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Category Archives: Blogging
Blogging Teach-in
Just came back from the first Durham blogging teach-in of the year. Pam, Brian and Anton were there and we introduced some new interesting people to the wonderful world of blogging (and they started their own new wordpress blogs).
If you are in the Triangle NC area, we are doing the same thing next week – same place and time: Durham public library 10am-12noon.
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Posted in Blogging, North Carolina
Classroom Blog
I am starting my BIO101 for adults course again on Monday and this time I am deteremined to use a blog in the classroom. To begin with, I copied my lecture notes here (still needs some fiddling and editing before Monday) and we’ll see how it works out.
Posted in Blogging, Science Education
The Future of the Interview
Excellent article by Jeff Jarvis: The obsolete interview (hat-tip: Anton). As I’ve been interviewed several times this year, I agree. The world is changing: media, just like science publishing (see below) and getting a job (see further below) will change….
Second Science Blogging Conference
Yes, we are working on it. Anton just put up the new wiki and the first scaffolding for the program. At this point in time we certainly invite your suggestions, but mostly are looking for sponsors in order to see how ambitious we can be next year in comparison to the First Conference.
Oh, and don’t forget to submit your nominations for the second edition of The Open Laboratory.
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Posted in Blogging
Fair Use and Open Science
Update: The issue has been resolved amicably and Shelley has some further thoughts. And some even more further thoughts. The discussion will continue here on Scienceblogs and elsewhere in the follwoing days….
If you read other Scienceblogs and not just me, you are likely quite aware of the “Wiley Affair”, but if you are not here is a quick summary:
Posted in Blogging, Science Practice, Science Reporting
Blogger Perceptions on Digital Preservation Survey
If you have a moment, this is a useful study to participate in:
Do you blog? If yes, then please consider participating in an online survey from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science. The study, Blogger Perceptions on Digital Preservation, is being conducted under the guidance of the Real Paul Jones. The study team is interested in hearing from all bloggers on their perceptions on digital preservation in relation to their own blogging activities, as well as the blogosphere in general. To hear more about this survey, please visit the study’s fact sheet at http://www.ils.unc.edu/~hcarolyn/blogsurvey/. From there, you can link out to the web-based survey. The survey will be available from April 25 through May 23, 2007. We believe blogs are valuable records of the human experience. Help to contribute to continued access to these important records by participating in our study. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Carolyn Hank, the study Principle Investigator, at hcarolyn AT email DOT unc DOT edu. Thanks!
Update on “I Want This Job!”
Blogs! A new world! Breaking new frontiers all the time!
A few days ago, PLoS ONE posted a few job ads, including this one. A friend of mine saw it and thought the job-description was pretty much a Bora-description (another friend wrote in an e-mail that all it is missing is a clause “must be a Red-State Serbian Jewish atheist liberal PhD student”), so he sent me the link.
Some people like to keep secrets, but I like to air my thoughts in public (why have a blog otherwise?) so I posted my thoughts about it late on Friday night and decided to sleep on it, think about it over the weekend, consult with my wife, my kids, my brother, my mother and a few good (blogging) friends, then formally apply on Monday (yesterday).
Next morning, I woke up to a comment by the Managing Editor of PLoS ONE asking if my blog-post should be considered as a formal job application. My comment in response was a Yes.
Now, that’s a first! I never consciously try to be the first in everything, but it seems that such things always happen to me. The first to have a blog-post cited in a paper, the first to publish data, the first to organize a Science Blogging Conference, the first to edit a Science Blogging Anthology… I just do what I want and like. By not having anyone to answer to but myself, I have more freedom than most other science bloggers to do what I want and like and break new ground in the process. So why not be the first to apply for a job by posting on my blog, then formally apply by posting a comment on the post?
Anyway, I can’t tell you all the details right now, but we are talking and I may go for an interview soon. I’ll keep you posted if and when something remarkable happens.
Oh, btw, you can also be online frontier pioneers by posting one-sentence letters of recommendations in the comments to that post (or this one) if you feel like it…
Posted in Blogging
I Want This Job!
It has ‘Coturnix’ written all over it, don’t you think? I am even wearing my PLoS t-shirt right now as I am typing this!
But, why is it necessary to move to San Francisco? My wife is terrified of earthquakes and CA is one state she always said she would never move to.
Looking at the job description, everything can be easily done sitting in my pajamas here in Chapel Hill, or on a submarine, or on the Moon. It’s all online:
PLoS ONE Online Community Manager
The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit advocacy and publishing organization located in the China Basin area of San Francisco, California. We publish a growing collection of Open Access scientific and medical journals whose complete contents are freely available online. Our long-term goals are to create an online “public library of science” containing every scientific and medical paper ever published, and to develop the information technologies needed to maximize the value of this resource. For more information about PLoS, visit http://www.plos.org/.
