Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est (And thus knowledge itself is power)
-- Sir Francis Bacon.

This was originally posted 1/9/2009 on my old blog.

Sometimes you have to just let go and release something to the wild. I have mentioned on a few occasions a qualitative study I did prior to the network study. To be honest, I think I actually did it in the Fall of 2007 ?! I thought (and was encouraged to believe) that I could get a journal article from it, but at this point, I've moved on.  With the recent publication of another article on science blogs, I thought that this needed to be out there. Plus, it's really not fair to the participants who gave me their time.

tags: PalmenGarten, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, flower porn, nature, environment,

A recent paper from I. Kouper entitled "Science blogs and public engagement with science: practices, challenges, and opportunities" has been receiving a fair bit of bloggy attention. Of the negative sort. Mostly because the paper purports to report on the state of all science blogging but then cherry picks a few blogs to generate data- which is not actually presented for the most part.

In recent years, it's become clear that much of our individual behavior depends on the dynamics of our social network. It doesn't matter if we're talking about obesity or happiness: they all flow through other people, like a virus or a meme. Last year, I profiled James Fowler and Nicholas Christakis in Wired, who have conducted several fascinating studies that demonstrate the power of social networks:

I'm going to be attending the March Meeting of the American Physical Society next week, in Portland, OR. This will be held at the Oregon Convention Center, which is apparently on the opposite side of the river from every hotel in the city.

tags: movies, oscar-winning movie trailer, Academy Awards, spoof, humor, funny,

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

Haiti-born hip hop artist Wyclef Jean has been one of the leading artists promoting Haitian relief since the earthquake. In this Creole version of his song "24 Heures a Vivre" (24 Hours to Live) on his 2004 album Welcome to Haiti: Creole 101 he asks the following: