Almost a year ago, Nature published a set of opinion articles, including Science journalism: Toppling the priesthood by Toby Murcott. I did not react at the time, but JR Minkel and Jessica Palmer did and got some interesting responses in the comments. The article was brought to my attention by Gozde Zorlu who is ruminating on the same ideas and will have a blog post about it shortly (and I will let you know when it's up).

The article covers a lot of ground and has many layers. I finally read it and these are just some really quick thoughts, just to provoke discussion.....

First, Murcott is complaining about being essentially a lay-person outside of his own domain in biochemistry. That is true. Science reporters who don't have any scientific background are in an even worse shape - they definitely have a handicap, but not something they cannot overcome with years of study. But for this, they need to have the freedom to focus on only one area of science, e.g., Andy Revkin focusing on climate, Carl Zimmer on evolution, etc. I wrote a little bit about this before.

If you have spent some time in science before moving into journalism, you understand that years of total immersion in the field are necessary to fully understand it - I mean a narrow field! And not just the purely scientific information, but also historical, philosophical and social context, who-is-who in the field, relative strengths of various hypotheses, etc. You understand that it is impossible for a single person to gain a full understanding of every area of science.

- Can you play violin?
- Sure, of course
- Have you ever played?
- No. But it looks easy, I'm sure I can do it.

This is how non-scientists often think about science. This includes some journalists, until they get started on science reporting and realize that it's not as easy as it looks. But their editors do not grok it. Editors think of 'science' as a single thing - there is a sports-guy and a fashion-guy and a science-guy in the newsroom and they get assignments accordingly. Which means that the poor science reporter has to report on everything from cosmology to math to medicine to ecology with no time to actually study these areas sufficiently to understand them. Of course they get nervous and exhausted and touchy... ;-)

But in the era where newsrooms are firing in-house journalists and relying more and more on freelancers, this is an opportunity for freelance journalists to put a stake into a particular territory: specialize in one field and refuse to write stories outside it. That way, a journalist who has become, over years of study and reporting, an expert in field A, will only report on A, will be on rolodexes (I guess not virtual but real physical ones) of every editor in the country/world for stories on A and will be asked all the time by everyone to cover A. And will do it really well. Each editor will have a list of experts on A, B, C and every other area of science. With specialization, biochemists will not have to risk showing off their ignorance of astronomy, media organizations will know they have all topics covered by the best of the best, and the general quality of reporting science will increase.

In the next segment of the article, Murcott seems to want more investigative science journalism. But, compare this to this. Connie St.Louis and I have the opposite ideas what science journalism is. I am not specifically targeting Connie, it just happens that I am aware of her post that puts into words, very clearly, what many other journalists say or at least hint at.

Everything that I think is science journalism, she dismisses as not being 'real' science journalism: science reportage and explaining. And one aspect of it that she thinks is the real science journalism is the only one I think is really not - "investigative science journalism" is, in my book, just the regular investigative journalism in which the people under scrutiny just happen accidentally to be scientists. The former (science reporting and explaining) requires that the journalist understands science, the latter (investigating potential misconduct by people who happen to be scientists) does not. As I said before, if the investigation involves analysis of data, it is done by scientists and reported in specialized media: scientific journals (these can be then translated into lay language by journalists and reported to the general audience). If the investigation involves potential misconduct of humans who happen to be scientists, it is done by journalists, but it is not science journalism any more - it is more something like political journalism (as misconduct usually involves money and prestige).

Steve Mirsky (editor at Scientific American: here on Twitter ) once said, and I agree with him, that all of science journalism should be activist: evangelizing for truth (not capitalized). There is no mealy-mouthed HeSaidSheSaid, False-Balance, View-From-Nowhere tabulation of opinions held by people. Science journalism is straightforward: this is how the world works and this is how we learned it.

Which brings me to another important question: why professional journalists dismiss Press Information Officers. If journalists think that journalism that investigates scientists is what should be called 'science journalism', and see that what PIOs are doing is not that, they will not think of PIOs as journalists. On the other hand, if you agree with me that investigation of scientists is not science journalism, but reporting and explaining science is, than PIOs, many of whom have science degrees, are actually doing the brunt of science journalism these days. Sure, not all of them are perfect, and not all press releases are good, but they are getting better (as science majors are replacing j-school majors as PIOs at many institutions), they are, seeing how media is crumbling, starting to see themselves as serious journalists filling the void left by the massive layoffs of science reporters in the MSM, and are writing better and better copy, usually much better than what remaining newsroom reporters write under horrendous deadlines and pressure.

