PLoS Blogs – the science blogging network!

Earlier today, Public Library of Science (PLoS) launched a wonderful (if I may say so myself) new science blogging networks – PLoS Blogs!

The network was built by Brian Mossop, the Community Manager at PLoS Hubs and blogger at Decision Tree (Twitter). Any questions? Just e-mail him at: bmossop@plos.org

Brian was ably assisted by a team of PLoS staffers, including Sara Wood, Pete Binfield, Liz Allen and Richard Cave, among others (yup, I left a few fingerprints around the site as well).

You should read the About section at the network, introductory post by Liz Allen, and a post describing the history of the project and the concept by Brian Mossop.

The network has two parts. The PLoS Blogs are editorial blogs you are already familiar with from before: the official PLoS Blog, everyONE (PLoS ONE community blog) and Speaking of Medicine (PLoS Medicine community blog).

The other part, the new part, is The PLoS Blogosphere, a collection of independent science bloggers who have moved (or started new) blogs on the network today.

While media organizations have stable-fulls of professional writers and may tend to want to enlist scientists to write their blogs in a different tone from the rest of their fare, or as scientific societies may like to enlist professional writers to do the blogging for them, PLoS wanted to do something different: have scientist-bloggers and science-journalist-bloggers writing side by side.

PLoS possesses a huge database of excellent scientific research in their seven journals. But scientific papers tend to be written for other researchers in the same field and can be difficult to read – they need translation. On the other end, PLoS has an excellent social media presence and great ongoing relationship with bloggers elsewhere. What this network does is provide the stuff in-between – a translation of research and other science news targeted at educated lay audience interested in science.

The starting line-up at the network is:

Speakeasy Science: Deborah Blum

The Language of Bad Physics: Sarah Kavassalis

Body Politic: Melinda Wenner Moyer

Wonderland: Emily Anthes

Take As Directed: David Kroll

Neuroanthropology: Daniel Lende and Greg Downey

Obesity Panacea: Peter Janiszewski and Travis Saunders

Gobbledygook: Martin Fenner

GenomeBoy: Misha Angrist

NeuroTribes: Steve Silberman

The Gleaming Retort: John Rennie

Check them out, and go say Hello in the comments on their first posts on the network.

Grab the RSS feed (I have already placed it on the homepage of Scienceblogging.org).

You can follow the network also on Twitter – @plosblogs or the hashtag #plogs.

Check out the blog posts reacting to the launch as well: Phil Yam at Scientific American, Daniel Lende, Jason Goldman, Greg Laden, John Dupuis, Deborah Blum, ihatewasabi, Sara Kavassalis, Hank Campbell, John Stafford, Grant Jacobs, Casey Rentz, Sammy Smith and Carl Zimmer.