A Blog Around The Clock

Laelaps was a dog in Greek mythology that always caught its prey and was turned into stone (by Zeus himself!) while hunting the Teumessian fox that could never be caught. Lealaps is also a defunct name for a carnivorous dinosaur. Laelaps is also a mite that parasitizes rats. And Laelaps is the name of a fascinating blog, written by Brian Switek. You can think deep thoughts about the meaning of his blog’s name later. At the Science Blogging Conference three weeks ago, Brian participated on the Student blogging panel–from K to PhD.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your scientific background?
It’s a pleasure to be here, Bora. My name is Brian Switek and presently I’m an undergraduate student at Rutgers University. I can’t claim the moniker of “scientist” (being that I haven’t even started graduate studies yet), but in following my interests in natural history I’ve learned quite a bit more than I have in the lecture halls. Most of what I read and write about falls under the general heading of zoology or natural history, but my main interest is in vertebrate paleontology.
What do you want to do/be when you grow up?
I hope to always be a “student of nature,” and even though I’m not sure what I’ll end up studying as I continue my education, I hope to become something of a naturalist. Even though scientific studies presently require some degree of specialization, I most admire the work of researchers who have tried to make sense of seemingly disparate pieces of information in encompassing theories, and I hope to continue that tradition.
Your blog has really skyrocketed from the very recent beginnings all the way to stardom in a very short time – you have been invited to join Scienceblogs.com, you co-moderated a session at the Conference, you have an essay in the Open Laboratory 2008. What’s your secret formula for success? What do you think makes your blog so interesting? Any tips for people who are just starting their science blogs?
I’m still a bit shocked that I’m come as far as I have within the past year, and I don’t think it’s quite caught up with me yet. My perspective on blogging has generally been that I will grasp the topic I want to understand more firmly if I’m able to effectively convey what I’m learning to other people; my blog is as much a road map of my intellectual forays as it is an attempt to communicate science. Although I would be hard-pressed to call Laelaps one of the “great” science blogs out there, I think a personal touch is what makes so many good blogs unique. Anyone can summarize papers or something they’ve read, but blogs are at their best when a writer gets to share their excitement (or even frustration) over what they have learned. Scientists are very passionate people, and I think blogs reflect that aspect of a group of people often seen as boring and dispassionate. If I had any advice for people who are just starting to write, it would be to remember that what you write is intensely personal, and that’s a good thing.
What lies in the future of Brian and Laelaps (as far as you are willing to tell)?
Blogging has become something of a compulsion for me (others might call it an addiction), and I intend to keep writing as long as I am physically able to do so. When and if I get to carry out gradute-level studies I may not be able to be so prolific, but for now I have more time to write than I’m likely to have ever again and I intend to make the most of it. I have a few things in the works that I think I’ll have to keep secret for now, but I can say that Laelaps was originally born as a sort of companion project to a book that I’m still working on. About two years ago I decided that I wanted to start writing a book about evolution, but I knew that if I wanted to write such a book there was a lot I was going to have to learn. Laelaps, then, is almost a behind-the-scenes look at what I’ve been thinking about during the process, although it’s become an even more rewarding writing experiment in and of itself. I hope to have the first draft of the book finished by the time I turn 25 later this month, but whether it will ever see the light of day or not is anyone’s guess.
When and how did you discover science blogs? What are some of your favourites? Have you discovered any new cool science blogs while at the Conference?
The first science blog I had ever encountered was Pharyngula, primarily because I was looking for more information about the Discovery Institute. When I was first trying to verse myself on who creationists were and why they had such a problem with evolution in 2006 I picked up a copy of Jonathan Wells’ Icons of Evolution (one of the worst books I’ve ever had the displeasure to read). The book said that Wells belonged to the “Discovery Institute,” a seemingly innocuous sounding group, but I had a feeling there was something more to the story. I did a google search and Pharyngula (as well as The Panda’s Thumb and others) came up and I was hooked on science blogs. Presently some of my favorites include Tetrapod Zoology, Archy, Greg Laden’s blog, Pondering Pikaia, Catalogue of Organisms, and (of course) A Blog Around the Clock, but there are so many bloggers that I admire there would be scarcely space to list them all here. I didn’t meet very many bloggers whose blogs I hadn’t heard of prior to the Conference, but meeting so many other writers in person definitely gave me a greater appreciation for their writing (i.e. Thus Spake Zuska, Adventures in Ethics and Science, The Other 95%, etc.).
Is there anything that happened at the Conference – a session, something someone said or did, a new friendship – that will change the way you think about science communication, or something that you will take with you to your job, blog-reading and blog-writing?
Janet’s session on science blogging ethics was, for me, the most thought-provoking event at the conference. I left with more questions than answers, but that is definitely a good thing. Even though I generally had considered myself to adhere to the ethics followed by the science blogging community, the session definitely made me step back and ask what those ethics were, why they were in place, and what should I be considering before I hit the “publish” button.