In other words, as we realize that scientists, PIOs, journalists and audience are in it together, collaborating on science reporting, we need to eliminate this antagonism between newsroom journalists and institutional journalists (formerly known as PIOs). For that antagonism to be eliminated, the two need to agree on what the definition of science journalism is. And I don't think defining it as 'investigating potential misconduct of scientists' is a good and healthy definition. It is much more productive to leave that kind of stuff to political reporters (who will be tipped off by scientists themselves, as was always the case: all data-fudging was first discovered by other scientists, the only people with expertise to notice it in the first place) and have everyone focus on real science journalism - reporting and explaining science.

Next, Murcott wants to move science journalism from a) presenting facts (including results of latest studies), to b) presenting how scientists work and their method. He, and many others, forget that the key element is the third level: c) trust. Read this carefully to understand why. So, all three things need to be reported. Eyeing every paper and every press release as suspect, and treating scientists as dishonest until proven otherwise, is one of the journalistic techniques that undermines the trust in science. Whose side are you on, guys? Creationist, GW-denialists, HIV-denialists and anti-vaccers? Job of a journalist is to explain the world as it is. Science is the best method to figure out how the world works. Use this method as a journalistic method.

Scientific method has several (actually many) elements in phases, but one can oversimplify here: get an idea, test it, communicate it. Yes, communicating science is a part of scientific method. Which is why both scientists and journalists have to do it, hopefully together as allies, not as opponents eyeing each other with suspicion. See also many of the reports from scio10 - almost all of them focus on the need for collaboration between scientists, press officers and journalists, not antagonism. It's a new ecosystem today. And the new niche for science journalists is NOT the top predator any more - the mindset has to shift from the competitive to a collaborative view of media ecology.

More and more people studying the evolution of media are coming around to the idea that the job of a journalist these days is a person who collects, aggregates and interprets information. Even data.

The story is important, as humans are storytellers by nature, but the story is a hook that takes people to the wealth of underlying information, the background, and the data. Each news-report needs to be embedded in a broader structure that also contains an "explainer". Which is why it is essential for the story, the "hook", to link to all the relevant background information and data.

Finally, we get to Murcott's wish to see reviews....the reviews that scientists have written during the process of peer-review of manuscripts. Murcott, pressed for time, thinks that being able, as a journalist, to see the reviews, would help him understand the story better and glean some of the context that he is missing because is writing a story outside of his area of expertise and has not time to study it first. In essence, he is asking for a shortcut that helps him do his job. But he is not considering how this would affect the review process.

First, it is important to remind everyone that peer-review is a very new thing. Only one minor paper by Einstein went through peer-review. Nature only started experimenting with it in the late 1960s. Yet lots and lots of great science was published before this was instituted. There is no data supporting the view that peer-review actually does much good.

We at PLoS ONE are trying to improve the process. What we have noticed (and most of our academic editors and authors agree) is that by eliminating the need for reviewers to evaluate if a manuscript is novel, exciting, revolutionary, paradigm-shifting, mind-boggling and Earth-shaking, and only asking them to evaluate the technical aspects of the work, the review becomes MUCH better:

As the scientific paper itself evolves, more and more of the peer-review will happen after publication, on the paper or connected to it and journalists need to be a part of it.

You can search the Web for many discussions of "open review" and you will see that there are many more cons than pros. The reviewers will find it difficult to be frank. Fewer people will agree to review (and there is already too many manuscripts for the available number of reviewers). Showing reviews to journalists would have exactly the same effect, for good or ill. Having a journalist see reviews is ...a crutch for a journo who does not have the time, or expertise, or inclination to do the heavy lifting of personal education and everybody would object to this, rightly so. Specialization of journalists - each grabbing one's own area of expertise - and the collaborative journalism done by scientists, PIOs, journalists and audience, would make a 'peek' at reviewers' comments unnecessary and irrelevant. The collective WILL have all the necessary expertise and historical/philosophical/sociological/theoretical/methodological context to get the story (and attached data/information) right.

