The self-proclaimed “best in science writing on blogs” brings us once again a wide range of posts from the great and the good of the scientific blogosphere. The project was started with Bora Zivkovic (Blog Around the Clock) who recognised that science blogs were taking on a more and more relevant role in the sharing of research results. Without wishing to get into the debates and arguments that often emerges when non-scientist or non-specialist journalists write about science or when the average scientist turns pop , most of us can recognise that there are in essence good writers and there are not so good writers.
In this year’s Open Lab Scicurious (Neurotopia) takes over the helm of the print publication with a fantastic cover design by Glendon Mellow (Flying Trilobite) and technical editing by Blake Stacey (Science After Sunclipse).
You might wonder what benefit there can possibly be to compiling a bunch of blog posts and printing them months after they appear in the blogosphere. Science blogs are bringing research out into the wider public domain in a more timely manner than ever before and doing it with skill and precision (in the majority of cases). So, a printed compilation of 50 science blog posts from 2009 provides another way to showcase how the world of science writing is evolving.
The blogs represented are written by scientists, science students, science writers and science journalists. Some of them are deadly earnest. Others more light-hearted. Some are seriously interesting. All are fascinating in their own way and many fields of science are covered within the pages of The Open Laboratory 2009. Is Sciencebase represented? I’d like to think it would stand a chance of being selected had it been submitted, but no, it’s not in there. Some of you may see that as a bonus. You can grab a copy either way via Lulu.
I have a nice pile of books on my desk that have been given the once over. Watch out for a round-up of those including How Many Licks, Shrimp, and Second Nature. Grab the Sciencebase news feed or follow our Facebook page to keep up with the latest on the site without having to check back.