The most influential part of the Conference, though, was the “after-hours” communication where I got to sit down and chat with so many other wonderful writers. Over the course of the year I had spent so much time reading the words of people from all over the world with extremely diverse perspectives, but getting to meet the writers in person certainly changed my perspective on who individual science bloggers are and why they spend so much time at their keyboards.
Likewise, the Conference was permeated with the tension between traditional media outlets and science blogs, the gathering serving as a wonderful forum to discuss the “growing pains” of science blogging. Jennifer Ouelette did a wonderful job addressing this topic at the close of the Conference, and I think that the coming year will reveal a growing integration between science bloggers and mainstream media (or at least, I hope it will). If anything, though, the Conference made me proud to be a science blogger, and I was overjoyed to be among so many people who experienced the same passion for writing about science.
It was so nice meeting you in person and thank you for the interview.
============================
Check out all the interviews in this series.

When you hear SciBlings mention “our Seed Overlords”, they are talking about Ginny, our new Commander-in-Chief and Royal Cat-herder. At the Science Blogging Conference three weeks ago, she herded (almost) 20 of us in Real Life to take the famous group photo.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your background? What is your Real Life job?
I’m Ginny, a 20-something NYC science writer, low-traffic blogger, and the new Community Manager at ScienceBlogs. I did neuroscience research in college, decided–after a six-month stint studying art history in Paris–that the lab life wasn’t for me, and got my Master’s in science writing. I wish astrobiology and science missions in general were higher priorities at NASA. I’m recently obsessed with home decorating. (Last night I installed bookshelves on my wall–by myself!) I grew up with two shetland sheepdogs, and miss having a dog around.
When and how did you discover science blogs? What are some of your favourites? Have you discovered any new cool science blogs while at
the Conference?
I was a web news intern at Seed Magazine, and fell in love with a few of the bloggers at ScienceBlogs.com (it probably wouldn’t be appropriate to name names here…). Luckily, anybody who strokes the sciblings’ egos enough is allowed into the clan. Since the conference, I’ve been reading The Other 95%, Inverse Square, and Confessions of a Science Librarian.
There is a rumor that you have read every post and every comment ever posted on Scienceblogs.com. Is that true? Humanely posible? I don’t even read my own posts half of the time (and it shows, I’m sure). Hmmmmm, where was I going with this question….dunno, but you can answer something impressionistic!
Bora, you know that you’re the only one who actually reads all of the blogs. (Actually, a little bird told me at the conference that you monitor more than 1,500 (!!) blogs. Are you human?) I do read almost all of the ScienceBlogs.com posts, so that I know what’s new and super in the world. I must confess, though, I usually skip over your ClockQuotes and Picks From Science Daily.
When a journalist starts writing a blog, the tone is often different than when a scientist writes one. What are the pros and cons of journalistic background when one enters the blogosphere?
I think journalists tend to do more fact-checking. That’s a plus. And they’re usually more on-topic because they’re used to the proverbial editor’s chop. But I don’t think most journalists understand that a blog post is not just a sloppier news article. It’s rare to find a blogger-journalist who keeps up with the blogosphere “conversations”–the comments, the back-and-forth linking, etc.–that make the genre truly new. John Tierney at the NYT does it well, as does ScienceBlogs’ own Carl Zimmer.
Is there anything that happened at the Conference – a session, something someone said or did or wrote – that will change the way you think about science communication, or something that you will take with you to your job, blog-reading and blog-writing?
A couple of researchers from The Beagle Project were there, and hearing about that huge, smart, creative science project made me go, “Whoa.” Yet another example of the expanding field of “alternative science careers.” I was blown away, too, by the poise and courage of the young panelists of the Student Science Blogging session. Blogging is the future, man!
It was so nice to see you again and thank you for the interview.
============================
Check out all the interviews in this series.

Patricia B. Campbell, PhD is a tireless fighter for science education and for gender equality in science. She runs the FairerScience website and the FairerScience blog. At the Science Blogging Conference three weeks ago, Pat was on the panel on Gender and Race in Science: online and offline.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your background? What is your Real Life job?
Hmmm who am I? Good question–well professionally I was a college professor of Research Measurement and Statistics at Georgia State University and I quit the day I got tenure (apparently that doesn’t happen very often). I’ve always had a goal of changing the world and for me the best way to do that seemed to be through setting up a small company doing educational research and evaluation with a focus on issues of gender and race/ethnicity. So that’s what I did and the company, Campbell-Kibler Associates, Inc is 30 years old this year. It’s named after daughter Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, who at the age of four months, sued the state of Georgia to have her birth certificate issued in a hyphenated last name (she won).