Job Description
PLoS ONE is a high volume, efficient and economical system for the publication of peer-reviewed research in all areas of science and medicine. But what makes PLoS ONE really different happens after publication – users are able to annotate, comment on, and rate articles. To facilitate and moderate this post-publication interaction, we’re looking for someone with a scientific background to help guide PLoS ONE through high growth, gather feedback from the online community and keep discussions on topic.
You will be responsible for managing the PLoS ONE user community, monitoring the discussion threads, expanding membership and organically growing the site based on community feedback. PLoS ONE will be adding new technology to foster relationship-building throughout the year and you will help shape this technology. You will also work with focus groups and external communities to gather feedback and promote PLoS ONE.
This should not be your first role with an online community. We would like a couple of years experience working directly within an online community, preferably with an online scientific community.
This is a full-time, permanent position available immediately at our San Francisco office, and we are looking to fill it as soon as possible. Our salaries are competitive for nonprofit organizations, but less than comparable salaries in the corporate environments. Compensation is dependent on qualifications. PLoS offers a benefits package which includes vacation, 401(k), health, vision and dental coverage.
The responsibilities of the Online Community Manager include, but are not limited, to the following:
* Field questions from the online community.
* Work to grow the number of participants and activity on the site.
* Moderate the discussions threads and forums (which will be scientific in nature).
* Help keep the online community free of spam and on topic.
* Create and implement specific policies to guide positive growth in the online community.
* Identify problems and create solutions to social and technical problems in the forums.
* Translate online community requirements into business opportunities.
* Work with marketing team to develop e-marketing campaigns specific to the online community.
* Communicate technical issues to the web team and advise the online community on issues.
* Use an in-house Content Management System to update the website.
* Perform statistical analysis using web logs.
* Upload files to Unix servers using standard and secure FTP programs.
* Carry out other technical and site administration duties as required.
Knowledge Skills and Abilities
* 2-5 years of “hands on” professional experience with moderation and management of online communities, specifically online scientific communities. Compulsive participation a plus.
* Strong understanding of online communities, blogging and current online culture.
* A broad understanding of and enthusiasm for science.
* Strong verbal and written communication skills for monitoring online communication.
* Must work well with others; be willing and able to support end users in a constructive manner.
* Understanding, experience and comfort with Open Source technology.
* Proven ability to effectively analyze and communicate complicated technical and social issues to a management team.
* Good judgment and the ability to handle multiple conflicting goals without active supervision.
* Sense of humor and the ability to handle screaming masses of highly opinionated scientists without going insane.
* A passion for and an understanding of how to leverage Web 2.0 tools for social change.
* Must be passionate about working with the scientific community.
* Excellent analytical and problem solving skills.
Education
* BA Degree or equivalent experience.
Application Procedure
If interested please send resume and cover letter to jobs@plos.org and use the job title as the subject of your email. No phone calls or visits, please. Principals only – email from recruiters will be ignored.
If there is any aspect of this job that you think I am unsuited for, let me know. If there is another person who you think would be a great candidate for this, let that person know.
Update: Actually, a total move to SF is not out of question (now that we discussed this at home). Still, SF is the most expensive city to live in (so people are leaving for the sub/ex-urbs and adding to the rush-hour traffic even more). I was thinking I could start out in SF for a month or two, then work from here and just go to SF when needed.
Posted in Blogging, Science Practice, Science Reporting, Workplace
One-Stop Shopping for the Framing Science Debate
You may be aware that there is a huge discussion about framing science going on in the blogosphere. It has gotten out of hand. But, for those who want to dig in, or want to analyze the posts and comments (that is a lot of data!), here is the comprehensive list of links (excluded are links to Creationists’ sites). Most of the posts also have long and interesting comment threads as well, worth reading through:
Posted in Blogging, Framing Science
Covering Science in Cyberspace
Science journalists and science communicators who attended the Knight New Media Center Best Practices: Covering Science in Cyberspace seminar in March 2007 collectively wrote a blog during the meeting:
Two dozen prominent science journalists and science communicators were invited to participate in this special conference with three goals: 1) Identify the critical issues facing science journalists in the digital age; 2) identify innovative forms of multimedia story-telling and presentation of complex issues online; and 3) identify “best practices” for coverage of science issues on digital platforms. Among the topics discussed were:
* Defining exactly what is “science”;
* Revealing untold science stories and determining why they have not been told;
* Exploring visual journalism and digital story telling techniques.
Knight New Media Center welcomes comments from readers related to the journalists’ specific discussions or related to the more general topic of science journalism. To post your comments, please browse the blog posts once the seminar has begun.
