I have been conducting these ScienceOnline interviews for years now, and somehow I never got to interviewing you – one of the founders! It’s high time, don’t you think? So, without further ado, welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Where are you [...]

If you read my old and new posts about the media, science journalism, etc., you know I come down strongly on the side of specialists and against generalists. But it is a caricature, a simplification I have to use to make my posts clearer, and to cut my posts down to a semi-manageable length Yes, [...]

Nate Silver is now a meme (also source of the image on the left). I usually pepper my posts with links, but today I feel lazy, so I listed a bunch of links at the bottom – hours of fascinating reading you can have after you read my post! Who is Nate Silver? Nate Silver [...]

It seems we like dichotomies when discussing changes in the media. We pick two words, and then fight over them. I have no intention to revisit the stale old debate about journalists vs. bloggers, as it was silly to begin with, and was resolved back in 2005, oh wait, in 2008, or was it in [...]

Every year I ask some of the attendees of the ScienceOnline conferences to tell me (and my readers) more about themselves, their careers, current projects and their views on the use of the Web in science, science education or science communication. So now we continue with the participants of ScienceOnline2012. See all the interviews in [...]

Every year I ask some of the attendees of the ScienceOnline conferences to tell me (and my readers) more about themselves, their careers, current projects and their views on the use of the Web in science, science education or science communication. So now we continue with the participants of ScienceOnline2012. See all the interviews in [...]

The week was too busy to finish this on Friday. Then on Saturday the news broke that Neil Armstrong died – something I wanted to highlight as a special topic – so I decided to wait another day and give people a chance to wrote posts and articles about Neil. So, with a delay, the [...]

Blog of the Week: Do you believe in dog? is a brand new blog. It is written by two dog researchers, one in New York City, the other in Yarra Valley just outside of Melbourne, Australia. Julie Hecht you may already know from her wonderful blog Dog Spies, her writing in The Bark, or her [...]

Blog of the Week: Beatrice the Biologist says this about itself: it is “part science blog, part comic, and part incoherent rambling: science edutainment at its finest.” Written – or rather drawn – by Katie McKissick, each post is a visual delight and will make you chuckle…and learn.   Top 10: Gavin’s Story: Whole Exome [...]

I posted 14 times in July. That is, on A Blog Around The Clock only (not counting the posts on The Network Central, The SA Incubator, Video of the Week, Image of the Week, or editing Guest Blog and Expeditions). Brand new posts: Science Blogs – definition, and a history New research center in Madagascar [...]

In the series, “From The Writer’s Desk,” I’ll describe what I do for a living as a writer and ideas I have for advancing my craft. The mission of a journalist is to get answers to questions. What I’ve been intrigued by recently is how one can get new types of stories by asking new [...]

Just over a week ago, on the second day of ScienceOnline2013, I dragged myself out of bed, onto a bus, and eventually made it to the the coffee table at the McKimmon Centre in Raleigh, North Carolina. Jetlag, combined with a couple of late nights and early mornings, had finally hit me. Without a constant [...]

If you spend time reading Scientific American, you’ll know the magazine does not tiptoe around controversial topics. The same is true for the 50-ish people who are part of the online blog network. I happen to regard this focus as a strength of both organizations, though not all do. To that end I would like to [...]

If you blog, you probably know that most online images are copyrighted and off-limits for your site. Where is an enterprising science writer to turn for artwork that is free, beautiful, and legally bloggable? 1. Ask the artist Artists own their copyrights, but that doesn’t mean many aren’t happy to share! Often, permission for non-commercial [...]

The tech gurus behind the scenes at Scientific American have been working out kinks in our new network, and some of the issues relate to image size & storage. Thus, here’s a quick post on file size for blogging. Before I start, let me grab a test image: The original file straight off the camera [...]

1. You may have noticed I’ve only posted a couple items- both Thrifty Thursdays- since the blog launch earlier in the month. The slowness has reason. I am currently teaching a compressed summer session class on beekeeping with two lab sections a week. The prep time is such that I’m stretched rather thin for full-ahead [...]

Communicating science is all about telling stories. A few days ago at the World Science Festival, a stellar panel of science journalists and writers sat down to discuss the ways in which the Web is shaping and changing how those stories are told. Moderating the "Telling Science Stories in Print and on the Web" discussion [...]

Last week, I spent a pleasant hour over lunch talking to my 60-year-old aunt and her 80-something husband about "this Twitter thing" and how one defines a blog. They had heard that social media had played a role in the protests in Egypt and wanted to learn more. Good students, they nodded and asked questions [...]

Usually this announcement comes out much earlier in the year, but the transition from Lulu.com to FSG has changed all the dates – the cycle is now different. But still, it’s high time to announce the Guest Editor for the next edition of The Best Science Writing Online, the annual anthology of the best science [...]

Open Laboratory 2013 – the complete list of entries! We just closed the submission form for the 2013 edition. Thank you all who submitted the posts. Below are all the blog posts submitted over the past year. I need to crowdsource some help first. In the comments, please let me know if you notice any [...]

Deadline is here, tonight! We are closing the submissions on Monday, October 1st at 11:59pm EDT! The submission form for the 2013 edition of Open Lab is here. Any blog post written since October 1, 2011 is eligible for submission. We accept essays, stories, poetry, cartoons/comics, and original art. Once you are done submitting your [...]

Deadline is here, just three days away! We are closing the submissions on Monday, October 1st at 11:59pm EDT! The submission form for the 2013 edition of Open Lab is here. Any blog post written since October 1, 2011 is eligible for submission. We accept essays, stories, poetry, cartoons/comics, and original art. Once you are [...]