To have real life job of changing the world and breaking down stereotypes is incredibly fun. I’ve gotten to co-author the AAUW Report: How Schools Shortchange Girls (got some hate press on that one), be an expert witness in the Citadel sex discrimination case and work with educational researchers in Uganda and South Africa. And husband Tom Kibler and I have been the oldest, fastest straightest couple on AIDS bike rides between Boston and New York and San Francisco and Los Angeles (we broke down a lot of stereotypes on those).
What do you want(ed) to do/be when you grow up?
A feminist mathematician. Then one semester I took a topology course and a stat course at the same time and decided that being a feminist educational researcher was a much better choice.
You run the FairerScience project. Can you tell my readers what is it about, what are your goals and what are your methods?
I call it my “thank you Larry Summers” project. I wrote this when we set up the website two years ago and it still is a good description:

In earlier ages, it was believed that women could not pursue
mathematics because their heads were too small, their nervous systems
too delicate or their reasoning capacities insufficient. Such an eminent
educational theorist as Rousseau believed that women were not qualified
for research in abstract areas such as mathematics and science because
their brains were unfit. Recent comments from sources ranging from the
President of Harvard University to reporters in the Financial Times
indicate that these inaccurate, antiquated notions are still with us.
Researchers and advocates for women in science, technology, engineering
and mathematics (STEM) have not been effectively communicating their
findings in ways that allow the public including policy makers,
educators and parents to understand and evaluate these findings and,
where appropriate, make decisions based on them. FairerScience is committed to
changing that.

So we have some multimedia analysis of why it is so hard to get the media and others to get beyond the “math gene” + “biology is destiny” stuff and some ideas of ways researchers and others can help, including how to better communicate with the media. We also have some powerpoints that people are welcome to use in their own presentations.
Since the stats on gender and race/ethnicity in science change so quickly instead of constantly updating the most current statistics, we developed a tool so people could get the data themselves. That wasn’t the most popular part of the website, so I’ll be adding something on the current statistics pretty soon. Also coming soon are short user-friendly summaries of the research on topics like single sex education and science; what actually makes a difference in encouraging girls in science.
We’ve started working on ways to use women in science blogs to encourage girls in science. Some blogs like On Being a Scientist and a Woman are great ways to show girls the kinds of personal and professional lives women in science and engineering. Other blogs like Antarctic Journal show everyone how really cool science can be.
There’s lots on the FairerScience website and we try to have at least some fun with it. I would love it if folks would let me know other resources they might like.
How do you see your blog and other science blogs (both by male and female authors) as a part of the armamentarium in changing the culture of academia?
Good question and I’m not sure what the answer is. Certainly the blogesphere is reducing isolation – especially when it comes to women in science. Folks are learning the problems aren’t just about them–they are structural, pervasive and hurt men as well. The exchange of sympathy and congratulations, advice and support helps a lot. Will it grow to a critical mass with the potential to change the academic culture? Well I’ve seen a lot of change in academia in the past 30 years, but those changes don’t seem to have had much impact on the culture. Still I have hope and there is something to be said for critical mass…
When and how did you discover science blogs? What are some of your favourites? Have you discovered any new cool science blogs while at
the Conference?
You know I don’t remember, but I think I stumbled on to Cocktail Party Physics and was hooked. Thanks to the conference I’m now reading Karen Ventii’s Science to Life and, oh yes, there is this blog that I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know about prior to the conference. It’s called A Blog Around the Clock . I like it a lot.
Some of my other favorites are:
Language Log
Rants of a Feminist Engineer
Adventures in Ethics and Science
Thus Spake Zuska
A K8, A Cat, A Mission
and
Scientiae Carnival which is a really good source of blogs on women and science
Oh, and Go Fug Yourself; that counts as a science blog doesn’t it?
Is there anything that happened at the Conference – a session, something someone said or did or wrote – that will change the way you think about science communication, or something that you will take with you to your job, blog-reading and blog-writing?
There are several things. This was my first experience with an unconference and I loved it. I’ve started making notes about what can encourage and discourage unconferencing (i.e. room set up, expectations, time keeping). I’m moderating a session at AAAS this year, Blogs, Boards, and Bonding, and am planning to make it as much of an unsession as possible.
Probably the most powerful thing that came out of the conference for me, as you and Anton know, was the reinforcement that just inviting people who haven’t been/been allowed at the table to participate isn’t enough. There needs to be active outreach, an effort to build trust, to let people know that they are welcome and they will be respected. When that is done, people respond. It happened at the Conference and made for a great conference. I’m hoping that others will pick up on that message as well. I’m doing my part to spread the idea.
It was so nice meeting you at the Conference and thank you for the interview. I hope to see you again next year.
============================
Check out all the interviews in this series.

