Blogging
clock | May 24, 2008Nature Blog Network has two hubs - the Boston one and the London one. They are planning on adding a third one soon but the question is where? So, they will see where the most people are. There are currently only two people signed up as living in the Triangle, but this can change. If you are already in the network, go and change your profile by adding a North Carolina city and add yourself to the Triangle network (if that is actually true, i.e., you really do live in NC) even if you live in a different part of the state. I know there are many NC folks already on, and new people can always…
clock | May 23, 2008You have only a week left to submit your entries for the Blog about a classic science paper challenge. The links to early bird posts are already being collected and I hope there will be more soon. If you intend to write about a paper in the field of psychology, SciCurious discovered an awesome website where you can find all the classic articles in the history of psychology. Just yesterday, I saw the website where there will be such a repository of historical papers (and other materials: photos, anecdotes, etc.) in the Chronobiology field. This will be built over the next few months. I'll…
laelaps | May 23, 2008No, not really, but a new article in Scientific American suggests that what I do here has some physiological benefits. Personally I would think that spending less time at the computer and more time being active outside would be better for me, but I'm not going to get wrapped up in the "blogging is good for you" vs. "blogging is going to kill you!" debate. We've all been through that before with eggs, and the only thing that taught me was "I like eggs." So it is with blogging.
aardvarchaeology | May 21, 2008Akusai of Action Skeptics has done something pretty ostentatious and very cool: he's written the latest Skeptics' Circle blog carnival entirely as a collection of dirty limericks!
"An Irishman living with Swedes
Speaks about bodily needs
Eat and drink well
So at sex you'll excel
But vitamins? Useless as weeds"
awild | May 21, 2008Scott Solomon, who researches fungus-growing ants, has a brief piece in Slate Magazine on the Paratrechina Crazy Ants invading Houston.
I'm not convinced that this ant is anything different from Paratrechina fulva, a common South American species and the oldest name in that species complex. People have been calling the Houston invader "P. cf. pubens", but the taxonomy of the genus is so poor that it's difficult to say anything with confidence. Do you folks who've looked at specimens (that's you, James) have any thoughts about the identity of this ant?
aardvarchaeology | May 21, 2008The forty-first Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Remote Central. Archaeology and anthropology, and all about Nswazwi. It's a village in the Central District of Botswana, located close to the border with Zimbabwe. The village has primary and secondary schools and a clinic. The population was 1,741 in the 2001 census.
The next open hosting slot is on 16 July. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome to volunteer to me. No need to be an anthro pro. But you must not have any trouble pronouncing "Nswazwi", just like I haven't.
aardvarchaeology | May 16, 2008Tim of Remote Central has kindly stepped in to host the upcoming 41st instalment of the Four Stone Hearth anthro & archaeo blogging carnival. Send links to good recent anthroblogging to him! It needn't be your own stuff: submit all the goodies you've read lately.
The next open hosting slot is on 2 July. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome to volunteer to me. No need to be an anthro pro.
clock | May 11, 2008I will be going to a scientific conference next week. Believe it or not, this will be the first purely scientific meeting I'll attend since I quit grad school and started blogging (all the others had to do with science communication, blogging, technology, journalism, Internet, publishing...). So, I am thinking....
I remember going to scientific meetings meant going to a nice little Florida resort and spending a couple of days with one's friends and colleagues, isolated from the rest of the world, talking about science 24/7. It is an opportunity to share your latest work and ideas with an…
awild | May 11, 2008
Rose Aphids - Macrosiphum rosae
Tucson, Arizona
It's fair to say that without the encouragement of my mother, who allowed all manner of newts, snakes, caterpillars, tadpoles and ants into the house, I would not have gone on to become a biologist.
Thanks Mom, and happy mother's day!
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon 20D
f/13, 1/250 sec, ISO 100, twin flash diffused through tracing paper.
clock | May 7, 2008The challenge from skullsinthestars is up - pick up a very old, classic science paper and write a blog post about it. Put it in a proper historical, theoretical, methodological and philosophical context. You can always go back to blogging about the latest research or latest creationist idiocy tomorrow.
aardvarchaeology | May 7, 2008
The fortieth Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Remote Central. Archaeology and anthropology, and all relating to the Plzen Plaza!
The Plzen Plaza is a new large (20,000 square meters) shopping mall and entertainment center in PlzeÅ, Czech Republic. The facility built by Plaza Centers was opened on December 5, 2007, on the former land of Ex PlzeÅ, gastronomical exhibitions located very near the center of the city, more precisely 250 meters from the central Square of the Republic.
The next open hosting slot is on 18 June. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome to…
awild | May 5, 2008
Busy, busy, busy. In the meantime, there's always the "Blog" of Unnecessary Quotation Marks.
awild | April 26, 2008
The New York Times has a piece on Ansel Adams.
Spot the fake smile!
Get your fix of Cicada Mania.
And finally...Polar Bear Tacos?
clock | April 25, 2008Last week in Trieste, immediately after the scienceblogging session at FEST, I helped start a new blog - Via Ginnastica. It will be run by nine room-mates (in an apartment in the Gymnastic Street), all nine graduates of the Science Communications program in Trieste and all now science journalists of one kind or another. They will mix English and Italian language, serious and fun posts. We'll keep watching....
laelaps | April 24, 2008During the past week many bloggers on ScienceBlogs and elsewhere have been talking about Expelled and whether (based upon the opening weekend reaction) it seems like it's going to be a success or a failure. I'm not going to rehash what I've already said on that subject, but the discussion has once again erupted into a mini-battle over framing. Perhaps "discussion" is too kind a term for what's going on at this point; feud would probably be more apt.
For those who aren't regular readers, I've had a difficult time getting my head around what framing is, how it is distinct from what good…
aardvarchaeology | April 23, 2008The thirty-ninth Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Hominin Dental Anthropology. Archaeology and anthropology in honour of Maximiliano Gómez. He was the leader of the Maoist Movimiento Popular Dominicano (MPD), a militant organization opposed to the JoaquÃn Balaguer government and to U.S. presence in the Dominican Republic. Commended by some, repudiated by others, the controversial figure of Maximiliano Gomez is part of the political heritage of the Dominican Republic.
The next open hosting slot is on 18 June. All bloggers with an interest in the subject are welcome to volunteer…
skookumchick | April 23, 2008I am tired. Dog tired. We're nearing the end of the semester, but not so near that I can see the light at the end of my tunnel of meetings. I've been traveling every weekend for the last month, the house needs to be cleaned, the laundry done, the fridge stocked, and the email responded to. And instead I have nothing but meetings all day. Job candidates, seminar candidates, prospective student meetings, end of year committee meetings, advisory board meetings and dinners, graduate recruiting meetings, task force meetings...
I also have two papers that I need to get out. How to schedule in…
clock | April 23, 2008Sheril Kirshenbaum will be on a panel on Science and the New Media at the AAAS Forum On Science And Technology Policy on May 9th and, as bloggers tend to do, she is asking for questions, comments and ideas from the readers. If you have some thoughts on the topic - science on the Web, etc., - go and join the discussion in the comments there.
laelaps | April 23, 2008This past January I was somewhat shocked to discover that one of my posts had been voted into the 2nd edition of The Open Laboratory, a collection of 50 of the best science posts published in 2007 by writers from all over the science blogosphere. Now you can purchase the book via amazon.com, although the best place to get it is still lulu.com. Why? Because proceeds from the lulu.com sales will go towards ScienceOnline'09 (the official site to be launching soon), an event that I hope to be attending next January.
Also, don't forget that you can start nominating excellent posts for the next…