There are some interesting entries there.
(Hat-tip: Anton)
Posted in Blogging, Science Reporting
Blogger Meetup
Chapel Hill/Carrboro blogger meetup will be on Wednesday, April 18 at 6:30pm at Milltown Restaurant and Bar in Carrboro.
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Posted in Blogging, North Carolina
Why are lab webpages sooooo last millenium?
Pimm thinks that
scientists were out of the first inhabitants of the word wide web, and most academic web pages were made by scientist-turned web geeks in the 1.0 era.
He shows some examples of good webpages. I added the Reffinetti lab as an example of a good one.
How’s yours? Last updated in 2004? On a corporate template?
If you have an example of a really good one, send the link to Pimm.
Posted in Blogging, Science Practice
Welcome the newest SciBlings!
Go say Hello to Jennifer Jacquet and Randy Olson (aka ‘Dodo’) at Shifting Baselines
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Posted in Blogging
‘Ask the ScienceBlogger’ returns
Remember “Ask the ScienceBlogger” series? Well, it’s back. And it is somewhat different now. Instead of putting the question out for everyone to respond to (or not) at their own leisure, this time one particular SB blog will be charged with answering the question, and others are free to chime in if they wish so afterwards.
The first question is out of the box now:
What’s the difference between psychology and neuroscience? Is psychology still relevant as we learn more about the brain and how it works?
And Dave and Greta Munger of Cognitive Daily were charged with answering it. They did the job magnificiently!
Subsequently, Jonah Lehrer posted his commentary as well.
If you have a question, send it in to the Seed Overlords and it – and the answer to it from one of us – may show up one day down the line.
If you have a question that you want me to answer – on biological rhythms, comparative animal physiology, or animal behavior – let them know you want me to be the blogger in charge of answering the question. If you have trouble e-mailing them, send the question to me and I will forward it to the appropriate Seed staffer.
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Posted in Blogging
E.O. Wilson wins 2007 TED Prize – watch his acceptance speech
2007 TED Prize winner E.O. Wilson on TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Talks:
As E.O. Wilson accepts his 2007 TED Prize, he makes a plea on behalf of his constituents, the insects and small creatures, to learn more about our biosphere. We know so little about nature, he says, that we’re still discovering tiny organisms indispensable to life; and yet we’re steadily, methodically, vigorously destroying nature. Wilson identifies five grave threats to biodiversity (a term he coined), and makes his TED wish: that we will work together on the Encyclopedia of Life, a web-based compendium of data from scientists and amateurs on every aspect of the biosphere.
Posted in Blogging, Environment, Evolution, Science Education
How to read a scientific paper
I was waiting until the last installment was up to post about this. Revere on Effect Measure took a recent paper about a mathematical model of the spread of anti-viral resistance and wrote a 16-part series leading the readers through the entire paper, from the title to the List of References and everything in between. While the posts are unlikely to garner many comments, this series will remain online as a valuable resource, something one can use to learn – or teach others – how a scientific paper is to be analyzed.
As you can see, it takes a lot of time to read a paper thoroughly. It also requires some background on the topic of the paper. A journalist on deadline is unlikely to have either the time or the necessary background to be able to read a paper in this manner before writing an article. And that is just one paper per week.
Scientists themselves rarely read all the papers as thoroughly as this. If you, like I do, go through dozens of papers per week, you find your own method of cutting down the necessary time. You skim through the abstract, figures and figure legends, perhaps some of the Discussion and – this is it. You make a mental note what the paper is about and move on. But that is reading for one’s own information only. It is not the way to read a paper one is to comment on – or write an article about. For that, one has to do it throughly, like Revere did.
If a paper is in my narrow field, or a field I am very familiar with, the first place I look is the list of references. This tells me from what tradition the paper comes from, what group of people, what mindset, what research goals and questions. That is, actually, already a LOT of information about the paper. Then I read the abstract, look at the figures and figure legends and, if necessary, scan the text of the Results section to find relevant passages connected to the figure I am interested in. Then I dig deep through the Materials and Methods because that is where flaws, if any, will be discovered. Introduction can usually be skipped – that is mainly for the readers outside of the narrow field. Then I read the Discussion carefully in the very end, by which time I already have a very good idea what the data really say so I can spot if the authors overreach in their conclusions.
As a science blogger, I would not want to write a post about a paper I have not read as throughly as that. I may post a link to it and let you evaluate it for yourself, or point out if some other blogger wrote a good review, but I would not go into a critique of my own if my familiarity with the paper was only superficial, or if it is in a field I do not have a good background in – thus, no reviews of physics papers here!