There are 35 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:

Does Tropical Forest Fragmentation Increase Long-Term Variability of Butterfly Communities?:

Habitat fragmentation is a major driver of biodiversity loss. Yet, the overall effects of fragmentation on biodiversity may be obscured by differences in responses among species. These opposing responses to fragmentation may be manifest in higher variability in species richness and abundance (termed hyperdynamism), and in predictable changes in community composition. We tested whether forest fragmentation causes long-term hyperdynamism in butterfly communities, a taxon that naturally displays large variations in species richness and community composition. Using a dataset from an experimentally fragmented landscape in the central Amazon that spanned 11 years, we evaluated the effect of fragmentation on changes in species richness and community composition through time. Overall, adjusted species richness (adjusted for survey duration) did not differ between fragmented forest and intact forest. However, spatial and temporal variation of adjusted species richness was significantly higher in fragmented forests relative to intact forest. This variation was associated with changes in butterfly community composition, specifically lower proportions of understory shade species and higher proportions of edge species in fragmented forest. Analysis of rarefied species richness, estimated using indices of butterfly abundance, showed no differences between fragmented and intact forest plots in spatial or temporal variation. These results do not contradict the results from adjusted species richness, but rather suggest that higher variability in butterfly adjusted species richness may be explained by changes in butterfly abundance. Combined, these results indicate that butterfly communities in fragmented tropical forests are more variable than in intact forest, and that the natural variability of butterflies was not a buffer against the effects of fragmentation on community dynamics.

Large-Scale Movement and Reef Fidelity of Grey Reef Sharks:

Despite an Indo-Pacific wide distribution, the movement patterns of grey reef sharks (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos) and fidelity to individual reef platforms has gone largely unstudied. Their wide distribution implies that some individuals have dispersed throughout tropical waters of the Indo-Pacific, but data on large-scale movements do not exist. We present data from nine C. amblyrhynchos monitored within the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea off the coast of Australia. Shark presence and movements were monitored via an array of acoustic receivers for a period of six months in 2008. During the course of this monitoring few individuals showed fidelity to an individual reef suggesting that current protective areas have limited utility for this species. One individual undertook a large-scale movement (134 km) between the Coral Sea and Great Barrier Reef, providing the first evidence of direct linkage of C. amblyrhynchos populations between these two regions. Results indicate limited reef fidelity and evidence of large-scale movements within northern Australian waters.

Evolutionary Divergence in Brain Size between Migratory and Resident Birds:

Despite important recent progress in our understanding of brain evolution, controversy remains regarding the evolutionary forces that have driven its enormous diversification in size. Here, we report that in passerine birds, migratory species tend to have brains that are substantially smaller (relative to body size) than those of resident species, confirming and generalizing previous studies. Phylogenetic reconstructions based on Bayesian Markov chain methods suggest an evolutionary scenario in which some large brained tropical passerines that invaded more seasonal regions evolved migratory behavior and migration itself selected for smaller brain size. Selection for smaller brains in migratory birds may arise from the energetic and developmental costs associated with a highly mobile life cycle, a possibility that is supported by a path analysis. Nevertheless, an important fraction (over 68%) of the correlation between brain mass and migratory distance comes from a direct effect of migration on brain size, perhaps reflecting costs associated with cognitive functions that have become less necessary in migratory species. Overall, our results highlight the importance of retrospective analyses in identifying selective pressures that have shaped brain evolution, and indicate that when it comes to the brain, larger is not always better.

How Accurate and Robust Are the Phylogenetic Estimates of Austronesian Language Relationships?:

We recently used computational phylogenetic methods on lexical data to test between two scenarios for the peopling of the Pacific. Our analyses of lexical data supported a pulse-pause scenario of Pacific settlement in which the Austronesian speakers originated in Taiwan around 5,200 years ago and rapidly spread through the Pacific in a series of expansion pulses and settlement pauses. We claimed that there was high congruence between traditional language subgroups and those observed in the language phylogenies, and that the estimated age of the Austronesian expansion at 5,200 years ago was consistent with the archaeological evidence. However, the congruence between the language phylogenies and the evidence from historical linguistics was not quantitatively assessed using tree comparison metrics. The robustness of the divergence time estimates to different calibration points was also not investigated exhaustively. Here we address these limitations by using a systematic tree comparison metric to calculate the similarity between the Bayesian phylogenetic trees and the subgroups proposed by historical linguistics, and by re-estimating the age of the Austronesian expansion using only the most robust calibrations. The results show that the Austronesian language phylogenies are highly congruent with the traditional subgroupings, and the date estimates are robust even when calculated using a restricted set of historical calibrations.