Vedran Vucic (voo-tcheech) is a Linux afficionado in Serbia. He and his organization have gone all around Serbia, wired up the schools, taught the teachers and students how to use Linux, taught the teachers and students how to use various online educational resources ranging from blogs to ATutor, etc. Vedran also gives technical support to about 30 Serbian bloggers whose work he also aggregates. He is now putting a lot of energy into persuading scientists, especially the young, not-yet-entrenched ones, to go online and to promote Open Access. It is an uphill battle, but he is persistent! At the Science Blogging Conference three weeks ago, Vedran led a session on Overcoming obstacles to Open Science in the developing world.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your background? What is your Real Life job?
I am working in the Linux Center. Linux Center is non-profit organization dedicated to promotion of free software in Serbia. It is very logical for us that we support free access to information and knowledge. We see open access repositories, free software, science and education blogs and open hardware, web accessibility as milestones for the development of Serbia. I am involved in a variety of ways in implementation of free software in the last 13 years in media, NGOs, culture, arts, schools, support to people with disabilities.
What do you want to do/be when you grow up?
Although I am 43, it seems to me that I will never grow up. I think that I will always have general trust in people, community, support, solidarity without frontiers. Some people think that it is childish. So, if that it is really childish I hope that I will be always a happy child.
How did you get interested in promoting everything Open: Open Source, Open Classroom, Open Science?
I really think free software, open access, open classroom, open science, web accessibility, open hardware are very important milestones for our planet. There is still too much poverty, unjust activities, violence in the world. I think that citizens themselves can contribute a lot to promote knowledge, the development, education, freedom. Phenomena as free software, open science etc. are not just scientific and technological terms. They are very powerful social, political tools too. Contemporary politicians should understand that and give up the traditional political tools such as economic conditioning, military influence, sluggish support, creation of dependent communities. Instead, they should promote horizontal diplomacy which is based on freedom of sharing, support, fostering solidarity and treating others as assets rather than as customers and/or clients.
When and how did you discover science blogs? What are some of your favourites? Have you discovered any new cool science blogs while at the Conference? Are there any science blogs in Serbia that you recommend?
I really like the idea of blogs. Actually, internet belongs to people and people should use it to communicate and share experience, knowledge, opinion. Besides many interesting personal blogs that connected many people, I think that it is enormously important that scientific community is going to be open too. Science and technology may become, if not communicative and open, an ideology of unscrupulous elites that may have detrimental effects on security, economic development, gap between countries. Thus, openness of science is not only a manner of good will, it is essential freedom exercised to foster mutual development.
I see there are more and more bloggers in Serbia, but they tend not to use the platforms common in the West (Blogspot, Typepad, WordPress) and I do not see them (even when they write in English) well integrated into European and global blogosphere. Any thoughts on why that may be the case?
I think that there are more and more wordpress, nucleus and other platforms that people tend to use. While writing this reply to you I am helping a group of NGOs to set up their portal and blog about inclusive education. We use Nucleus 🙂
There is an aggregator on http://planeta.moj-blog.org that aggregates posts from approx. 30 blogs based on wordpress and many science blogs worldwide. In two weeks there will be another aggregator of blogs that will be focused on information related with disabilities, web accessibility, human rights of people with disabilities etc.
However, I would like to see much more such projects. On the other side, Internet is not so developed in Serbia and people are not yet used to Internet and computer keyboards as usual way of communication. In some cases professors on faculties and even some departments of hospitals do not have computers at all.
Albeit, this is not excuse, it is a fact. But, we have to do more in order to overcome that fact and promote more openness. Seminars, conferences, mirror servers, mutual visits and other events may be very helpful in promoting cooperation in the field of science blogging.
You have gone around Serbia and wired schools to the Internet, installed Linux and taught teachers and students how to use it. Can you tell us a little more about that entire project?
We have visited so far tens of schools and presented to them what free software may do and how it can be used in schools. Specialized distributions such as Explora, Edubuntu, VigyaanCD, Quantian, CAE Linux, GNU/Musix, DyneBolic etc. may be very important educational tool in schools. It is not enough to teach, localize and install free software. In addition, it is very important to write proper documentation. We are finishing, these days, a manual for teachers of computer science for music schools so they can use free software and learn about sound, music, databases, web applications, openoffice, image editing, burning CDs, streaming audio. Detailed documentation will help teachers and the students too to use it properly and get really full control over their computers and operating systems.
We paid special attention to help teachers to learn more about web accessibility and using accessible learning tools so the kids with disabilities may have access to learning materials. In Serbia, many disabled kids do not complete secondary schools and just a few complete faculties [university]. Thus, we recommend ATutor as a tool to store, publish, manage educational activities since ATutor is created with accessibility guidelines in mind.
At the Conference, you led a session on The Obstacles to Open Science in the Developing World. Can you summarize here briefly, what are those obstacles? Are they primarily structural (e.g., lack of electricity, computer or Internet access) or is the social fear of openness (perhaps protection of power structure, nepotism, etc.) a bigger obstacle for the spread of Open Access Publishing, science blogs, etc.?