As this process takes a lot of time and effort, it is not surprising that science bloggers do not post such in-depth reviews very often. I may do one a week if Real Life allows. It is easier, quicker and gets more comments and traffic to write posts that do not require as much expertise and as much time and effort.
But doing it once in a while is still worth the effort. See this latest post on Pharyngula. It is stunning, beautiful, exciting! Yet, this was probably the post that took PZ most time and work to write of all of his many posts this week. And it is likely to get less comments, links and traffic than any of the other posts. But, unlike the commentary about current issues or the daily anti-religion screed (which are all eloquent and lovely and useful and have to be done), this post will not dissappear into the depths of his archives forever. It will remain online (and likely high on Google searches) as a resource that will be linked again and again, for years to come, by other bloggers as well as people who want to use it when teaching biology in the real-world classrooms. The same goes for Revere’s series, or for that matter every serious science post that goes into detail of an area or a single paper and explains it (and perhaps criticizes it) in plain language. There has to be room for all kinds of science blog-posts, each serving a different purpose.
So, bookmark Revere’s series, read it, and save it somewhere handy for future reference.
Blog Against Theocracy
Neural Gourmet and Blue Gal are organizing a massive blogospheric Blog Against Theocracy weekend:
I’d like invite you all to Blog Against Theocracy. This is a little blog swarm being put together by everybody’s favorite panties blogger Blue Gal for Easter weekend, April 6th through the 8th. The idea is simple. Just post something related to, and in support of, the separation of church and state each of those three days. Something big, something small, artistic, musical, textual or otherwise. The topic is your choosing. Whether your thing is stem cell research, intelligent design/Creationism, abortion rights, etc., it’s all good. Separation of church and state impacts so many issues and is essential.
Two Cultures
Scientists, as a whole, are very reluctant to write novel ideas, hypotheses or data on blogs, and are very slow to test the waters of Open, Source Publishing. Most of what one finds on science blogs is commentary on other peoples’ ideas, hypotheses and data found in journals and mass media.
On the other hand, people in the humanities/literature/art/liberal arts side of campus have long ago embraced blogging as a tool to get their rough drafts out, to refine them upon receiving feedback from commenters, and subsequently publish them in peer-reviewed journals. If you follow History Carnival, Carnivalesque or Philosopher’s Carnival, for example, you have seen many posts that are full-fledged (and full-length) scholarly articles, on their way to “real” publication.
Thus, I found it surprising that it appears the humanities side of the blogosphere is much more reluctant to experiment with some kind of peer-reviewed online publishing model, while the science side appears to be much more enthusiastic about the idea.
This is surprising as there has been gradual evolution – on both science and humanities side of the blogosphere – of the way blog carnivals are done. Besides a few general-interest or geographically limited carnivals, more and more of them are specializing in narrower topics and, thus, require a degree of expertise in the topic in order to participate. I guess that hosts of history and philosophy carnivals received – and promptly rejected – bad posts. I know I did it quite a few times when hosting various science-related carnivals. In several cases, not being really sure and not having relevant expertise on a particular topic mysef, I sent the link to another blogger (and sometimes two or three) for advice about admission into the carnival. That is, for all purposes, peer-review.
Having a peer-reviewed online blog/journal is just the next logical step (unless you have ambitions to start another thing like PLoS).
Putting such a collection together and then turning it into a hardcopy book is something that the science side of the blogosphere did a few months ago, when we put together, as a pretty collective effort, the Science Blogging Anthology. If you recall, the submissions were peer-reviewed. And the next years’ edition, besides having two editors instead of one, will also be peer-reviewed in some fashion (so please send in your entries so we have something to review).
I would love to see this become a more usual kind of thing to do. I’d love to see publication of blogging anthologies collecting the best annual output by medical, environmental, education and humanities bloggers. Will someone do it?
And, of course, making such efforts online, without of the added work of turning it into print, should be even easier, dontcha think?
Posted in Blogging, Science Practice, Science Reporting
“Why Do You Blog Meme”
I got tagged with a meme by Greg who is trying to track the branching tree of this meme, so go check his post out (especially let him know if you do one of your own). He is also instructing us that the post is supposed to be full of links….
I love blog memes, and I have done many of them, most of which in one way or another reveal “why I blog”: Academic Blog Meme, Beautiful Bird Meme, Random Quotes Meme, Silly Blog Meme, Four Meme, Hanukah meme, Zero Meme, Dirty Thirty Meme, Thinking Blogger Meme, States Meme, Obscure-But-Good-Movies Meme, Four Jobs Meme, The Blogging Blog Meme, Year in Review Meme, Browser Meme, Seven Times Seven Meme or many, different, book, memes.
And I was asked the question why I blog (or something related) a number of times, so you can check my answers, e.g., here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
So, why do I blog?