The Association between Proximity to Animal Feeding Operations and Community Health: A Systematic Review:

Background

A systematic review was conducted for the association between animal feeding operations (AFOs) and the health of individuals living near AFOs. The review was restricted to studies reporting respiratory, gastrointestinal and mental health outcomes in individuals living near AFOs in North America, European Union, United Kingdom, and Scandinavia. From June to September 2008 searches were conducted in PUBMED, CAB, Web-of-Science, and Agricola with no restrictions. Hand searching of narrative reviews was also used. Two reviewers independently evaluated the role of chance, confounding, information, selection and analytic bias on the study outcome. Nine relevant studies were identified. The studies were heterogeneous with respect to outcomes and exposures assessed. Few studies reported an association between surrogate clinical outcomes and AFO proximity. A negative association was reported when odor was the measure of exposure to AFOs and self-reported disease, the measure of outcome. There was evidence of an association between self-reported disease and proximity to AFO in individuals annoyed by AFO odor. There was inconsistent evidence of a weak association between self-reported disease in people with allergies or familial history of allergies. No consistent dose response relationship between exposure and disease was observable.

Human Mammary Epithelial Cells Exhibit a Bimodal Correlated Random Walk Pattern:

Organisms, at scales ranging from unicellular to mammals, have been known to exhibit foraging behavior described by random walks whose segments confirm to Lévy or exponential distributions. For the first time, we present evidence that single cells (mammary epithelial cells) that exist in multi-cellular organisms (humans) follow a bimodal correlated random walk (BCRW). Cellular tracks of MCF-10A pBabe, neuN and neuT random migration on 2-D plastic substrates, analyzed using bimodal analysis, were found to reveal the BCRW pattern. We find two types of exponentially distributed correlated flights (corresponding to what we refer to as the directional and re-orientation phases) each having its own correlation between move step-lengths within flights. The exponential distribution of flight lengths was confirmed using different analysis methods (logarithmic binning with normalization, survival frequency plots and maximum likelihood estimation). Because of the presence of non-uniform turn angle distribution of move step-lengths within a flight and two different types of flights, we propose that the epithelial random walk is a BCRW comprising of two alternating modes with varying degree of correlations, rather than a simple persistent random walk. A BCRW model rather than a simple persistent random walk correctly matches the super-diffusivity in the cell migration paths as indicated by simulations based on the BCRW model.

Localization of Canine Brachycephaly Using an Across Breed Mapping Approach:

The domestic dog, Canis familiaris, exhibits profound phenotypic diversity and is an ideal model organism for the genetic dissection of simple and complex traits. However, some of the most interesting phenotypes are fixed in particular breeds and are therefore less tractable to genetic analysis using classical segregation-based mapping approaches. We implemented an across breed mapping approach using a moderately dense SNP array, a low number of animals and breeds carefully selected for the phenotypes of interest to identify genetic variants responsible for breed-defining characteristics. Using a modest number of affected (10-30) and control (20-60) samples from multiple breeds, the correct chromosomal assignment was identified in a proof of concept experiment using three previously defined loci; hyperuricosuria, white spotting and chondrodysplasia. Genome-wide association was performed in a similar manner for one of the most striking morphological traits in dogs: brachycephalic head type. Although candidate gene approaches based on comparable phenotypes in mice and humans have been utilized for this trait, the causative gene has remained elusive using this method. Samples from nine affected breeds and thirteen control breeds identified strong genome-wide associations for brachycephalic head type on Cfa 1. Two independent datasets identified the same genomic region. Levels of relative heterozygosity in the associated region indicate that it has been subjected to a selective sweep, consistent with it being a breed defining morphological characteristic. Genotyping additional dogs in the region confirmed the association. To date, the genetic structure of dog breeds has primarily been exploited for genome wide association for segregating traits. These results demonstrate that non-segregating traits under strong selection are equally tractable to genetic analysis using small sample numbers.

