!

clock — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:57:07 +0000

Thank you! All of you who helped Science Blogging Conference be a success!

The second annual North Carolina Science Blogging Conference, held January 18 and 19, 2008, was an unqualified success. Find a comprehensive listing of links to the many blog entries and video clips posted before, during and after the conference to learn about the conversations and networking at the conference.

Like our inaugural event, this second conference was a collective activity — many, many organizations, companies and individuals pitched in, in ways large and small, to keep this conference free, attendees fed and the discussion lively.

Please join us in thanking them. (We thanked the sponsors of the first event here.)

Leaders
As I stated several times before, the Conference would never have happened without the vision, know-how and persistance of my friend Anton Zuiker. Brian Russell was behind the scenes all year, providing us important support and technical advice. Wayne Sutton, newly appointed to his job as online community organizer for NBC-17, crisscrossed the Triangle, all the while trying out every new online networking tool that came to his attention. Wayne and Brian streamed or recorded many of the conference sessions, broadening the audience of the conference. Tola Oguntoyinbo set up the Conference Commons that aggregated blogs posts, Flickr pics and other content tagged scienceblogging.com.

Paul Jones was our institutional contact, offering ibiblio.org support; with his help, UNC-CH School of Journalism and Mass Communication once again provided a home base for our finances and accounting, and the UNC Health Sciences Library allowed us the use of its fantastic computer lab for the blogging skills session.

Donors
Even before our 2007 event was over, Russ Campbell of Burroughs Wellcome Fund was urging us to think bigger, and helping us win the funds to do so. The substantial grant from Burroughs Wellcome anchored the rest of our fundraising.

Roger Harris, Chris Brodie and Rosalind Reid of Sigma Xi also pledged their support at the first conference, and that led to Sigma Xi offering its beautiful building for the event. Interim Executive Director Linda Meadows gave us a nice welcome (and sent a touching congratulations note). Meg Murphy worked with us over many months to plan the best use of the space, and she calmly took in our mercurial program changes.

JMP Software, was another repeat sponsor and cash donor. New donors this years were the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, The Hamner Institute for Health Sciences, CrossRef and WNCN NBC-17 — their generous gifts allowed us to guarantee an ample supply of coffee, good food throughout the day (including vegetarian options) and travel grants to many of our discussion leaders.

Science lab tours
This year, we introduced pre-conference activities including visits to local science labs. Karl Bates at Duke University (he’s just unveiled a cool new site, Research at Duke) helped to line up three popular lab tours. Erin Knight at the Hamner Institutes, Cyndy Yu Robinson of the EPA, and Roy Campbell at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences also set up and facilitated tours of labs at their organizations.

Grab bag of science swag
Once again, we worked hard to put together a grab bag filled with useful, interesting and fun resources — not just stuff, but science-related materials that could inform conference attendees and then be shared with the libraries, schools and newsrooms in the communities of the attendees. The Museum of Life and Science (cool new website) and American Association for the Advancement of Science, at the instigation of Troy Livingston, VP for innovation & learning, stepped up to provide awesome canvas tote bags.

And into those bags we stuffed materials from ACD Labs, American Scientist, The HMS Beagle Project, Campbell-Kibler Associates, Columbia University Press, Coral Reef Alliance, Discover, HarperCollins, Michigan State University, MSNBC, National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, National Geographic Society, Nature, OpenHelix, Oregon Public Broadcasting, PLoS-One, Project Exploration, Science News, Scienceblogs, Scientific American, Seed Publishing, Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project, The Scientist, Wired and Wired Science.

Discussion Leaders
The conference offered 14 sessions in all, and each session was led by one or more individuals. See the program page to see who did what. Special thanks to Adnaan Wasey and Abel Pharmboy for very ably filling in as discussion moderators at the last moment. The rest: Dr.Hemai Parthasarathy, Janet Stemwedel, Adnaan Wasey, Kevin Zelnio, Karen James, Rick MacPherson, Peter Etnoyer, Jason Robertshaw, Vedran Vucic, Suzanne Franks, Karen Ventii, Patricia B. Campbell, ScienceWoman , David Warlick, Martin Rundkvist, Shelley Batts, Sarah Wallace, Anne-Marie Hodge, Anna Kushnir, Brian Switek, Xan Gregg, Jean-Claude Bradley, Tara Smith, Becky Oskin, Dave Munger, Chris Mooney, Jennifer Jacquet, Sheril Kirshenbaum and Jennifer Ouellette.