1. I don’t really want to know. Because if I ever learn the real reason, the revelation may be too scary and I may end up quitting blogging. And I don’t want to quit. Sounds like an adict talking, doesn’t it? Yup, I am a blogging junkie.
2. Because I like being “on the computer“. Which means I am communicating with dozens and hundreds of people without having to leave the comfort of my home (or getting out of my pajamas – I really am a stereotypical blogger).
3. Whatever I am doing, wherever I am going, I always have those internal monologues in my head (or sometimes dialogues with myself, but don’t tell my shrink). Sometimes they are rants against right-wing ideology or fundie religion, sometimes they are science lectures… And I always think they are brilliant and should not be forgotten. So I save them here (and the process of writing them makes the arguments better – if not, I don’t click on “Publish”). In short: big ego and lots of feeling of self-importance.
4. Everything I know about politics, ideology, religion, feminism, American history and geography, writing, online technology and how to critically read a scientific paper, I learned by reading blogs (or by getting pummelled by commenters here).
4. Procrastination, procrastination, procrastination. Is there a better reason?
This time I decided, for a change from my usual practice, to tag some of my SciBlings:
Dr. Signout
Karen
Craig
Martin
Enrique
….and the first responses are in:
Dr. Signout
Martin
Craig
Of course, if you were not tagged that does not mean you cannot voluntarily do it anyway. Joseph did.
And so did Tara.
Posted in Blogging
It seems like I am always “on the computer”
Are you, too?
Is there a good, dignified response we could invent to use in such situations?
Posted in Blogging
The Scientist article on science blogs
The April issue of The Scientist contains a good article on science blogging, titled Scooped by a Blog by David Secko (Vol. 21, Issue 4, page 21) focusing on publishing data on blogs, running an Open Notebook lab online, and the way blogs are affecting the evolution of science publishing.
The main story of the article is the story about the way Reed Cartwright’s quick comment on a paper led to his co-autorship on the subsequent paper on the topic. But you can read all about it on his blog, including the article excerpt on the story.
Others interviewed for the story are Larry Moran and Jean-Claude Bradley who will, I assume, post something about it soon. The portion of the article about me is under the fold….
Posted in Blogging, Science Practice, Science Reporting
Shakespeare’s Sister has moved!
One of my most favouritest blogs has moved from here to the pretty new digs here. And the name has changed to Shakesville to better reflect the fact that it is now a hustling, bustling group blog, not just Melissa’s. So, fix your blogrolls and feeds today.
Posted in Blogging
Publishing on blogs in social sciences
Alun Salt will be leading a session about the Peer-to-peer publishing and the creative process, i.e., publishing papers on blogs at the Classical Association conference at Birmingham so he has written a post on things he wants to say there – quite an excellent summary of pros and cons of the idea and clearing away some common misperceptions.
Heureka!
Heureka is an online popular science magazine in Austria which you should check out, especially if you can read German. But some things are in English, including this interview with yours truly…
There also blurbs about it (in German) in derStandard online and hardcopy, as well as on their science blog Sciblog.
Posted in Blogging, Personal, Science Reporting
Have you nominated a post for the 2007 Science Blogging Anthology yet?
First three months of the year are almost over and… we have only 14 entries so far for the next Science Blogging Anthology!
Everything written and posted since December 20th 2006 is fair game. Have you written something really good since then? Send it in. Have you submitted something to a carnival this year yet? Send it in. Have you hosted a carnival and received some really cool posts? Send them in. Have you discovered a great new science blog that you think everyone should know about? Pick their best post and send it in.
It’s easy, just use the submission form or click here:
Help spread the word by placing the button (code can be found here) on your own sidebar.
Also, I am wondering if there are some enterpranurial people who will assemble anthologies of the best MedBlogging, EduBlogging, EnviroBlogging, Skeptical blogging, Godless blogging, Liberal blogging, etc…. Start a whole new industry and bridge the gap between blogs and blog-shy folks by presenting our best to them in the format they are used to and they trust – the printed-on-paper books.
Triangle Blogging Teach-ins
If you are in the Triangle area on these two dates (Saturday, April 28 from 10am to noon and Saturday, May 5 from 10am to noon) and want to get some help starting your own blog, or at least starting a WordPress blog, come to the Durham Library and we’ll help you.
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Posted in Blogging, North Carolina
A high-school science blogging contest?
Alvaro of Sharp Brains (in a comment here) links to a high-school student’s science essay that he posted on his blog and asks:
Why couldn’t we approach a number of websites where science teachers hang out and propose some kind of essay contest for high-school students, with winning essays published in our blogs?
What do you think?
