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Just a few quick updates: NASW, Science(blogging) and more.

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


Last week I attended the ScienceWriters meeting organized by NASW and CASW. Excellent organization, beautiful location (Flagstaff, AZ, up at 7000ft altitude), great program and wonderful people. I saw several good panels on the first day and some really excellent talks the rest of the meeting, including by Sean Carroll and Steven Pinker. It will be hard to match that experience next year, when we host the meeting here in Raleigh, NC. Kudos to the organizers for a perfect job.

I was on one of the panels, on time management and continuous online acitivity, together with some other people who are also, like me, suspected of never sleeping. We do. But it's not easy! See two excellent articles covering our panel by Cristine Russell and Helen Shen. Check out more coverage of the conference at the NASW site.

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I have posted a number of updates about ScienceOnline2012, Science blogging, Open Laboratory, and #NYCSciTweetup over on The Network Central blog, so head on there to get the details.

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I will copy what I wrote on The Network Central here, about a new article covering science blogging:

A new article about science blogging just came out - hurry up, though, as on December 1st it will be placed into the dark dungeons behind the paywall, never to be seen by human eyes again:

More than a blog: Should science bloggers stick to popularizing science and fighting creationism, or does blogging have a wider role to play in the scientific discourse?, by Howard Wolinsky:

....Perhaps because of the increasingly public profile of popular science bloggers, as well as the professional and social value that is becoming attached to their blogs, science blogging is gaining in both popularity and validity. The content in science blogs covers a wide spectrum from genuine science news to simply describing training or running a lab, to opinionated rants about science and its social impact. The authorship is no less diverse than the content with science professionals, science journalists and enthusiastic amateurs all contributing to the melting pot, which also has an impact on the quality....

A number of bloggers were interviewed for the article (of course, each was quoted briefly, while I am sure each provided at least an hour of material that is now lost - remember that every quote is, by definition, a quote out of context, though my quotes are not too far off from what I intended to say), including Rosie Redfield, Jerry Coyne, Carl Zimmer, Daniel McArthur, Sean Carroll, PZ Myers, GrrlScientist and me.

Take a look. See also commentary of the article by Jerry Coyne and Larry Moran.

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