Volunteers
Anton's mother, Cheryl Zuiker, wanted to see her son in action, so she volunteered to work the registration table at the conference. Elle Cayabyab Gitlin and Abel Pharmboy also helped greet people, and Brian Switek and Martin Rundkvist passed out T-shirts and grab bags. Rob Zelt picked up the morning pastries and got them to the hall on time. Rob and Wayne and Brian (and myself) assisted Anton during the Friday skills session.

All those heavy grab bags of science swag? It took a crew to pack those: Ernie Hood, John Rees, Wayne Sutton, Anton Zuiker, Andrea Novicki, Troy Livingston, Brian Russell and Jonathan Tarr.

The Food
Meals were catered or ordered from Fetzko Coffees (Brian and Ruby suggested this), Weaver Street Market, Saladelia Cafe, Locopops and Bullocks Barbecue. The Friday dinner was held at Town Hall Grill (whose owner is very grateful for the blog coverage of the excellent food and service they provided).

So, thanks again to all the individuals and organizations supporting our free, public-understanding-of-science conference. If I’ve missed you, please tell me so that I can acknowledge your role in making this event so successful.

clock Mon, 01/28/2008 - 03:57

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Open Lab 2007 - soon in a bookstore near you!

clock — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 09:09:34 +0000

Open Lab 2007 - soon in a bookstore near you!

The day before yesterday, my copy of The Open Laboratory 2007, the second annual science blogging anthology, arrived in the mail.

So yesterday, Reed and I met at a coffee shop and looked it over. It looks great! Reed knows what he's doing and is a perfectionist, so of course the book looks perfect.

So, I went back online to Lulu.com and approved the book to be sold in various online and offline bookstores. The book information will be sent to Bowker's Books In Print and once approved by Bowker, Lulu will upload the title to their distribution network. This process is generally completed within 2-3 weeks. You can expect to see the book listed on Amazon.com and other online retailers within the next 6 to 8 weeks.

As for brick stores, let's hope they pick the book out from the catalogue. But you can help in this department. Each one of you, no matter where you live, probably have a favourite local independent bookstore. Next time you visit there, tell them you'd like to see them carry this item:

The Open Laboratory: The Best Science Writing on Blogs 2007 (Lulu.com, 2008; ISBN: 978-1-4357-0832-7).

I know I'll be calling Nancy at Quail Ridge Books and Katharine at Market Street Books around here.

The book will always be available online on Lulu.com - just go here and place your order (you can save money by buying a downloadable PDF, but then you will miss the feel of holding a pretty book in your hands and it does make a difference). Buy an extra copy and donate it to your local library. Use it in the classroom (or suggest it to a teacher you know). Buy a few and save them for next year's Christmas presents.

The proceeds will go to BlogTogether.org and will be used for the organization of the next Science Blogging Conference and the editing of the next edition of the anthology next year. If this is something you want to support, keep in mind that the royalties are greater if you buy directly from Lulu.com than from any other source.

If you work for MSM and want a review copy of the PDF, contact Reed about it. I will also try to see if Lulu.com will print a few review copies of the book for me to distribute to science magazines and journals that are interested in reviewing it. Note to authors: I am still working on getting the free copy for each one of you like Lulu.com did for last year's anthology authors.

The first review is already out! You can read it in today's issue of Nature:

The editor of this second anthology of the best scientific communiques from the blogosphere thinks blogs offer new ways to discuss science. The Open Laboratory 2007: the Best Science Writing on Blogs (Lulu.com, 2008) takes the curious approach of using dead tree format to highlight the diversity of scientific ideas, opinions and voices flowing across the Internet. Every year a different guest editor -- here Reed Cartwright, a blogger and genetics and bioinformatics postdoc from North Carolina State University -- picks the best posts to coincide with the Science Blogging Conference (in North Carolina on 19 January). First-hand accounts bring to life the stresses of a graduate student, a mother returning to the bench and an archaeologist's joy at unearthing mammoth fossils. Topics tackled are as varied as the writers, from Viagra and tapeworms to trepanning. Explanations are often offered with a personal twist, such as a father's tale of his child's Asperger's syndrome. The measured voices of trustworthy academics make medical research easy to swallow. If you are overwhelmed by the surge in science-related blogging and don't know where to start, then this compilation may help you steer a course through the sea of perspectives on offer -- or inspire you to start a blog yourself.

Now, buy The Book!

clock Thu, 01/24/2008 - 04:09

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Blogging

Books

SBC-NC'08

Got mine a few days ago, looks nice. To be honest, I bought it mostly as archive. "what?" you say. "I didn't notice any of your mumblings being nominated!" Ahh, yes, but I found out a little something about what can happen when one's random-arse comments get extensively quoted in a later post....

so with that motivation for purchase and with an approach of skepticism that I needed a hardcopy of stuff I can just read online, I started thumbing through. I did notice myself reading a few things that I would never have looked at from the list of titles that Bora put up a while back. there is still something to be said for a book....