Continuing with the tradition from last two years, I will occasionally post interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January. See all the interviews in this series here. You can check out previous years' interviews as well: 2008 and 2009.

Today, I asked Christine Ottery from the MA program in science journalism at City University London to answer a few questions:

Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Where are you coming from (both geographically and philosophically)? What is your (scientific) background?

Does double As at GCSE count as a science background? Leaving aside exams I took when I was 15 years old, I'm a humanities graduate, with a BA in Philosophy and English. As such, my philosophy is that it's useful to build our pyramids of knowledge from the bottom up using facts as the foundation. Or, like a game of Jenga gone wrong, we could fall down.

My particular intrigue with science is its potential to explain why humans behave the way they do. The fields of neuroscience, genetics and psychology are all fascinating. I'm concerned with the way these interact with big questions such as climate change, health and feminism to the banal and beautiful in our daily lives.

This is starting to sound like a manifesto! Ahem, moving on.

(By the way, I'm from London, England.)

Tell us a little more about your career trajectory so far: interesting projects past and present?

In my previous incarnation I was a journalist and editor writing about adventure travel and sports. I felt pretty good about encouraging people to take up a more active lifestyle. A sedentary lifestyle isn't all to good for health. Read Travis Saunder's take on the effects of being a couch potato.

So, although I planned and commissioned health writing, I did very little myself. The first proper piece of science writing I did was a piece for Fall-Line Skiing magazine on the science of powder snow.

Last summer, around the same time as I was applying to go back to school to do an MA in science journalism at City University London, I began to write long blogs on science communication and tweet like a creature possessed . Then all kinds of funny things happened. I was asked to write for Comment is Free in the Guardian online, and invited to come and speak at Science Online 2010 (Wooo-hooo!). I became a researcher for my journalistic hero, George Monbiot, started writing for TheEcologist.co.uk and even penned a piece about bonobos for Newscientist.com.

What is taking up the most of your time and passion these days? What are your goals?

The two main things that I'm fired up by at the moment are: the mega-inspirational green heroes research I'm doing for Monbiot and a website I'm launching to address science in women's magazines - can't wait to get my teeth into that one. For the site I will be looking at how science features in women's mags and comparing it to what readers want. After all, women are the ones who make the majority of consumer decisions - possibly on the basis of dodgy science. As an antidote, I'll also be research blogging.

What aspect of science communication and/or particular use of the Web in science interests you the most?

Science videos on the web going viral is the way forward for science communication, and no, I'm not just talking about the ubiquitous duck's penis. Brain surgery, historical experiments and so on are a good way of reeling people into science. Complex scientific concepts can be more easily understood when they are demonstrated.

How about social networks, e.g., Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook? Do you find all this online activity to be a net positive (or even a necessity) in what you do?

Twitter and Facebook are important, but mostly as a way to skim off the cream of what other people are reading and writing about. Twitter, in particular, can be a veritable fount of story ideas, especially for blogposts. When people start chatting about something on Twitter, depending on how I rate their opinions, I sit up and take notice. In fact, can we come up with a formula for that? Who'll take a bribe of half a flapjack and lukewarm mug of tea?

When and how did you first discover science blogs? What are some of your favourites? Have you discovered any cool science blogs by the participants at the Conference?

Before coming to Science Online, I have to confess to only having properly read a small handful of science blogs: Bora's of course, Ed Yong's Not Exactly Rocket Science and some of Scicurious's posts on Neurotopia. Since then, I've acquainted myself with: Janet Stemwedel's Adventures in Ethics and Science, Brian Switek's Laelaps, and Eric Michael Johnson's The Primate Diaries, and checked out a whole lot more.

What was the best aspect of ScienceOnline2010 for you? Any suggestions for next year? Is there anything that happened at this Conference - a session, something someone said or did or wrote - that will change the way you think about science communication, or something that you will take with you to your job, blog-reading and blog-writing?

I wrote about my impressions from Science Online 2010 on my blog. Since then, the stuff I'm rolling around my mind basically consists of the meme: I'm writing about what I'm passionate about. Now how do I make enough money from it? So the most important session for me, as stand-alone thought-provoking stuff and also because of the conversations that arose with DeLene Beeland, was: Rebecca Skloot, Tom Levenson and Brian Switek on how to go from blog to book.

