Comments for first half of March 2010

Canadian Girl Postdoc has a great post about how power relationships filter into conversations in the academic blogosphere.

Miriam at Deep Sea News talks about how fact-based science communication is failing. Facts are good; a plan is better.

FlowingData shows the “How genetics works” picture, which should be called, “How genetics was thought to work in the eighteenth century or so.”

Biochem Bell asks if a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Or something. Doctor Becca then takes this and runs with it some more. (Actually, they’re both concerned with high prestige journals.)

David Crotty at The Scholarly Kitchen examines a wonky paper on science blogging, and asks, “If you knew people read your blog, would you blog differently?” (I’m paraphrasing there...)

Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine asks, “In the Google age, what is the point of teaching memorization?” An excellent question, and one I also struggle with.

Sheril Kirshenbaum asks at The Intersection what readers want to know about energy. I’m perpetually confused by nuclear power generation and whether it’s worth it or not.

Armin Schneider, in a book review in PLoS Biology, says neuroscientists must not be interested in the history of their field, because the aren’t a lot of people in the history poster sessions. He neglects to mention that the history posters are displayed all week long, while regular posters are only up for four hours. Visits to the history posters are going to be more spread out.

Nancy Duarte wanted feedback on the cover for her next book. It’ll be called Resonate, and I guarantee you I’ll be buying it whichever cover ends up on it.