Everyone seemed to be taking The It’s Its There Their They’re Quiz, so I thought I would give it a try.
As annoying as these all-too-common errors are, I find it worse when science bloggers use “data” or “bacteria” as the singular (both are plural — of “datum” and “bacterium,” respectively). In other words, “this data shows…” irritates me more than “this bird uses it’s beak to…” on a scientific website.
I must apologize — it has been a long time since I have posted, despite there being all sorts of interesting new things to talk about with regard to genomics and evolution. It’s teaching and grant season, which means I will probably continue to be a part-time blogger at most for another couple of weeks. I have lots to write about [1], but no time — so please bear with me.
One item of note, I have been invited to contribute regularly to Scitizen. I may also reconsider being a featured blogger at Scientific Blogging once things calm down later in the semester. In any event, it is nice to see that Genomicron is being appreciated.
Some of my fellow science bloggers (for me, that’s a small s / small b since I have not been called up to the big leagues by Seed!) are working on a paper to discuss the role of blogging for scientists. I can say that blogs have turned out to be useful for all three major components of a prof’s job, namely service (as public outreach), research (as a source of discussions of and links to interesting papers), and teaching. An example of the latter happened this morning. I was checking out Retrospectacle [2] and came across the picture below. When I stopped laughing, I decided to add it to the lecture I will be giving on kin selection today, which includes a section on sibling conflict and parent-offspring conflict. Sometimes a picture is worth 1,000 words, evn if teh words iz spelld all rong. Enjoy.
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Notes
1) This includes finally responding to a meme, namely the one on the evolution of Genomicron as tagged by Sandwalk.
2) Shelley Batts needs votes to get a scholarship — help her out, won’t you?
Carl Zimmer has been awarded a National Academies 2007 Communication Award, and I for one am very pleased. Carl is a fine example of what I, as a scientist, believe a science writer should be. He cares deeply about getting the details right, but is able to convey even complex ideas in an accessible and entertaining way. He provides clear refutation of any claims that one cannot be both readable and accurate. Oh, and he quoted me accurately and obviously listened to what I had to say about my area of research.
It is also good to see that the National Academies recognized not only his printed stories, but also contributions on his blog.
And so I happily say: Congratulations, Mr. Zimmer!
Speaking of misleading headlines, The Skeptic, which is a fine publication produced by Australian Skeptics and which, to my knowledge, does not itself contain any terrible science writing, has reprinted my blog post Anatomy of a Bad Science Story as an article in the latest issue (with permission, of course).
Have a look, and if you’re in the Land of Oz (or, presumably, anywhere), why not join Australian Skeptics and get the full magazine on a regular basis?
Click for full size view.When I began this blog, several of the big-name bloggers were kind enough to point people in my direction. While Genomicron is not in the same league as, say, Pharyngula or Sandwalk, it has become reasonably well established. As such, it could provide at least some help to new bloggers if I make a note of their new blogs.
Case in point, Mobile DNA by Prof. Cedric Feschotte (University of Texas at Arlington). There are few things cooler in genomics than transposable elements (in my humble opinion), and this is the subject of both Prof. Feschotte’s research and his neonate blog. Let’s give him some hits so that he will be encouraged to continue sharing his insights on this topic with the rest of the blogosphere.
If anyone else has started a new blog about genomics or evolution, feel free to link to it in the comments.
I am partially aware of the discussions that have been taking place about having some sort of quasi-official designation that a particular blog post is discussing peer reviewed research. I am all for improving the discourse on blogs when it comes to reporting research. Some readers may recall that I was involved in a minor row (since resolved amicably) over the way a discussion of a paper by some well respected researchers was conducted. I also don’t think blogs count as anything like peer review, and if anyone suggests otherwise, it’s probably because they don’t actually participate much in the peer review process as either an author or a reviewer.
On the other hand, I think blogs are an excellent place to discuss, disseminate, and dissect peer-reviewed articles in a way that makes them more accessible to a broader audience and opens the scientific process to view by non-specialists. My concern is simply that people could mistake what happens on blogs for how the peer review system functions.
There is now a new icon that bloggers are encouraged to use when discussing peer-reviewed research, which was the victor in an open design contest by the Bloggers for Peer Reviewed Research Reporting (BPR3):
According to their site,
Bloggers for Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting strives to identify serious academic blog posts about peer-reviewed research by developing an icon and an aggregation site where others can look to find the best academic blogging on the Net.
I agree with the general notion of letting readers know that peer-reviewed research (vs., say, just someone’s opinion) is being described, but I’m afraid I can’t participate in the program as structured. Why? Because the name, “Bloggers for Peer Reviewed Research Reporting” is ambiguous — is the reporting peer reviewed? No, it isn’t, but this could give the wrong impression. In fact, the logo strongly reinforces this, reading only “Peer Reviewed Research BPR3“.
It’s a decent idea, but the impression it gives in its current manifestation is contrary to my views on the role of blogging in scientific communication.
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Update:
Evolgen is promising (threatening?) to publish original, unreviewed research on a blog. Slap the above icon on it, and this would give a very misleading impression to nonexperts. I have to oppose both developments if they are going to, in any way, appear to circumvent or undermine peer review processes. (Update: he will be using this as an educational demonstration, which I fully support… but let’s not have it go beyond that on other blogs).
BPR3 has provided a reply to this post and the comments it engendered, and to their credit they are looking at making some changes to improve the situation. Of course I will be open to participating in the future if I feel it is useful and in accordance with my views on blogging about science. I wish them luck with this.
Via Panda’s Thumb, I have come across a blog that I wish I had known about sooner. It is Adaptive Complexity by Michael White, postdoc in the Department of Genetics and the Center for Genome Sciences at the Washington University School of Medicine, who is also a featured writer at Scientific Blogging (some readers may recall that I was invited to be a featured writer, but I ultimately decided not to commit due to time constraints).
In any case, Adaptive Complexity provides some good posts, and expresses some of the same frustrations as I do, about non-coding DNA. Some highlights:
Welcome to my blogroll and feed reader, Dr. White.
As noted by, well, everybody, The Scientist is assembling a list of the bioblogosphere’s best. Here is my list of favourite blogs — this isn’t exhaustive, however, as there are many that I read regularly in addition to this (see my blogroll for more). These are just the ones that I follow most closely.
By the way, if you like this blog, please be sure to post a comment about it on The Scientist‘s site!
I am somewhat late out of the gate on this one as most other bloggers I read have already posted on it, but in case you have missed it, The Scientist is asking readers to list their favourite life science blogs at their website. Hopefully Genomicron will appear on someone’s list of favs!
Bertalan Meskó of ScienceRoll, fellow DNA Network member and founder of the Gene Genie carnival, has very graciously awarded Genomicron the “Golden Mouse Award”. As he says,
This is the second time I present the Golden Mouse Award to a blogger. From time to time, I’ll present this award to bloggers who educate people in high quality and write hardcore scientific/medical articles with plenty of references, so to bloggers who make science or medicine more readable for laypeople and for even specialists. Now, the winner is T. Ryan Gregory of Genomicron who proved his enthusiasm and professionalism with posts like these:
What can I say? I’m flattered!
(Yes, I know the golden mouse is Ochrotomys nuttalli and there is no Mus aureus — I was being clever.)