It was so nice to meet you and thank you for the interview. I hope to see you again next January.

There are 22 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:

Go say Hello to Travis Saunders and Peter Janiszewski, the newest bloggers on the Scienceblogs.com network at Obesity Panacea.

They cover health, physiology, nutrition and exercise - something we did not have here on the network before, at least not in such a concentrated form. Check out the archives of their old blog and then bookmark the new Obesity Panacea.

Continuing with the tradition from last two years, I will occasionally post interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January. See all the interviews in this series here. You can check out previous years' interviews as well: 2008 and 2009.

Today, I asked Robin Ann Smith from NESCent to answer a few questions.

Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Where are you coming from (both geographically and philosophically)? What is your (scientific) background?

I've spent much of my life taking a grand tour of southern cities -- born in New Orleans, raised in Atlanta, and schooled in Nashville. My Midwestern mother says that makes me and my sister g.r.i.t.s: Girls Raised in the South. My paternal grandmother grew up in Cajun village in south Louisiana and inspired me to study French, so I lived in France for two years during and after college. I moved to North Carolina in 1999.

Scientific background? I have a PhD in biology from Duke, where I studied plant ecology and evolution. Ask me about the mating habits of morning glories and I'll give you an earful. Before that I did Master's work at the University of Montpellier in France, mostly on how different mixes of plants rebound from disturbances like fire and grazing. While there I also learned to love things like tripe, cheek kisses, and strong coffee.

Tell us a little more about your career trajectory so far: interesting projects past and present?

I'm a science writer at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), a nonprofit biology research center based in Durham, NC. NESCent is building their newsroom. That's where I come in -- my job is to help communicate some of research that comes out of the Center.

Before that I taught undergraduate writing for four years at Duke. There are several university writing programs around the country that recruit recently-minted PhDs from across the sciences and humanities to design and teach writing classes in their field. For people who want to learn more about teaching and writing it's a wonderful opportunity. More science PhDs should apply.

What is taking up the most of your time and passion these days? What are your goals?

As a staff writer for a research center I handle a wide range of writing assignments. In a given week I may write a news release, a story for our newsletter or website, a project proposal, or text for a talk or brochure. I also interview researchers, read journal articles, and attend talks and conferences to find out about research in the pipeline.

My goals? I'd like to learn how to tell stories using images and audio. I recently signed up for classes in graphic design and digital photography. I also want to keep flexing my freelance muscles via non-work related stories. In my spare time you can find me hiking, dancing, or experimenting with frozen desserts and home plumbing projects.

How do social networks, e.g., Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook figure in your work? Do you find all this online activity to be a net positive (or even a necessity) in what you do?

I was skeptical about Twitter until I started using it. It's a news aggregator, for one. I use it to find the latest stories about a range of topics. Twitter has also been great for tapping into a universe of writers and editors and getting to know their interests. As for the cons? Between Twitter, Facebook, email, and a million other online outlets, some days my laptop feels like my external brain. I need to unplug and get outside. Time management is tricky.

When and how did you first discover science blogs? What are some of your favourites? Have you discovered any cool science blogs by the participants at the Conference?

I first discovered science blogs by following traditional writers and journalists who expanded into blogging. Olivia Judson's blog The Wild Side (now a subset of Opinionator) and Carl Zimmer's blog The Loom are great examples. I recently discovered and have gotten a huge kick out of CreatureCast, a blog and podcast series jam-packed with playful videos, animation, music and original artwork about animals. Not all of my favorites are bloggers per se, but I'm also a huge fan of Susan Milius at Science News magazine for her coverage of the plant world.

What was the best aspect of ScienceOnline2010 for you? Any suggestions for next year? Is there anything that happened at this Conference - a session, something someone said or did or wrote - that will change the way you think about science communication, or something that you will take with you to your job, blog-reading and blog-writing?

What stood out for me was the diversity of people there - researchers and writers mingling with artists, editors, librarians and educators. That's definitely one of the things that distinguishes Science Online from other science or writing conferences I've been to. My one suggestion for next year: we need a bigger room for the pitch slam! I love that session.