Obstacles are sometimes very big, but also, in many cases, big obstacles may be overcome by many small efforts. Many activities related with improvement of the educational system, health care, culture, transfer of knowledge and technologies may be done by using science and education blogs. For example, Serbia and Albania have the highest rates of infectious diseases in their populations. Many women in Serbia die because of cervical cancer which is not so hard to prevent. Thus, access to information related to health, education, teenage pregnancy, AIDS, human rights, work with people with disabilities, environment may be helpful in solving hard issues that keep people in misery, bad health, uneducated and potentially prone to destructive political movements.
I think that media can do a lot in promoting openness and that access points to scientific and educational materials may be set up. Thus, small kiosks, computer classrooms and tele-centres with access to information and knowledge may be very helpful in overcoming existing fear from openness.
Is there anything that happened at the Conference – a session, something someone said or did or wrote – that will change the way you think about science communication, or something that you will take with you to your job, blog-reading and blog-writing?
Oh, I liked the people there. It was very encouraging to me to see such a great number of scientists that are so concerned with social responsibility. The whole conference for me was that “particular session”. As I emphasized in the session that I moderated:”Blogs are not just places with scientific information. They do have mobilizing effect and they are very important social phenomena”.
It was great and inspiring to be part of the conference and be sure that science blogging movement is growing.
It was so nice to finally meet you, thank you for bringing the package from my Mom all across the ocean, and thank you for the interview.
Thanks.
============================
Check out all the interviews in this series.

Hemai Parthasarathy spent about five years as an editor at Nature before joining PLoS where she was the Managing Editor of PLoS Biology from its very beginning, through about five years of it until just a few months ago. When I got the job with PLoS and spent my first month in San Francisco, Hemai was my tutor in a sense, teaching me the lore of the inner sanctum of the publishing world – how it works, who is who, why Open Access, and other useful stuff. So she was a natural choice for me to invite to lead a session on Open Science: how the Web is changing the way science is done, written and published (see the videos here) at the Science Blogging Conference two weeks ago.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your background? What is your Real Life job?
Well, of most relevance to your readers, I am a biophysicist and neuroscientist by training, an editor by profession, and a consultant (at the moment) by circumstance. Of me, personally, I could say that I am an Alaskan by birth, an Indian by ancestry, and a California girl by choice (and possibly temperament).
What do you want to do/be when you grow up?
Do I have to? I’d like to have a dog when I’m grown up. But, if I ever have a sofa, I’ll know that I am too grown-up.
I have a children’s book about a mule at home. Sound familiar? Anything to say about it? No? OK.
You are a cruel man, Bora, to bring up my childhood traumas on a public blog. Yes, I used to spell my name “Hemi” (which is how it is pronounced) and yes, I do have one namesake in the children’s literature, Hemi: A mule.
When, how and why did you become a believer in Open Access publishing?
I find that phrase kind of odd – like being a “believer” in evolution. I’m not sure open access is something to believe in. Its just logical, inevitable… it basically falls out of thinking about scientific communication + the internet. So, I’d say I “believed” from my first exposure, which was the open signature campaign that launched the Public Library of Science (PLoS). The question of how to make it work given the legacy of the subscription-based system, was less clear when I joined PLoS, but the last five years have seen a lot of change towards that goal.
How is a scientific paper going to look like in 50 years?
No Idea. Didn’t you write about that? I don’t even know what science is going to look like in 50 years. Science has always been written about in multiple forms, from the conference abstract to the clinical trial to the dissertation. Already the classical form of the research paper does not fit many disciplines (“high throughput” systems biology springs to mind). I hope it will have multiple forms as it does now, but that it will be much more integrated with the data it represents and the steps that come before/after it.

When and how did you discover science blogs? What are some of your favourites? Have you discovered any new cool science blogs while at the Conference?
I don’t think I’d ever read a blog, let alone a science blog, until Chris [Surridge, editor of PLoS ONE, ed.] started posting regularly on the PLoS blog. For all my support of the internet revolution in communication, I still like my information in large well-digested chunks that I can interact with tactilely as well as visually (aka paper). So, I probably discovered science blogs through you! The only science blog I now read regularly is The Tree of Life, mainly because I am so impressed by Jonathan Eisen’s brain. Since the conference, I’ve also been reading Science and Religion, which is a theme I have taken a recent interest in; and, Aardvarcheology hooked me with Martin’s visit to the Amazing Randi, of whom I remember stories from my days at Nature and the infamous water memory paper.
How do science blogs fit in the entire ecosystem of scientific publishing, communication and education?
I’m not sure I’m the best person to answer that. Blogs are clearly an integral part of all publishing, not just scientific publishing, It seems to me that the quality of science blogs is quite high compared to the average blog, but that may just be my sampling bias. I hope they encourage people who are on the outside of the elite research process to promote scientific discourse within society.
