How to waste even more time with Google Earth

I dare you to visit this rather funky map quiz and not get addicted.

My only complaint is that the pictures containing nothing but ocean floor are a little bit too difficult...

(thanks to Ron).

Updating the geoblogosphere

Those coping with the sad loss of Down to Earth, rejoice - a couple of other new(ish) earth science oriented blogs have been brought to my attention:

• Apparent Dip (thanks to Lab Lemming).
  
• ...Or Something, which is especially notable for several cool geological photos.
  
• Olelog. Lots of general geological goodness.
  

Meanwhile, Kevin Vranes is jumping the Scienceblog ship, but thankfully he'll still be treating us to his climate change/policy musings at Prometheus, and going all wildernessy on us at NoSeNada.org.

Finally, if RealClimate doesn't slake your climate blogging thirst, try Open Mind (via Tim Lambert) or Head In a Cloud.

Philosophia Naturalis #5: Some sciblogging New Year’s Resolutions

The New Year may merely represent an arbitrary point in the Earth’s orbit with no intrinsic significance, but the flipping over of the digits on the calendar seems to have a real psychological effect, compelling us to dream up grandiose promises to improve ourselves and our lives. Of course, we then spectacularly fail to keep most of them, but this month’s edition of Philosophia Naturalis attempts to mirror this spirit of self-improvement by asking: what makes science blogging good science blogging? A trawl through the past month’s activity in the science and technology blogosphere suggests that, at their best, scibloggers perform a number of vital functions, which we can all try to emulate:

To augment the media coverage of science

It’s an unfortunate fact that you don’t have to know anything about science to be a science correspondent for a major newspaper or news channel – if anything, having a science degree probably counts against you. The very best people overcome this, of course, but a lot of mainstream science reporting seems to consist of slightly rewritten departmental press releases (which may also have been ‘rewritten for clarity’ by non-scientists). If you want nuance and context, science bloggers are on hand to pick up those vaguely explained findings in the mainstream media – be it reports of running water on Mars, the latest results from the Stardust probe, the origin of weird gamma ray bursts, the topology of the Universe, or the year’s top 5 nanotechnology breakthroughs - and run with them.

To talk about the ‘unsexy’ science the media does not reach

Reports of cutting-edge breakthroughs are all very well, but to really understand what those breakthroughs mean you need to know the basic science as well. Blogging gives us scientists the opportunity to talk about the nuts and bolts of their disciplines, such as how particles detectors work (in the run up to the LHC being switched on next year), or how stars manufacture the elements that form us all. We can also rectify the puzzling lack of media interest in our particular (and, obviously, intensely interesting) subfield by waffling to our heart’s content about strange correlations between the structure of the Cosmic Microwave Background and the orientation of our solar system, or the ‘interpretation question’ in quantum mechanics.

We can also compensate for the media’s notoriously short attention span; the results being breathlessly publicised are only a snapshot of research programmes which can play out over decades, as various hypotheses are proposed, tested, then discarded or modified. For example, there was a lot of excitement a few months back about possible liquid water on Enceladus, but it is interested bloggers who now tell us that this is not the only possible explanation for those geyser-like plumes.

To show that scientists are people too

It’s a sad fact that the common caricatures of scientists – as soulless reductionists with no empathy, social skills, or ethical qualms (with a nice sideline in big frickin’ lasers and maniacal laughter) are not often recognised as exaggerations. Blogging gives scientists a chance to express their real voices and personalities, and show that our lives are in fact, fairly normal: OK, we may talk about methods of solving Rubik’s cubes as well as soap operas, and we may have appalling taste in T-shirts, but our jobs have both good days and bad days. And worse days. And days when our experiments produce stupid results. We make mistakes. And, of course, we have arguments. Big arguments. Over things like whether string theory is the best thing since sliced bread or a half baked blind alley, or whether the entire universe can usefully be described as a computer, or if worries that climate change science is being stretched too far to gain political traction are justified. We find the idea that we're all engaged in a battle to suppress The Truth about global warming, or evolution, or the age of the Earth, rather hilarious - any 'orthodox conspiracy' of more than two scientists would undergo a schism faster than you could say, 'splitters!'

To fight the forces of ignorance and antiscience

There is a lot of silly science out there. The media sometimes shoots itself in the foot by giving silly answers to nonsensical questions, or giving free publicity to pointless mathematical concepts (though we can also be slightly more generous).