Posted in Blogging, Science Education
The First Annual Blogger Bioblitz
During the National Wildlife Week (April 21th – 29th), if you can, please participate in the First Annual Blogger Bioblitz:
Pick a neat little area that you are relatively familiar with and is small enough that you or the group can handle – a small thicket, a pond, a section of stream, or even your backyard – and bring along some taxonomic keys or an Audubon guide, or if you’re lucky enough, an expert in local flora and fauna. Set a time limit. Try to identify the different species of organisms that you find as well as the number of each species that you find. Take pictures if you have a digital camera, compile your numbers, make observations, set up your post however you wish as long as you include your numbers in a digestible fashion (I’ll have more details on that later) – then submit it to me and I’ll include it on the list. We will also be tallying total numbers of each species found, and then a grand total. There has also been talk of coding an interactive Google Map with distribution information, geotagging regions with a blogger’s submitted information.
Bruno has all the necessary additional information on how to participate (and why).
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Posted in Blogging, Ecology, Environment
If everything but Britney Spears is boring, why are you here?
On the heels of my last week’s post, it seems everyone is writing about journalism, blogging, and how to move back from infotainment to actual journalism, as in “information + education” which a populace needs if the democracy is to flourish. So, check out Brad DeLong, Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, Greg Anrig and Dave Neiwert on the subject of “boring” journalism and why the GOP does not want you to think policy wonkery is interesting.
Easternblot
Eva Amsen was interviewed in The Blogerati Files series on BlogTo.
Feministe
Jill started blogging on Huffington Post yesterday. Check out her first entry about the The Miss USA Pageant.
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Posted in Blogging
Denialism
Chris and Mark Hoofnagle have recently started a new blog – Denialism.com which I warmly recommend.
Wanna know what denialism is? Check out their definition, or even better, their article: The Denialists’ Deck of Cards: An Illustrated Taxonomy of Rhetoric Used to Frustrate Consumer Protection Efforts
Posted in Blogging, Pseudoscience
Happy Blogiversary!
John McKay started his blog four years ago on this day. Mammoths, Nazis, Creationists, Velikovsky, O’Reilly, salmon, Alaskan ecology, history of science, and much, much more every day at Archy. Go say Hello!
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Posted in Blogging
Are we Press? Part Deux
This is kinda funny. Waveflux digs out a couple of truly ancient articles – What Journalists Can Learn From Bloggers and What Bloggers Can Learn From Journalists by Steve Outing, which, though not as awful as some (especially the first one), still reveal (especially the second one) the basic misunderstanding of the blogging world in the way we have by now got used to (no editorial control, no accuracy, no money yada-yada-yada). But that was 2004 and one could be excused about not understanding something that was quite new at the time (hey, not THAT new – even I had a blog back in 2004 and I am certainly not one of the ‘early adopters’ and pioneers of technology).
Just as an aside, the worry about libel lawsuits mentioned in one of the linked old articles did not really pan out, did it? The only such lawsuit I am aware of was filed by a thin-skinned clown Paul Deignan against Bitch PhD. I have no idea how it ended – he may have withdrawn, or they settled, or he lost by being laughed out of court. If he, by some miracle of bad judiciary, won that suit, I am sure we would know as the MSM would gleefully report on it. If the first libel lawsuits are filed by un-serious people like him, this makes precedent favourable to bloggers and difficult for subsequent suers to overcome.
But you would think that the world has changed since 2004. Perhaps not, if one reads this piece of crap which is even worse…but is from only nine days ago. At least one occasionaly now finds an article in the MSM that actually gets blogworld, e.g., this one from LATimes. In that LATimes article, Henry Copeland offers a brilliant quote:
Announcing the 2008 Science Blogging Conference
Yes, we are on the ball, getting the second conference organized already! The date has been set – so mark your calendars now: January 19th, 2008. You all come to Chapel Hill that day, OK?
We’ll use the wiki again so help us make the event as good as possible by posting suggestions and editing the wiki.
We also need a new logo – so stir up your creative juices and send your suggestions (not to be confused with the logo contest for BlogTogether for which we offer a prize!).
To go with the conference, we’ll be assembling another Science Blogging Anthology, so send your nominations here.
Posted in Blogging, North Carolina
Nonoscience has moved….
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Posted in Blogging
Cyberspace Rendezvous has moved….
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Posted in Blogging
Feminism101
You know how on comment threads on blogposts about evolution you, sooner or later, get a commenter saying something that reveals complete lack of understanding of even the basics of evolutionary biology? It is usually accompanied by some creationist canard as well. What do you do? If you stop to explain the basics, the thread gets derailed. You REALLY want to discuss that latest study, not go back to basics over and over again.