What are your plans for the future (at least what you are willing to disclose) in your life and work?
I’m not sure. I had thought about doing something completely different (e.g. culinary school), but in the end, I value too much the experience I have gained in scientific evaluation and communication; and still feel that I have something to contribute in this arena. I am currently working as a consultant in the drug discovery world, which may turn into something very relevant to open science and open access. Stay tuned!
Would you consider trying your hand at blogging?
… its tempting, as I love to write. But, I’d need to be convinced that I could contribute to the signal, rather than the noise; and so far, I am not convinced.
Is there anything that happened at the Conference – a session, something someone said or did or wrote – that will change the way you think about science communication, or something that you will take with you to your job, blog-reading and blog-writing?
Well, this will sound entirely self-serving, but I was moved when Bill Hooker asked the audience in the open access session how many of the publishing scientists would aspire to publish in PLoS Biology. I didn’t expect such a large response (of course, they might have been humoring me!), and in general, I didn’t expect quite as much enthusiasm for PLoS. I guess I’m used to trying to convince the skeptics, so it really brought home to me the successes we have had. A lesson, then, is what I take away: That it’s easy to forget how many allies you have, when you’re deep in the trenches. Of course, that is one way that the blogosphere empowers people – you don’t actually have to meet face-to-face to be with like-minded people. Is the corollary, then, that I should have been reading more blogs when I was at PLoS?
It was so nice to see you again and thank you for the interview.
Thanks, Bora, for inviting me to participate in your conference. It was a wonderful experience.
============================
Check out all the interviews in this series.

Moshe Pritsker and I first met at Scifoo, then shared a panel at the Harvard Millennium Confreence and finally met again at the Science Blogging Conference two weeks ago. Moshe is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Visualized Experiments, the innovative online journals that publishes videos demonstrating laboratory techniques.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your background? What is your Real Life job?
I am a co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE). It is my full-time job, as JoVE is a start-up company that requires full attention from me and a few other people.
I was born in the North West of Russia, in the city named Petrozavodsk. In 1990, at age 16, together with my parents and sister, I immigrated to Israel, in the big wave of Russian-Jewish immigration. I went to study chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and then continued for a master degree at the Weizmann Institute of Science where I got into biochemistry and bioinformatics.
After the army service (mandatory for every Israeli citizen), I decided to see the world and got into the Ph.D. program at Princeton. There I was working on a variety of projects in computational and experimental biology. My favorite and the most difficult project was the development of a method for large-scale genetic screens in embryonic stem cells. A post-doc in Boston was a logical next step. But after one year of post-doc, I decided to implement the idea of a video-publication for biology, which I was carrying in my head for a few years.
You founded the Journal of Visualized Experiments. Can you tell us a little bit more about it. Where did the idea come from, where is it now and what are the plans for the future?
First time, I came with the idea of a video-publication for biological research in the middle of my Ph.D. studies at Princeton. As any other experimental biologist, I was suffering from the low reproducibility of experiments described in the scientific literature. This phenomenon is due to many reasons including poor descriptions of complex experimental procedures by authors, wrong interpretations of technical details by readers, variations in terminology, lack of standardization, and other factors. To deal with this problem, scientists often look for colleagues who are experienced with particular experimental approaches and can show them how to do the experiment. However, often such help is not available, and the scientists find themselves in the never ending process of reinventing the wheel, when they spend years of their life trying to repeat experiments previously done and published by others. On the personal level, this is very frustrating. On the global level, this is a systemic “black hole” that consumes more than 50% of time and money that are given to biological and biomedical research (to remind, only the NIH year budget is $29 billion dollars).
As a possible solution, I began to think about a large online repository of videos on experimental procedures. Video can mimic the traditional “show me” process adopted in the biological labs, and therefore would increase reproducibility, efficiency and standardization in biological sciences. Then I was lucky to meet Nikita Bernstein, a computer programmer who became my partner. Nikita took care of the IT part in JoVE, and introduced me into the social networks and other advanced aspects of the today Web. Another partner, Klaus Korak, is a Vienna-trained medical doctor, with experience in neurosurgery and neuroscience research. He has ensured funding from a group of private investors, and currently takes care of the business development in JoVE. After the first few months, we met Aaron Kolski-Andreaco, who was a graduate student at UC Irvine and also thought about scientific video as a method of training. He joined us to lead the production of experimental videos. This is how JoVE was initially built.
We develop JoVE as a free access research publication (journal), with a review process, selection and the Editorial Board including 20 professors from Harvard, Princeton, NIH and other good places. So, JoVE can be viewed as a journal of a new type, a video-journal. After the first year of its existence, JoVE has published about 200 video-articles produced in the research labs at the leading scientific institutions. They cover a variety of advanced experimental procedures in neuroscience, stem cell biology, cancer, bioengineering and other “hot” areas of today biological research.
