The year in review meme is too random to really capture the highlights of a year on a blog. So, here is a collection of links that I think mark the most important moments of this blog in the last year:
January (297 posts) was dominated by the science blogging anthology and the science blogging conference, so it was filled mostly with re-posts of the old stuff, quick links and only a couple of science posts. This was also the time when my name first appeared in the media. This is also the time when I started writing more about Open Science. All of this combined resulted in a large and permanent rise in traffic.
February (245 posts) started with a push for funding of the Beagle Project. This was followed by the saga of Amanda and Melissa getting hired and then having to quit as blogmasters for Edwards. And much more politics. Among the myriads of quotes, reposts and quick links, I also wrote several science posts, including three popular ones: Sex On The (Dreaming) Brain, The Lark-Mouse and the Prometheus-Mouse and Lesson of the Day: Circadian Clocks are HARD to shift!.
In March (229 posts) we started early with the organization of the 2nd Science blogging conference and anthology. I wrote about blogging, about open science, about science education, about recent Balkan history, about the Belgrade Zoo, about religion and still a lot about U.S. politics. I put together a google-bombing Michael Egnor linkfest and a CoulterFest. And I wrote a bunch of brief science posts, as well as one or two longer ones, including Cortisol necessary for circadian rhythm of cell division and Evo-Devo: what new animal models should we pick?.
In April (191 posts), there was a famous kerfuffle about fair use of images in science blogging. And then, even more famous blogospheric debate on Framing Science for which I wrote something like ten posts (included in that linkfest). And lots and lots of fun little posts. But April is special because that is when I posted not my most popular but my most famous blog post ever – this one – and what made it famous is not what I wrote, but this comment and the chain of events it precipitated.
In May (210 posts), after going to San Francisco for the interview, I got the job! I got invited to scifoo. Some early influences and a deeply personal post. The Framing Science debate continues. Interesting comment thread on recent Balkan history. More on science education. We celebrated Linneaus’ 300th birthday. A paper came out suggesting Viagra as a treatment for jet-lag and I poked holes in it. Some other papers were better, so check out my takes on them: A Pacemaker is a Network and Flirting under Moonlight on a Hot Summer Night, or, The Secret Night-Life of Fruitflies.
In June (222 posts) I got a new cat. A rare post on religion. Why are dinosaur fossils’ heads turned up and back? Everything important cycles. A longish post on Science 2.0 and one on sociology of social networks. The power of name. Scientists vs. science journalists. And again. Welcoming the Nature Precedings.
I spent most of July (275 posts) in San Francisco. Busy with the new job and exploring this cool city, I mostly scheduled re-posts of the best old science posts. I got a new laptop. While I was there, PLoS ONE introduced ratings. My brother went to Belgrade and got my Mom a new computer and cable internet so she could read my blog and post comments. Still, I managed to review Rainbows End and, related to it, Facebook. Science envy. Posted the exclusive science interview with John Edwards. I did a lot of photoblogging in July – see this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this (and those are not all!) where you can see cool people I met and interesting places I went. Oh, I did write a science post, too: The Amplitude Problem.
In August (200 posts) it was time to leave San Francisco, over beer with friends, of course. And then, go to the amazing Science Foo Camp (where, among other things, I got served lunch by Martha Stewart) – see, for instance, my coverage here, here, here, here and, after I got home, here and a final, long wrap-up here – an absolutely amazing experience! So, I got home and moved into my new office and got back into the North Carolina blogworld. Then, it was time to go to NYC for the big SciBling meetup, where I took a lot of pictures and posted them (so you can see how sciencebloggers look like) here, here, here, here, here, here and here (the famous karaoke bar). Blogging after that was pretty quick-and-dirty, with just an occasional foray into serious writing, for instance, What is an Author? And then, it was time to debunk and defeat PRISM.
September (183 posts): false journalistic balance. An internet joke that brought in tons of traffic from social networking sites. Discovered the Zoo School. And some thoughts on textbooks. Rethinking FOXP2. You can send trackbacks to PLoS ONE papers. A great croc paper by Steve Irwin. The big blogging event was a combo of scienceblogging and foodblogging. After getting tagged by others a million times, I decided to start a new meme. The call to Senate to approve the NIH bill was successul. Oxytocin and childbirth. Running, breathing and being a horse.
October (231 posts) was a month of intense travel. I gave a presentation at UNC, then I led a session at ConvergeSouth in Greensboro and a few days later was a part of a panel at the ASIS&T conference in Milwaukee, and then I had a poster in Second Life. PLoS announced its new journal. Sciencebloggers raked in a ton of money for science education through DonorsChoose. There is no soul. The organization of the Science Blogging Conference is heating up. Reintroducing Journal Clubs on PLoS ONE papers. A global slant to Nobel Prizes. Senate passes the NIH bill (Bush vetoes it, but the OA language remains intact). Blogging on Peer-Reviewed Research (BPR3) gets started.
November (170 posts) started with the surprise visit by the PLoS ONE managing editor. Then I wrote a serious post about authorship on scientific papers. But the big event was the trip to Boston/Cambridge MA for a panel at Harvard. See my coverage here, here and here. And right after that, I had a lot of work to do in preparation for the publication of the Nigersaurus paper and the subsequent media attention. Locally, we had a wineblogging meetup and a meeting with Rep. Brad Miller. SAGE ventures into Open Access. Has the word “gene” outlived its usefulness? Shift Work labeled as a Probable Cause of Cancer.
December (184 posts so far) – so, have you hugged your horse today? My tour-de-force post, possibly the best post of the year: The Scientific Paper: past, present and probable future. A feminist/Freudian tongue-in-cheek review of the Golden Compass. The big push to get the Presidential candidates to agree to a Science Debate. For this, I posted some of my own potential debate questions: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. The Lab Website awards have been announced. PLoS ONE is one year old. All the entries for the Open Lab 2007 are now available for everyone to see. There are at least six species of giraffe, not just one. Hanukkah was good to us – I got a new camera, and my wife and daughter got an XO laptop each. My Mom went to Israel for a conference and is guest-blogging about it – see the part I and part II so far.
Enough links here to fill the rest of your holidays?
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