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"What is a blog anyway?" L (not that one who bakes sequoia) e-mailed me complaining that Word and Powerpoint refuse to accept "blog" as a correct word. She noticed that I have put a BLOG column on our new homepage. Instead of explaining "blog" to her, I gave her a website of a blog maintained by a girl scientist Hedwig_the_Own in The Big Apple (New York), and encouraged her to do some homework.
In her blog, "Thoughts of the value of blogs to sciences" Hedwig_the_Own describes her surprising finding on the ignorance of scientists about blogs: "... there has been no suggestion in the scientific or trade literature that blogs might actually be valuable to science."
Then, using examples, she explains that the power of blogs lies in increasing the speed and efficiency of information exchange with words, pictures, and sounds and video files. In fact, as far as I know, many scientist-bloggers are exploring the utility of blogs for sharing and organizing their thoughts about new research and its implications in their own works. Other "eggheads" use blogs to record the development of ideas and increase information flow in their labs and with their collaborators. They appreciate the historic value of blogs: "... when someone leaves, their work is still there in the blog."
Hedwig_the_Own favors using blogs to create peer-reviewed open-access blog-journals and real-time discussion on the publishing e-journal's web pages for each scientific article, just as you find in the comments section of a typical blog.
She also emphasized that the most compelling value of blogs to science and scientists is public outreach and education. "the advantage to publishing in open-access e-journals is the increased access to current research for the public. This would provide the scientific community with the added a benefit of helping citizens become better-informed and more scientifically literate consumers.
Then, using the current "science versus religion in classroom" arguments raging in the US as an example, she points out "that the scientific community has thus far failed, failed miserably, in their public outreach and education efforts." More scientist-bloggers who are willing to bridge this gap can present a clear, concise and engaging argument to the public regarding the veracity and value of science, especially evolution to society. "... Scientists have a responsibility to safeguard the public trust by providing accurate information about science to the people, and blogs are a fast and effective tool for achieving this."
Hedwig_the_Own's blog was included in the "The Best of Science, Nature and Medical Blog Writing" Issue #36 and in the "Carnival of Education Issue #30, The Best of Education Blog Writing."
Hedwig_the_Own does not leak her real name. "Blogging is my attempt to make sense of this crazy world." From her blog page, she appears to be is a postdoctoral fellow. She has lived in New York City and worked in her "dream job" for two years, reconstructing an evolutionary phylogeny of parrots from the South Pacific. Her research funds ended year ago. Currently, she works as an adjunct assistant professor somewhere and "moonlights as an independent cat sitter, public speaker and college/university tutor" while she scrambles to find a tenure-track position. "I am also exploring the option of leaving science and academics altogether (not because I want to but because other people tell me I should do this), but everything about this fills me with a profound depression." What a pity. Do we have a position for such a smart girl in our Academia campus?
Let's go back to L's question, What is a blog anyway? You may click here to find lots of definitions for "blog" or "webblog". Click on the "girlscientist.blogspot.com" to meet Hedwig_the_Own and enjoy her blogs. When I visited her blog the first time, she had already received 52,573 visitors since September 2004. A visitor demographics showed that quite a lot of her readers are from Taiwan. Has anyone on our campus read her wisdom before?
Google can give you a list of 31,500,000 sex blogs in English, but only 1,624,000 science blogs, 20,300 medicine blogs, 10,500 biotech blogs; 1090 orchid blogs, 763 rice blogs, 551 bamboo blogs, 105 plant science blogs,36 ginseng blogs, 27 botany blogs, 10 tree blogs, 8 micrology blogs, and 1 arabidopsis blog (...I can't believe). Apparently scientists really need to participate more in blogosphere, to create more blogs for their trades.
There are quite a number of quite good blogs dealing with all kinds of green plants. So here, in no particular order, are a few that I've found interesting to read:
Science and Sensibility, hosted by David Winter, a New Zealand student of genetics and biochemistry. He is absolutely mad about science and thinks that everyone alive should be able to understand some of the beauty and wonder that makes scientists do what they do. His blog includes an analysis of new science research, explanation of cool things, and the odd "purple" passage. Just click the link and enjoy reading his "Botany in the blogosphere", "Ancient Genetics" and others. He uses a 3D picture of two subunits from the protein RUBICO for the background of the blog pages.
The World of BotanicalGirl - tales of a plant biologist. The blogger is a 24-year-old California graduate Ph.D. student in plant biology. Science dominates her life. She also loves medicine and music. She is a technology girl, loves instruments and measurement, "l love technology" is interesting.
Shoot's Blog is everything you want to know about the success and the failures of growing trees from seeds. Lots of nice images of babies, I mean seedlings, in their gallery. I found good info and experiences on sierra junipers, sugar pines, fuschia and great sequoia. Our sequoia lady (also bamboo lady) should read how to rear sequoia from seeds to seedlings in COOL conditions.
Those are all nice blogs. A few more botany blogs came in via e-mails recently. I have to check them before posting. Are there any other "green thumb" blogs on the internet? Please don't hesitate to e-mail me and keep me updated.
I encourage you to post blogs on any (plant- or science-related, or other "clean") topics and comment via e-mail to me. |
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