Very early we understood that it is very difficult for scientists to make high-quality videos on their own experiments. An average experiment requires 2-3 hours of filming and extensive editing. Scientists typically do not have professional cameras and editing software, and, more importantly, do not have time to learn the necessary skills. Therefore, to enable production of video-protocols at research labs, we have established a distributed network of professional film-makers, which covers about 30 large cities, centers of biological research, in USA, Canada, Europe and Japan.
How do you envision a scientific paper of the future? Will it have an embedded video as a rule? A completely different format than today?
Currently, a scientific paper, especially in biology, has two main functions. First it is a report. Second, it is a “currency” of science serving as a measure of individual scientist’s achievements. These are important functions, but it also has to become a productivity tool, something that helps scientists to do their job faster and more efficiently. Due to the problems described above, a lot remains to be done in this area. I envision that tools enabling a more efficient knowledge transfer (e.g. video) will become an important factor. The rest is difficult to predict. It will depend on the next technology developments on the Web and their relevance to the current problems of biological research.
What are some of your favorite science blogs?
The Tree of Life by Jonathan Eisen
Microarray Blog by Albin Paul
Blog around the Clock by Bora Zivkovic
PIMM by Attila Csordas
Is there anything that happened at the Conference – a session, something someone said or did or wrote – that will change the way you
think about science communication, or something that you will take with you to your job, blog-reading and blog-writing?
I met a few people with whom I had interesting discussions about science communication: Jean-Claude Bradley, Liz Allen, James Hrynyshyn, Aaron Rowe, Deepak Singh and others. For example, I really like the Jean-Claude’s project on lab wiki, and it was very useful to meet him in person. Aaron Rowe gave me an interesting idea on distribution of the JoVE video-articles in the developing countries. I hope something practical will come out from these discussions. In general, the conference was a very useful and interesting event.
It was so nice to see you again and thank you for the interview.
============================
Check out all the interviews in this series.

Vanessa Woods is a researcher with the Hominoid Psychology Research Group which recently moved to Duke University – just in time for her to be able to attend the Science Blogging Conference two weeks ago. Vanessa is the author of four books (three of those are for kids, the latest one, It’s every monkey for themselves just got translated into Hebrew, and is aimed at adult audience). She is a feature writer for the Discovery Channel and she documents her research on her blog Bonobo Handshake (and what it means? Check the blog!)
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your background? What is your Real Life job?
I’m mostly a writer, I’ve written several books for kids and recently a salacious non fiction about a bunch of monkey researchers in the Costa Rican jungle (banned in America for legal reasons, but you can get it online http://www.vanessawoods.net). For a few months a year I also travel to Congo to study our cousins, bonobos and chimpanzees. We work in sanctuaries for orphans, instead of in biomedical laboratories and basically play games with them all day to find out how
they think.
What do you want to do/be when you grow up?
JK Rowling
Can you tell us a little bit more about your research and about bonobos?
We’re trying to find out what it is that makes us human. At the moment, we have a very chimpanzee-centric model of society (male dominated, aggressive, murder, war, females get beaten, infants get killed) but we have another cousin, equally closely related to us (98.7% DNA), who is female dominated and lives in a much more peaceful society. We want to find out how much of us is bonobo, how much of us is chimpanzee and how much of us is uniquely human.

When and how did you discover science blogs? What are some of your favourites? Have you discovered any new cool science blogs while following the Conference?
Well of course I love the Intersection. Sheril is so cool…
Most bloggers post every day on a variety of topics and go on like that for years. Your approach is different. Your blog, Bonobo Handshake, was focused on your research trip to Congo. Once the trip was over and you wrote your conclusions, you did not continue updating every day. Yet, your blog really hit a note with a lot of people and your traffic soared. How do you explain it? What are the pros and cons of this blogging strategy?
I think people got really involved in the bonobo drama. Bonobos came in, nearly died, and recovered, and people became emotionally attached. Plus the bonobos are so crazy, i think people started showing up regularly just to see what would happen next.
What is next? Extension of Bonobo Handshake, a new blog, a new trip that begs to be blogged about?
We’ll be going back to Congo in June this year, so Bonobo Handshake will be up again.
Is there anything that happened at the Conference – a session, something someone said or did or wrote – that will change the way you
think about science communication, or something that you will take with you to your job, blog-reading and blog-writing?
I really enjoyed the ‘blogging for the 3rd world’ session. It raised some interesting questions about our role in bringing information into these countries. Most of my blogging function is to take the stories I see in Congo and bring them out. But I am interested in exploring how what I do can benefit them.
It was so nice to see you again and thank you for the interview.
Likewise Bora – see you again soon!
============================
Check out all the interviews in this series.