I received mine a few days ago and have been reading a little every night. Although I read many of the entries while judging, there is something about holding the pretty book in my hand and reading them again that gives me such pleasure ....

Bora and Reed did an outstanding job of putting this together. I look forward to reading the next one!

Looking is very good and the topics inside are very interesting. I want to buy one copy. Unfortunately, it's too much expensive for me. Last year the page number is more, but cheaper 10$ (just 19.95$), I am a poor student, but I want the real copy, not pdf version. No way, I may have to buy it late, because I need time to collect money. Hope it is not gonna be late, I am afraid that it is out of print. T_T waiting for me at least for 3 months, then I will get you.

Science Blogging Conference - Videos and essential blog posts

clock — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 08:02:24 +0000

Science Blogging Conference - Videos and essential blog posts

[Bumped up to make it easier for me to update, and links placed under the fold so not to clutter the front page]

Here's a collection of blog posts written during the Science Blogging Conference (more will be added over the next couple of days as people write their posts after recovering from travel) and the collection of video recordings of several sessions. Also, check out all the other action from today....

Friday, January 18th, 2008: Blogging101, Lab Tours and Dinner

Saturday, January 19th, 2008: Liveblogging the Conference

Post-Conference Blogging:

Post-Conference Interviews on A Blog Around The Clock':

SBC'08 Interviews

Live Video Archive (thanks to Wayne Sutton)

Scienceblogging.com Session: Open Science: http://ustream.tv/recorded/FpSIsRC5.tj6TcTETBI.QWfQLJ2O8phf

Blogging about the social sciences and humanities: http://ustream.tv/recorded/N0HEJ3KozZE6ckyDnkjTzp.VBYK3cgTY

Building interactivity into your blog: http://ustream.tv/recorded/6IeUKtgsHnECR3kwBu9xZZ.VBYK3cgTY

Framing science panel intro part 1 welcome: http://ustream.tv/recorded/ctIQ5k7slFIRktbEzswpxw

Changing Minds through Science Communication: http://ustream.tv/recorded/A8oUYgd0kiMi07XRSZGQbJ.VBYK3cgTY

Adventures in Science Blogging with Jennifer Ouellette: http://ustream.tv/recorded/csF01RPwJjYk3KL7A3mrma8pa3k2rY3j

clock Thu, 01/24/2008 - 03:02

Tags

SBC-NC'08

New development for discussion of science and empirical reason here:

http://acropolisreview.blogspot.com/2008/01/blogger-welcomes-hebrew-ara…

The archive of the Real-time blogging in the marine science session is available here:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/dkDmE1uRAclXe8av3mFwbZ.VBYK3cgTY

http://www.ustream.tv/waynesutton/videos

Circa 15,000 views already of Wayne's Conference footage. WOW =)

I have read this post. This is very much true. Even I own a blog account on video conferencing. Video conferencing is indeed a great innovation in technology and communications. One day video conferencing will be like an ordinary house-hold item in the next 5-10 years.I will mention your post in my blog.

The science blogging conferences are really doing a great job , because of it you can get all the valuable information about science easily on the internet with featured videos . Great share !!

The idea which I got from a conference room environment that delivered an experience which is so true to life an executive could use the solution instead of spending time and money traveling to meetings. The investment which I made on time the returns of the company justify the expense. The profits margin has increased tremendously.

So, how was it for you?

clock — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 09:15:34 +0000

So, how was it for you?

If you have not done it yet, please fill a brief questionnaire about your experience at the Science Blogging Conference. We will meet in a couple of weeks to analyze how it went and to start brainstorming the ways we can make the next conference even better.

So far, we received 46 responses through that form and have been reading them carefully. One of the responders was not even there - he fully participated in the proceedings online, watching the streaming videos and participating in chatrooms in real time, then blogging about it. I wish there was a way to send locopops - the high point of the conference for some people, according to the survey - via internet (it's a set of tubes, after all, so what could be easier, right?) to all of those who followed the meeting virtually. Imagine just logging in, choosing the flavor (spicy Mexican chocolate, yum!) and clicking "Send" and, voila, the popsicle appears from a little chute on the side of your computer!

BTW, I have been dutifully updating the Blog and Media coverage page on the wiki, so you can see what people are saying about the conference. Several sessions are described in detail, there are several videos and screencasts, and some conversations started at the meeting are now continuing on blogs.

clock Wed, 01/23/2008 - 04:15

Tags

SBC-NC'08

Hmmm - I can't think where you might have seen the name for this blog post Bora ;-)

Thanks for the virtual locopops BTW. Very tasty....

