Science

Scientist Finds Pen Mightier Than Pipette

VANCOUVER—If the field of journalism is struggling, you wouldn't know it at the 178th meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

A Whole New World

Having a press pass for the AAAS meeting in Vancouver has ushered me into a conference world that was completely hidden to me as a scientist.

As you may know, I have traveled to Vancouver, British Columbia, to attend the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (or AAAS). A few plans were made in advance: packing my passport, bringing my Delta free drink coupons, and more importantly, meeting up with Ars Technica's John Timmer and BoingBoing's Maggie Koerth-Baker for shadowing and general science writing n00b counsel.

The ‘diversity problem’ in science | Harvard Gazette

The discussion of increasing diversity in science has been going on for a very long time. I once naively thought that there weren't still barriers keeping women and people of color from succeeding...because I was succeeding. What I really thought, I think, is that there shouldn't be.

College v. Grad School

I would agree with this, although I somehow still managed to sleep as an undergrad. There is no succeeding in graduate school, only surviving.

The Disappearing Actinides // Scientific American Guest Blog

I have a new post up today on the Scientific American Guest Blog. In it, I comment on the state of science education by expressing my displeasure with a popular science book and interviewing a professor. Here's the link:

The Disappearing Actinides: And Other Frustrations from the Periodic Table of the Elements

Results and Discussion from... Read This Damn It!

I've been conducting a minimally scientific study of traffic to my blog since I posted Read This Damn It! OR What I Learned at ScienceOnline two days ago. In a session moderated by Maggie Koerth-Baker and Ed Yong at ScienceOnline2012, a discussion emerged about the use of words like "Read This" or "Explainer" as a tool to drive readers to a blog post.

I'm Watching You: Experimental Control

I'm running an experiment. This is my control post, and you are my test subjects. I'll follow up soon.

For your participation, here's some science kittens, and a puppy, and a rainbow from my trip to Hawaii. And a clip from Flight of the Conchords.

Source: icanhascheezburger

Forensic Anthropology Gives Voice to Unidentified Remains | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network

During #scio12, I had the privilege of being selected to go on a tour of a forensic anthropology laboratory at North Carolina State University. The post below is by Robin Lloyd, an editor at Scientific American, who also went on the tour.

Read This Damn It! OR What I Learned at ScienceOnline

You know that feeling you get when everything comes together—relief, excitement, affirmation? I’ve got that.