oysters and stuff

This morning I asked my Facebook friends what blogs they read, and I'm getting all sorts of stuff to check out.

Here's one I like: The Oyster's Garter is written (so the blog tells me) by a marine biologist and a journalist. It's got reasonably shortish entries, and they're funny. (Two things I greatly value.) It's about...well, science. Ok, there's an emphasis on marine science, but that's still broad - lots marine invertebrates but also some physical oceanography. I love marine invertebrates. There's some musing about science journalism and, yep, a bunch more marine invertebrates. Including fabric marine invertebrates.

The musing about science journalism makes me think I really don't want to get involved in debates about science journalism. (I followed a chain of links to a variation on "science journalists are stupid and only scientists should be allowed to talk about science" vs "scientists don't know how to speak English and you don't understand journalism, you jerk.") I prefer, you know, doing stuff to yelling about it.

looking around the blogosphere

So as I figure out what kind of blog I want, I'm going to poke around and look at what other people are doing.

Here's one approach to this whole reporter-blog thing: posting notes as you work on a story. That's a blog post at the Center for Environmental Journalism. Some dude is working on a story about climate change and here he writes about an interview with a scientist. It's moderately interesting and well-written. I don't see anything that makes me want to follow it and read more, though. There's no shortage of places to read about global warming.

Olivia Judson blogs on the New York Times website about evolution. She has a nice writing style, but I get really impatient waiting for her to get to a dang point. I don't love her writing enough to keep going. Maybe in a book, but really, I have a short attention span online. (I admit, I didn't read the above post all the way through, either.) I'd be happy if she posted shorter pieces more than once a week, rather than 1,800 words weekly. Other people appear to be fans - she gets tons of comments.

So, the conclusion thus far: I apparently can't pay attention for long enough to give an intelligent critique of these blogs. Lesson: Short is good.

SSA blog

Ooh, I really like Kumquat's idea about starting a blog now about my Spring Science Adventure. It could be about preparing for the trip, reading up on the science ahead of time, and my burning questions about the accommodations, such as "Will there be a place to plug in my ipod charger?" and "What happens if I run out of tissues?" Normally when I'm packing to go somewhere, I figure, yknow, if I run out of something, I'll just buy it. Not an option this time.

(The place I'm going isn't a secret in real life, by the way - if you're mystified, leave a comment and I'll e-mail you.)

what is this blogging the kids are doing today

I'm starting off the new year, professional-wise, by ignoring my many deadlines in the next two weeks and trying to figure out this whole "blogging" thing. This seems ridiculous, as I have been blogging nonstop since June 2005, when I first claimed not to be interested in blogging. (Actually, July is even funnier - read from the bottom, as I transition from explaining why I'm not blogging to writing obsessively.)

But now I'm considering actual professional blogging. A blog about my book topic, for one; a blog about science and being a science writer, maybe; a blog about knitting...probably not. These blogs would be under my real name (I know! shocking!). I'm thinking WordPress, because people seem to be happy with that. And I hope that it would find readers.

Very few people have actual pre-built interest in my book topic, but as soon as I tell them about it, they're like, whooaa, cool! So the hope is that my blog would attract people with the "whooaa, cool!" response and get them to keep reading and eventually, oh, buy copies of the book for themselves and everyone they know. I guess I know more or less where I'm headed with that blog. I'm just waiting to hear from, um, the guy whose family it is about to see where he stands on this whole "book" issue.

So, what about this science/science writing blog I might want to start? I actually don't read any science blogs, mainly because I don't like any of them enough to go back regularly. Do you read any? Which should I read? I'm going to start surveying them and seeing which ones I should read, who I could learn from, just how mean and awful the commenters are, and why I dislike so many of the blogs. (I suspect a lot of my problem is that I have a really short attention span when I'm reading on the computer, which means a post as long as this one is pretty much not going to work for me.)

I suppose it could all be the same blog, with BookTopic posts tagged as such and other posts tagged as something else.

Help? Anyone? Insight?

science journalism

Instant-message conversation (through gtalk) this afternoon:

N.Lu: I've got 40 minutes to finish a story.
I have no second source, nor do I want one
me: heh
here, I'll be your second source
"I suppose it's possible that they're right, but more work is needed. Only time will tell."
N.Lu: Oh!
PURRRfect
me: you're welcome.
I have two degrees in science, you know.

saving the world

My editor at [a magazine] e-mailed me a link to a commencement speech at [a university you've heard of] by [a journalist I don't know personally but greatly admire] in which he told a big long anecdote based on this story. He names the magazine and quotes extensively from my story. Which is funny! Especially when he says it.

No way is that enough information for you to google it, but let me know if you're interested and I'll send you a link to the speech - it's a good one, about how scientists should tell their stories to regular folks to counteract the image of science as a bunch of pronouncements by elitists.

center for excellence

This morning Kay Ray and I were IMing while listening to a phone-in press conference about this news (in fact, the guy who wrote that story asked a lot of questions). Probably neither Kay Ray nor I will actually write about this news, but hey, it was something to do on a Thursday morning, and it's good to keep up on climate and ecology research.