Thanks, Bora.

It was so nice to see you again and thank you for the interview. I'll see you around.

Saturday, January 16 at 4:40 - 5:45pm

C. Trust and Critical Thinking - Stephanie Zvan, PZ Myers, Desiree Schell, Greg Laden, Kirsten Sanford

Description: Lay audiences often lack the resources (access to studies, background knowledge of fields and methods) to evaluate the trustworthiness of scientific information as another scientist or a journalist might. Are there ways to usefully promote critical thinking about sources and presentation as we provide information? Can we teach them to navigate competing claims? And can we do it without promoting a distrust of science itself?

If you get up one more time than you fall you will make it through.

- Chinese proverb

Yesterday I spent the day at the RTP headquarters, attending TEDxRTP. The TEDx conferences are small, locally organized offshoots of the well-known TED conference.

This was the first TEDx in the Triangle region (though Asheville beat us as being the first in the state) and, judging from the response of the audience, it seems everyone expects this will become a regular annual event. You can check out the Twitter account as well as the Twitter chatter if you search the #TEDxRTP hashtag.

The event was livestreamed and the rough videos are already up on the Ustream channel. Better quality videos will be posted soon (Ustream and/or YouTube, just check out the TEDxRTP webpage or Twitter account for updates when this happens).

TEDxNYED (on Twitter) was happening in NYC at the same time, focusing on "the role of new media and technology in shaping the future of education" and a stellar line-up of speakers. The idea to organize TED events specifically for young people (both as presenters and key audience) sprung up spontaneously at both the RTP and NYC events - follow the #SpreadTED hashtag for more - though it has been done before at a local scale: see TEDxTerry (see this video for one example of their talks - I met Jennifer Kaban subsequently at AAAS).

As you may know, I was involved in the organization of the event to some extent, mostly early on. I do not remember now how I got a wiff that a group of locals was trying to organize this (Twitter, Facebook?), but I joined the group early on and we met several times for monthly organizational meetings. Realizing that location dictates everything else (number of participants, number of attendees, amount of food/coffee needed, sponsorship money needed to cover food/coffee, etc.) we set out to investigate location options in the Triangle and took a look at something like 40 potential locations. Some were too small, some too big, some too expensive, others fully booked for the year, and yet others just did not spatially fit for our event. We looked at theaters and movie theaters, hotels and convention centers, restaurants and cafes. In the end, I helped negotiate the perfect location - the RTP headquarters: perfect location smack in the center of the Triangle, easy drive from everywhere in the area, great LEED-silver building, and experienced staff that could help with myriads of aspects of organizing an event, from catering and parking to technical aspects (wifi, video recording etc.).

Later on, busy with ScienceOnline2010 and then trip to AAAS, I pulled out of the organization a little bit. I especially did not want to dictate the speakers, for two reasons: one generous, one selfish. First, I am already organizing the awesomest, most kick-ass, most well-known annual conference in the area where I have a big say as to who is speaking. Second, I wanted to see local speakers that I am not aware of, yet others think are worth listening to. Just like at Ignite Raleigh a few days earlier, all the speakers were new to me (at least in the sense that I have never seen them speak - I did know a few people from before, either from Real Life or from the online world). And I approached the TEDxRTP speaker line-up with a deliberate decision to be open and tolerant to everything, even if that is a little bit outside my own comfort zone.

And yes, several were outside of my comfort zone. As the theme of the event was "Living to Our Highest Potential", the talks were highly inspirational. Yes, several invoked spirituality, alternative medicine, uncritical infatuation with the "wisdom" of Ancient India, and even, gasp, religion, but none of them crossed the line for me, the rational, reality-based robot. The only talk that made me really uneasy is one that invoked a far too traditional and conservative vision of what a family looks like (and judging from the Twitter chatter, I was far from alone in being uneasy with it).

I am an analytical kind of guy, so I analyzed the talks a lot! There was a lot of stuff there that I learned from the first time, from design of serious games, through the ways private companies are planning on going into outer space, to how to teach swimming, to business practices of trapist monks. Then there were talks which covered well-trodden ground but framed it differently, in a new and potentially useful way. And Catherine Cadden broke my analytical shields and moved me emotionally.