So, instead of explaining the basics, you post a link to the appropriate page on the TalkOrigins FAQ or Index of Creationist Claims and move on with the discussion, hoping that the uninformed commenter will actually do the homework and follow the links.
But there is no such resource for discussions about equality, particularly gender equality. Or at least there WAS no such thing. There is now – see Feminism101 (via Pandagon and Feministe). Help build it by finding and linking relevant online articles and blog-posts that explain the basics or debunk myths and mysoginist talking points.
No need to have every comment thread derailed by Man’s Rights creeps any more. Whatever they say – just link to the relevant F101 post and send them there. Then continue discussing what YOU want to discuss instead of going to the basics over and over again.
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Posted in Blogging, Creationism, Sex, Society
Googlebombing for a blogfriend
This is a crosspost to effect a Googlebomb, correcting an injustice against a fellow feminist blogger. Jill Filipovic, who blogs at Feministe and Ms. JD, is a NYU law student who has been the subject of cyber-obsession on a discussion board allegedly populated by law students. The discussions regarding Jill Filipovic (and many other female law students) are sexist and sexual in nature, rating the women’s physical attractiveness and fantasising about sexual contact, both consensual and non-consensual. Neither Jill Filipovic or any other of these women contributed, or gave their permission to be discussed, to the discussion board in question.
Jill Filipovic’s name and class routines etc have been regularly posted to this board, and at least one of the pseudonymous board-members claims to be Jill Filipovic’s classmate. Photos that Jill Filipovic posted (with full rights reserved) to an interent photo-storing and sharing site have also been posted to the sleazy discussion board without her permission. This is a horrendous invasion of Jill Filipovic’s privacy, a violation of copyright law, and calls the ethics and character of the alleged law-students participating in these discussions on the discussion board into question.
A major side-effect of an already nasty situation is that the sexist, objectifying cyber-obsession threads come up on the first page of internet search results on Jill Filipovic’s name. To an inexperienced user of the internet, it may even look as if Jill Filipovic and other female law students chose to compete in these Hot or Not rating competitions, instead of having their pictures posted without permission.
This post is an attempt to balance those internet results to point to the significant writings of Jill Filipovic instead, using the Googlebomb tactic and also linking this post to social networking sites (eg. del.ici.ous, Stumbleupon). Please feel free to copy any or all of what I’ve written here to your own blog in order to help change the top-ranked search engine results for Jill Filipovic. If you don’t have your own blog then please at least link to one of Jill’s post[s] listed below at your preferred social networking site and give it the tag “Filipovic” (as well as any others you think appropriate).
I have linked to these sites in this post:
Jill Filipovic’s bio page at Feministe
Jill Filipovic’s blog posts at the Ms. JD blog
Jill Filipovic’s article about these scummy lawschool sleazebags at Feministe
Jill Filipovic’s article at Ms. JD: When Law Students Attack
Another Great Addition to the Seed SciBliverse
Go say Hello to Jeremy Bruno over on The Voltage Gate!
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Posted in Blogging
Happy birthday Craig
Go say Happy Birthday to Craig McClain on Deep Sea News
See the Future (of science publishing online)
Earlier today (or was it late last night?), I made separate posts about new work on aquatic microbial diversity, on the copyright issues when reporting on science on blogs and on general relationship between science publishers and blogs. Now, via Dileffante, I have learned about a combo of all those questions: when you are dealing with an enlightened organization, such as PLoS, magic can happen. Jonathan Eisen, author of one of the microbial genomics papers has, with no fear of copyright infringement, copied the entire paper on his blog. It is a first, isn’t it?
Posted in Blogging, Science Reporting
Using published images from scientific papers in blog posts
Pedro did some digging to figure out what are various journals’ policies regarding use of images – figures from the papers – in blog posts. It is all very vague and most journals do not have anything specifically targeting online republication, but the Fair Use rules should apply.
I have often used images from papers in my posts, usually only one, sometimes two from a single paper, which should be OK under the Fair Use system. In some cases I used figures that are many decades old, reprinted in every book and textbook in the field, used in every chronobiology college course in the world, and seen many times on slides at conference talks. Such images are now informally considered a common property – they are the icons of the field.
I have used more than 1-2 figures from a paper ONLY when I wrote posts about my own papers. But I do have the originals so I can always claim the ownership, or at least state that they were “redrawn after” an image in the paper (who cares what is redrawn after what and which image chronologically came first?).
Anyway, what do you do? Do you use sites like Free Biomedical Images?
Posted in Blogging, Science Reporting
Blooker Prize shortlist announced
Paul announces that the finalists for the 2007 Lulu Blooker Prize have been announced.
Unfortunately, The Open Laboratory was finished after the deadline for submission. Perhaps we can submit it for the 2008 Prize!