Dave Munger is part of the numerous North Carolinian contingent here at Scienceblogs.com. He writes the Cognitive Daily blog and runs the ResearchBlogging.org blog aggregator. At the Science Blogging Conference two weeks ago, Dave led a session on Building interactivity into your blog.
Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Who are you? What is your background? What is your Real Life job?
Hi, I’m Dave Munger. My background is in writing, editing, and publishing. I’ve written several textbooks, most notably, Researching Online, and I have had a blog of some sort since about 2002. I also have a degree in Science Education and taught high school chemistry and biology for a short time. My real life job is creating a new non-profit organization called ResearchBlogging.org. All your readers should go visit and sign up. And if any of your readers happen to represent grant-making organizations, they should send me an email.
What do you want to do/be when you grow up?
I’m pretty much doing it. It would be nice to make a little more money at it, though!
When and how did you discover science blogs? What are some of your favourites? Have you discovered any new cool science blogs while following the Conference?
The first science blog I discovered was Chad Orzel’s Uncertain Principles. I’m still a huge fan. I can’t tell you how I discovered it — probably via the litblogging community, since Chad’s just as likely to write about fiction as science. I was a litblogger before I was a science blogger (and still am, sort of, on wordmunger.com). It’s hard to identify particular favorite science blogs — I do most of my reading via aggregators (I’ll refrain from plugging my own) like ScienceBlogs.com. I know there are lots of great blogs out there, I’m just not very good about reading all of them. I can say that I am especially impressed with the many blogs devoted to combating pseudoscience, from Orac’s Respectful Insolence, to Panda’s Thumb, to Pharyngula. Their patience in explaining science, over and over, to people who never quite seem to get it, is inspiring.
Your wife, Greta, and you write Cognitive Daily together. How does that work?
It works great! She’s the expert, so she finds new journal articles about cognitive psychology, and I write about whatever she finds. We meet once a week for coffee to discuss plans for the blog. It might seem a bit strange to have to set up a regular meeting with your spouse, but it’s an absolutely essential part of the blogging process. Otherwise the blog would get lost in the day-to-day craziness of raising two teenagers.
Your blog is famous for its series of Friday “experiments” where you ask your readers to participate. Can you explain how this works? Do you have a good example where it provided some really interesting and useful data?
We use this to answer fun questions that we haven’t seen addressed in the literature (it doesn’t mean they haven’t been addressed — we just haven’t seen them). The first one, for example, addressed the question of who says “hi” to you when you’re out exercising (http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2006/01/do_we_tell_the_truth_about_how.php). I’m a runner, and I had noticed that other runners seemed to say hi to me much more often than walkers. We were able to confirm this hunch, as well as come up with a potential explanation. Is it useful? Maybe not, but it’s interesting and fun. As the feature has gotten more popular, readers have come to start criticizing our research methods. This is a little unfair, since we never claim our results are scientifically valid, but I think even this criticism serves an important purpose: readers learn what it takes to run a scientific study of behavior.
You are the power behind ResearchBlogging.org (formerly known as BPR3). Can you explain what it is about and how it differs from Postgenomic, for instance?

Dave and Greta with Professor Steve Steve
ResearchBlogging.org is a site that collects blog posts about peer-reviewed research in one place. Most science bloggers will write about more than just research — they might discuss politics, or their hobbies, or rant about the latest Britney Spears fiasco. We wanted to create a place where people could find all the serious, thoughtful posts from scientists and others interested in scholarly research.
When they’ve written a post that meets our guidelines, they fill out a form on our site (usually just one line), and paste the code we provide back into their blog. This creates a properly formatted formal research citation for them and alerts our indexing system to add their post into our database.
This is different from other aggregators like PostGenomic because our site only includes thoughtful posts about peer-reviewed research. Most other aggregators collect any link to a journal article — but most of these posts turn out to be just lists of references, or cut-and-paste versions of the abstract. That can be extremely useful too — and we plan on working with PostGenomic in the future — but it serves a different purpose from our site.
Is there anything that happened at the Conference – a session, something someone said or did or wrote – that will change the way you
think about science communication, or something that you will take with you to your job, blog-reading and blog-writing?
I think I was most impressed in my conversations with Jennifer Jacquet, who’s behind the Shifting Baselines blog and who’s passionate about conservation in the world’s oceans. I will certainly think a lot harder about the impact I make when I eat a fish. And I might start eating more sardines, which I love, and which Jennifer says is one of only ten species that aren’t currently threatened by overfishing. I’m not sure I’ll bring that to my blog, because it has such a narrow focus. Though maybe we could do a Casual Friday about seafood eating behavior….
It was so nice to see you again and thank you for the interview. Say Hi to Greta – we missed her this year!
You’re welcome. And thank you for the wonderful job you’ve done with the conference, this blog, PLoS ONE, and the science blogging anthology!
============================
Check out all the interviews in this series.