The Big Deadline is looming! We are closing the submissions on October 1st at 11:59pm EDT – just a week from now! The submission form for the 2013 edition of Open Lab is here. Any blog post written since October 1, 2011 is eligible for submission. We accept essays, stories, poetry, cartoons/comics, and original art. [...]

The 2012 edition is coming out tomorrow! Join us for festivities! The book can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com and Amazon UK. You can buy the last five annual collections here. You can read Prefaces and Introductions to older editions here. The submission form for the 2013 edition of Open Lab is now open. Any blog [...]

Only half a month till the 2012 edition is out! Mark your calendars for September 18th! The 2012 edition can now be pre-ordered at Amazon.com and Amazon UK. You can buy the last five annual collections here. You can read Prefaces and Introductions to older editions here. The submission form for the 2013 edition of [...]

Less than month till the 2012 edition is out! Mark your calendars for September 18th! The 2012 edition can now be pre-ordered at Amazon.com and Amazon UK. You can buy the last five annual collections here. You can read Prefaces and Introductions to older editions here. The submission form for the 2013 edition of Open [...]

Only a month till the 2012 edition is out! Mark your calendars for September 18th! The 2012 edition can now be pre-ordered at Amazon.com and Amazon UK. You can buy the last five annual collections here. You can read Prefaces and Introductions to older editions here. The submission form for the 2013 edition of Open [...]

It is now expected by the science blogosphere that I post the full updated listing of all the submissions every Monday morning. This serves as a reminder for bloggers to submit their (and other people’s) posts, and to some extent prevents duplicate entries. But most importantly, it presents a growing listing of some of the [...]

No matter what you think about the Catholic Church, the “Chimp Pope” image (at left) by figurative/narrative artist Nathaniel Gold probably holds your attention and gives you pause about the latest hullabaloo. You can see a color, glossy version of the chimp pope on page 34 of Gold’s book, The Chimpanzee Manifesto, (Jessian Press, 2009). [...]

We have an exciting announcement to make this morning. Our new blog network has launched! To our existing lineup of eight blogs you are all familiar with, we have added another 39. There are now six editorial blogs, six personal blogs written by our editors and staff, and 42 independent bloggers who will write on [...]

Blogging and other Web activities have allowed members of many marginalized communities to open previously locked media doors. But women still rely more on back channels and ask for less help than men do in the digital realm. This tendency and other issues of concern for women bloggers were discussed Sunday at the ScienceOnline2011 conference [...]

Human #1: "Hello, nice weather today, isn’t it?" Human #2: "Ummm…actually not. It’s a gray, cold, windy, rainy kind of day!" Many a joke depends on confusion about the meaning of language, as in the example above. But understanding the sources of such confusion is important in realms other than stand-up comedy, including in the [...]

Or, in other words: Don’t do this. Do this: Remember websites in the early 90s with their scrolling banners, cheezy tiled backgrounds, and blinking and twirling text? No matter how swanky html5 or the next coding language is, I hope I never utter the phrase, “sure, why not?!” when it comes to use of special [...]

Last summer I had the pleasure of going the Association of Medical Illustrators meeting here in Toronto. Among the speakers and session moderators, including E.O.Wilson and Jennifer Fairman, was a name familiar to anyone who is fan of illustration – not just scientific illustration, but of the art of illustration in any form: James Gurney. [...]

Okay so you’re blogging about science, putting your expertise out there, hoping to reel people in so they can see how cool everything you do really is. Show ‘em. Right. Typetypetypepublish. But it doesn’t look right. You’re looking at your favourite science blogs and they all have these cool images. Copyright scares you a little. [...]

A well done science comic is one of the most effective ways to convey science communication. The visual hook of a narrative with lively (or in this case, sleepy) characters peppered with the facts creates a flow that a wall of text can’t match. This comic by Maki Naro of Sci-ənce is a perfect example. [...]

[First, you may want to read  The Promise & Perils of Pinterest by Glendon and Pinterest Terms of Service: Word by Terrifying Word by Kalliopi. There's also a Link Round-Up on The Flying Trilobite.] “But all sites are the same” Since Kalliopi and I wrote about our views of Pinterest’s Terms of Service, I’ve noticed a common misconception [...]

  Q: How do you fill a dinosaur exhibit with feathers? A: Put out an open call to the blogosphere’s paleo artists. ART Evolved is a paleo-themed group art blog created by educators Craig Dylke and Peter Bond that I’ve had the pleasure of being involved in since its inception 4 years ago this month. [...]

ScienceOnline2012 was my 4th time attending the rockstar unconference in North Carolina. For ScienceOnline09, I had approached Bora Zivkovic about attending, mentioning that I know I’m not a scientist or journalist.  He leapt at the opportunity to have me, and asked if I could do an art+science session and a workshop on putting images on [...]

Where are all the space-art bloggers?  When Symbiartic was in the planning stages, this was a post I knew I had to write. There are so few I found it at first surprising.  Do the images from the Hubble trump inspiration in painters?  Is interest in space waning compared to say, paleontology? Science inspired art [...]

I have been blogging about chemistry and related topics since 2004. Since then I have had the chance to witness the rise of the chemistry blogosphere. What started as a small, loose collection of opinionated men and women has turned into a group of serious and well-informed bloggers who blog with authority and nuance. Partly [...]

I have a blogroll! It’s visible in the sidebar from this blog’s main page, though not from the pages of individual posts. Also, it’s a rotating blogroll, which means instead of being overwhelmed with links, you’ll get 10 random links from my longer list. I’m including blogs that might be of interest to readers of [...]