Nick Young did the best job blogging about TEDxRTP so far - see his preview, the first part of the review and second part of the review for good descriptions of the event and the individual presentations (though we may not agree on details).

What I was initially worried about turned out to be actually a good thing about TEDxRTP - the layering and mixing up of some very different presentations. It was not just talk after talk after talk. We showed four original TED videos (this is one of the rules of TEDx). We had one speaker read a poem. A trio playing serious music. And two (one planned one unplanned) skits of improvisation theater. The whole thing was connected together masterfully by MC for the day Zach Ward whose dry humor made the event even more fun. I hope he comes back to do it again next year.

This is a time of heavy concentration of similar events in the area. There was an Ignite Raleigh 2 on March 3rd (I already blogged about it), and upcoming are FizzledDurham on March 8th (that's tomorrow), Pecha Kucha Raleigh on March 23rd, and the March edition of The Monti also on March 23rd.

The real biggy this year is WWW2010 in late April which includes several side-show events including Web Science Conference 2010, 7th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility and the FutureWeb: WWWhere Are We Heading?, the latter one I hope to be able to attend.

You can find these and other events on the Social Carolina calendar and plan accordingly - and hope you can get tickets, as most of these events sell out within minutes! Now that all these small independent groups are finding each other, we can probably be able to coordinate the dates and times better for the next year's events, including TEDxRTP2011.

On Friday, the Bride of Coturnix, Coturnietta and a friend of hers went to DPAC to see 'Spring Awakening'. As you may already know, this is a rock adaptation of an old play located in late-19th century Germany, following the growth and maturation of a group of high school students surrounded by a disciplinarian and authoritarian adult world, in which sex is taboo (so they have to learn on their own, feel guilt about it, and suffer consequences) and strict, dogmatic religion trumps every attempt at independent thought or questioning.

I have not seen the play before, though I have heard the soundtrack a million times, but the Bride of Coturnix has seen the original cast on Broadway and says that this rendering was excellent. I agree.

Yes, there is a moment of partial nudity on stage at one point. And a stylized masturbation. And a stylized sexual intercourse. And a kiss between two gay men. And a botched back-alley abortion that kills a girl. And an accurate portrayal of cowardly, insecure adults making up for their own shortcomings by preventing and punishing every youthful act that challenges their power, their standing on the top of the hierarchy, their mad use of religion to enforce that hierarchy, and their own unease with sexuality.

Which is the point of the play.

Which is why it is exactly the young people who are the target audience of the play. The warning on the DPAC website - "Parental Discretion is advised. Mature content, including brief partial nudity, sexual situations, and strong language." - is there more to satisfy the conservative, authoritarian, cowardly, sexually insecure, adult curmudgeons in our own current society than a statement of fact. Or a real warning to young people to stay away.

The funniest moment for me was when, at the end of Act I, the old man in front of me got up and said how scandalized he was, asking why there was no warning that this was R-rated! Hmmm, I guess a curmudgeon like that does not go online to see the warning either. And he missed the point of the show - that his style of curmudgeonness is exactly what the play is exposing for what it is: hypocritical and dangerous. It is people like him who are NOT the target audience of the play - it is the young people, being warned about folks like him.

There are some good reviews in Durham Herald Sun and Raleigh News and Observer, and even better blog posts by Theatre North Carolina and Ginny Skalski (who wrote it from the perspective of a lucky person who got to sit on the stage).

On the other hand, do not trust Byron Woods of Independent Weekly for your theatrical reviews. It appears he is incapable of arriving on time (compare this to this - half the reviews are about how he was late, and complaining about it as if it's not his fault), and is more intent on appearing savvy (remember the 'Church of the Savvy' inflicting the media in general?) and slamming a play than telling something informative to the readers - compare his reviews to everyone else's review of a same play (anotherh example, other than Spring Awakening, is last year's Fiddler on the roof, compare this to this).

You can find DPAC on Twitter, Facebook and Flickr, as well as check out their blog.

The touring ensemble of 'Spring Awakening' also has a blog, a website and a Twitter account, a fan forum, as well as MySpace and Facebook pages. That's the way to promote the show!

DPAC had some variation in quality of shows this year (expected for such a new place), but 'Spring Awakening' was right at the top. If it comes to a theater near you, go and see it.