FoodBlogging 2007
We are starting this summer’s Foodblogging series of events early – on April 21st & 22nd. We’ll start where it all begins – at the farm! We will rent a couple of vans and do a tour of local farms, most of them organic and/or sustainable. I am assuming we’ll get to sample some local fare at each farm. Bring your boots – it can still be quite muddy at the farms in April in NC.
Get more information about the FoodBlogging series and sign up for various events at the wiki.
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Posted in Blogging, Food, North Carolina
You can help a fellow blogger
Lindsay Beyerstein, aka Majikthise, needs and deserves your help. So go now and hit her PayPal button. Help Lindsay become a pro blogger. She is one of the best there is.
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Posted in Blogging
Dialectize Me!
If you think my blog is boring as it is, you should try using Dialectizer or Gizoogle, so you can read it in jive or redneck dialect, or a few more….
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Posted in Blogging
Happy Birthday PZ Myers
Yes, today, PZ is 50 years old!
Archy, Grrrlscientist and myself are compiling linkfests today. Just make sure that you have the word “Myers” in your post (having just “PZ” messes up with some search engines – too short).
This year, Dan Rhoades is the first out of the box with a cool tentacled cartoon.
Richard Dawkins wrote a poem.
Grrrlscientist did a scientific study.
PZ himself acknowldeges his age.
Last year, I made this cephalopod collage (click to enlarge).
Greg Laden wrote a limerick.
John Wilkins wrote lyrics for a Broadway musical.
Sean Carrol gave PZ a… well, you’ll have to see for yourself.
A State Invertebrate from Afarensis
Sandra Porter’s fish is surprised.
Arrun makes you search for the message written in invisible ink.
A tentacled birthday from John Lynch.
A villanelle by Jim Anderson.
A tribute from Skeptico
A cartoon from Carl Feagans
A party from Anna Tambour
And one from Toast
A Skephalopod by Phil Plait
Joseph found one much older…
And Steinn plays with numbers.
Larry Moran has known PZ longer than most of us….
Neurophilosopher is hillariouos.
Jennifer found some invasive cephalopods (and NOT a tree octopus!)
Martin appreciates the Ancient Molluscan Warlord.
A tribute from the Omni Brainiacs
A long Poe-like poem by Jason
Jennifer has a recipe.
Lee rhymes with blastula
A limerick by Zeno
A tribute by Kristjan
John Wills Lloyd has almost the same birthday.
Reed combines the birthday with the Friday Cat Blogging.
Elayne Riggs does a poem parody.
Drink a toast to PZ with Grrrl
PZ is teary-eyed about all this…
On this day….by Abel PharmBoy
Ricardo reads Pharyngula for the articles…sure….
Robin Varghese says Hi!
The crew of the Two Percent Company on Mollusks And Men…
A limerick by Skepchick
Yes, Akusai, PZ will see this later today….
A link to link to link linking to Sandwalk
Silent turnip? Jim?
Geoff learnes how to pronounce Pharyngula.
Saboma goes circular…
A recipe from Alun
Zen for Zed.
Clash of the Titans from Katherine
A postcard and a poem from the Neural Gourmet team
Socratic Gadfly wrote a birthday poem.
Alvaro goes multimedia.
A Biblical math problem by Rev.BigDumbChimp
A cuttlefish greeting from Disgruntled Chemist
A clerihew for P. Z. by Plittle
Tom Foss is liberal with the verse.
Steve Reuland wrote a limerick.
Dave shares the samew birthdate.
Odes to PZ Myers by Rob Knop
Fried squid from Shelley
Greetings from Eneman and Orac.
The blogospheric wonderings by James
Ron wrote a pseudo-haiku.
Nope, no poem from Mike Dunford
Plumbyngula
To invetebrologer from Vodyanoj
A Public Service Announcement from thauron
Joe G is pounding on the table, in rhythm and rhyme (and reason)
John Pieret is having a little problem with rhyme, though….
Original artwork on Voltage Gate
Karmen made a tentacled fractal.
A slug is on The Modulator
UMM finally makes the cut on Alex’s Map That Campus.
A Parasite on Zygote Games
A cuttlefish on Laelaps
And from David Parker.
A sonnet by Janet
Ian Musgrave calculates the age differently.
Another limerick from Brent
A salute from Pamela
Tlazolteotl rhymes.
Here’s one from Pat
More poetic outbursts by The Ridger
A doggerel by Susannah
Karl performed a scientific study.
Of course great graphics on Bioephemera
I don’t know what Magnus said – it is in Swedish.
Paul Hutchinson links to his favourite PZ post.
A cool fossil from Christopher O’Brien
Infophile calculates God.
Squid animation by Javier
Posted in Blogging
A Blog Around The Clock 