I see the form has questions related to what we might want to see in future conferences, but no way to indicate "I couldn't afford to go to this one"...
I'd have loved to have gone, and I'd love to go to the next one, but don't know if I'll be able to afford money or time to do so when it comes around.

@Epicanis,

I personally couldn't afford to go this year (UK based) but am already thinking about how I might source funding to attend in person in 2009.

From my experience this year (and next year is bound to be better still), on-line participation for those who cannot make it in person for WHATEVER reason is stunningly good.

Check out the wiki as above (very detailed) and learn about/watch what you missed.

SBC - the Grand Opening

clock — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:03:04 +0000

SBC - the Grand Opening

Brian Russell recorded some sessions at the Conference and is now putting them up on Blip.TV. Here is the first clip, the very beginning of the Conference on Saturday:

clock Tue, 01/22/2008 - 13:03

Tags

SBC-NC'08

Cool! This looks like a really interesting weekend, and I look forward to seeing more video. Top quality, BTW - at least on this pc

SciBlings at the Conference

clock — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 18:04:45 +0000

SciBlings at the Conference

There is something about being on scienceblogs.com that is different - and bigger - than just being a science blogger on a prominent platform. Something that others are still trying to figure out and emulate. And that is the friendship that we have all developed between us. We are like a big family - we call each other SciBlings, after all. Whenever we travel, we try to meet. Although we are spread all around the USA, as well as Canada, Australia, the U.K., and Sweden, we have been quite successful at meeting each other in Real Life.

The Science Blogging Conference was a great excuse for meeting each other - and there were 20 of us there. This makes this meeting the Vice-Champion of SciBling gatherings, only bested by last August's Big SciBling Meetup in New Tork City, which boasted 35 sciencebloggers. And we'll keep doing it. Here are the SciBlings who made it to North Carolina this past weekend:

Martin Rundkvist
Janet Stemwedel
Tara Smith
Dave Munger
Peter Etnoyer
Kevin Zelnio
Sheril Kirshenbaum
Chris Mooney
James Hrynyshyn
Brian Switek
Evil Monkey
Sciencewoman (and Minnow)
Virginia Hughes
Shelley Batts
Karen Ventii
Jennifer Jacquet
Abel PharmBoy
Josh Rosenau
Suzanne Franks
...and me.

Go here to see our group shot!

clock Mon, 01/21/2008 - 13:04

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SBC-NC'08

You're forgetting South Africa in that there list of SciBling-occupied countries...

Darn, you are right. And it's not that I forgot (except at the time of writing this post), as I thought about this very fact last night in another context!

I do envy the relationship the SciBlings have. It makes blogging, a solitary activity by design, seem less isolating and much warmer. I hope that Nature Network Blogs can emulate the SciBling sense of community, even if to a small degree.

Student Blogging

clock — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:21:11 +0000

Student Blogging

During the Student blogging panel--from K to Ph D at the Conference (actually, the session I enjoyed the best of all - and that is not easy as all the sessions were fantastic), a point came up about the way universities are slowly changing their attitudes toward students blogging. Actually, one of the panelists, Sarah Wallace, is a direct beneficiary of a recent 180-degrees turn by Duke University. Instead of looking askance at student blogging, Duke is now actively encouraging students to write blogs about their research, providing them with the platform and tech support and faculty guidance.

So, it is nice to see that another batch of Duke students is blogging right now - from Hawaii - Nicholas School Students Visit Hawaii's Marine National Monument:

A group of our Master of Environmental Management students, professors Andy Read and Dave Johnston, and environmental journalist Eugene Liden are exploring Papahanaumokuakea, America's largest marine wilderness, through Jan. 25. As they make their way through the Northwestern Hawaiian islands, they will be sending back regular blog posts and photos about what they are learning. They also are videotaping the experience, and we will make clips available soon after the trip. I thought you might want to check out the site and share it if you think people in your area might be interested. So far they have spent three days in Oahu, and yesterday they flew to Midway and should post from there by tomorrow.

Check them out - the new generation of science bloggers is coming up! And they are good!

clock Mon, 01/21/2008 - 12:21

Tags

Blogging

SBC-NC'08

Science Education

All writers write best when they are passionate about somethiing. And not all students are passionate about the subject of the course in which they are asked to keep a blog. I think that simply saying, read someones weblog and comment on it isnt enough. But perhaps the week that I ask my students, blog a current event as it unfolds over several days, someone else could assing, read the current event blogging on these student websites and evaluate their technique, or something like that. Just a thought.