One of the scientists' affiliations included some center for excellence on something-or-other.

Kay Ray: man, i need to be a member of a center of excellence

me: I'm creating one now. You're a member.

Kay Ray: awesome.

We added S.Vix to the roster later in the day. Anyone else want to join? It's called "The Center For Excellence In My Office." Kay Ray is excellent at knitting baby blankets, I am excellent at sleeping, and I haven't checked with S.Vix yet on her particular brand of excellence, but I bet it'll be good.

geckos

Doesn't this totally sound like the kind of urban myth chickens would come up with? If you're not careful, a gecko will crawl up your cloaca and get into your eggs! I know it's true, it happened to my neighbor's aunt's friend!

antarctica

I finished another book! Unfortunately, this got me nowhere on my progress through the shelves of unread books, because I borrowed the book from Alsho. It's Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica, a memoir by a writer who got one of those totally sweet NSF deals where they send writers and artists to Antarctica. I'm going to get one of those. Just you wait.

Ok, so, a lot of it just sounded exhausting. Sara Wheeler, the writer, was mostly based at McMurdo (the U.S. base), and did a lot of rushing out in helicopters to join scientists at their field sites. She also hooked up with a seismologist, did a lot of cooking, and slept in some very cold places. It just sounds perfect. I mean, ok, you can die really fast and they make you learn how to do emergency tracheotomies, but it's so beautifully empty.

I think this quote near the end, after she spent a few quiet months sharing a hut on the sea ice off McMurdo with a nice artist lady, sums up the appeal for me: "It's as though God has given me a gift, once in my life, to step off the planet for two months and listen to a different music." I've occasionally caught myself (as described in this historic blog post) wondering if there's some other planet I could go to, because this one just seems really crappy sometimes. Maybe Antarctica would be close enough.

Anyway, I was already dying to go to Antarctica - it's the only continent I have left - but this book made me want to go even more.

Huh. I just looked at the list of former participants in the NSF program. I have read unedited copy by some of these people, and...well, if they're only going on raw writing skills, I'm doing ok. Unfortunately, the NSF is probably also interested in such things as Ideas and Grit, but I can develop those later, right?

astronomy tip of the day

If you haven't already seen the comet that's burning up the night sky, check it out tonight! It's ridiculously easy to find, if you can find Cassiopeia (the big "W" near the north star) in the evening - just look a bit down and to the right and there's a superobvious isosceles triangle, and when you look at it you think, that's funny, the star in the lower left corner of that triangle is fuzzy. And that's because it's not a star, it's comet Holmes.

Here, study this map and it will all make sense: map from Sky and Telescope.

in your multitudes

Tonight is the peak of the Perseids - so get out there and look for meteors! The peak is at 2 a.m. local time. It's cloudy here, not to mention the major light pollution issue, but some of you people ought to be able to see some. I saw one last night from S.Vix's roof. It was super-bright and went really far.

nerdtastic crafts

I know it's not exactly scarf season anymore - or shouldn't be, we'll disregard the fact that it's been in the 40s a few recent mornings - but last night I finished a new masterpiece. It was made from N.Lu's favorite sweater, and here she is modeling the scarf at happy hour tonight:

Ok, I'll give you a giant hint to the nerdiness of this scarf and tell you that the last time I had lunch with her, we talked a bit about atmospheric chemistry. So. What are those dots?

evolution and aging

Ok, the Q&A I was preparing for the other day is up on the website, if you want to learn how evolutionary biology can help you live forever, or if you just want to read an interview in which a distinguished scientist talks about male genitalia and starvation. Go to my publication's website and search for "delaying aging."

question of the day

If you were going to interview the author of a book about how evolutionary biology will help postpone aging, what would you ask him?

Purely hypothetical question, of course. Sort of like, "If you were going to be stuck on a desert island, what book would you want?" I bet I can guess one thing: you wouldn't want a book on how evolutionary biology will help you postpone aging. You'd probably want a book like Catching Fish With Your Bare Hands or 1001 Uses for Coconuts.

calling J.Po

Gee, I know a lot of people who have "art" like this: http://www.dna11.com/ but never quite thought of putting it on the wall...can you imagine? You walk into your living room, and there's a dreadful reminder of the lab staring back at you?

sometimes I love my job

This afternoon I did the most fascinating interview. It was with this guy who's got this super controversial new theory that could totally overturn his field. Seriously, it would pull the foundation out from decades of research. I don't know if he's right or not - that's for other scientists to figure out. But he has a couple of years of experimental data and a lot of opinions.

If he is right, the implications are just WILD. I mean, crazy. His theory would change how we think about a procedure that is done daily, in hospitals around the world, without a second thought. I mean, it saves lives, no doubt. I probably know people who have been saved by this. I'm sure I do, yeah. But golly, it could have huge unintended consequences.

space

Hey! The space shuttle launched! Sure hope they don't need all their fuel gauges.

Do you ever wonder if caring about space is a generational thing? Like, if you weren't around for the moon landing, maybe bopping in and out of orbit just doesn't seem that momentous?