But darker forces, which don’t just mindlessly mangle science but actively slander it, are also at work. Defending against these attacks might be like playing whack-a-mole, but it must be done: and it’s nice to see that even if the US National Park Service’s are somewhat coy over the age and geological history of the Grand Canyon, there are science bloggers willing to step into the breach.

To provide the wow factor

Who better than scientists to inspire people with their tales of just how cool the Universe is? Not enough of us take the time, which is why we still miss Carl Sagan ten years after his passing. However, if a picture speaks a thousand words, then Phil has amassed ten thousand spectacular words over at Bad Astronomy (plus a few more of his own), and the HiRise team also do their bit with more stunning images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Us geologists produce some very cool pictures too, so maybe I should take this one particularly to heart in the coming year.

Thus concludes this month’s edition of Philosphia Naturalis - may science blogging continue to flourish in 2007. Thanks to you all for reading, and to the contributers (willing and unwilling) for writing. PN #6 will be hosted by Charles Daney at Science and Reason on Thursday, February 1. Send your nominations and suggestions to carnival@scienceandreason.net, as explained here. We’re also looking for bloggers with a physical sciences/technology focus for hosting future editions; more information, and links to past editions, can be found at the Philosophia Naturalis site.

Two carnivals for the price of one!

Dan Collins over at Down To Earth has been enthusiastically earning his sciblogging spurs this week, managing to organise not one, but two, blog carnivals. Go join the grand voyage of discovery that is Tangled Bank #68, or read the latest and best musings on physical sciences and technology at Philosophia Naturalis #4. Or both.

The next edition of Philosophia Naturalis will be hosted by this most 'umble blogger on January the 4th. I'll be sorting out an official call for submissions shortly, but anyone who's particularly keen can send suggestions to me at c.j.rowan *at* gmail *dot* com. Alternatively, go here , where you can also volunteer to host. No signing in blood required, I assure you.

British Science Blogging

What goes around comes around on the shameless blog-whoring front, I reckon. A positive spin-off from the Truth In Science debacle was the happy discovery of a number of excellent UK, or UK-based, science bloggers of whom I was previously unaware. I’m sure there is more excellent stuff out there, and I’d like to know where it is. So if you write about science and are from or are currently based on this side of the Pond (ex-pats also welcome), link to yourself in the comments and I’ll add you to the list below. Everyone else, tell me about the relevant people in your blog-roll.

The List

• Bad Science - Ben Goldacre keeps an eye on the relentless ignorance of the British media. Poor man.
  
• Bunsen Burner. Some excellent general science writing (it’s not been active for a couple of months though).
  
• Connaissances. A geologically-inclined poet currently living in France.
  
• Darren Naish: Tetrapod Zoology. A paleontologist who actually gets to study dinosaurs.
  
• Dr Petra Boynton - an evidence-based approach to sex and relationship issues.
  
• dotdotdot - contrary to the tagline, she apparently does now have a PhD.
  
• El Gentraso - Science writer focussing on evolution, ecology and conservation.
  
• Gooseania - surviving a Maths PhD in Manchester.
  
• homunculus - Philip Ball gets people to pay him to write about science. Bastard.
  
• inkyCircus - Still one third British, which is enough to qualify them for our football team (they'd probably be an improvement too).
  
• Leaves on the Line - Andrew Jaffe, an astrophysicist at Imperial College, London.
  
• The Neurophilosopher’s weblog - cognitive science and other things biological.
  
• Postblogger - biochemist/botanist riffing on the traumas of being a post-doc (except on Thursdays).
  
• Post Doc Ergo Propter Doc - chemistry postdoc, and not afraid to complain about it.
  
• Ramblings of a Scientist - of Dr. Jim, to be precise.
  
• Sane Scientist - not so sure of that myself...
  
• The Scientific Activist - an American biologist in Oxford.
  
• A Somewhat Old, But Capacious Handbag - Miss Prism opines on cakes and biology.
  
• Stoat - climate science commentary.
  
• Transient Reporter - survived British bording school, so academia holds no fears for him.
  
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Postdoc - Iknownotwhattodo, another biologist stuck in post-doc limbo.
  

Keep them coming - then who knows? We can coordinate on any more MP nagging, follow up on Postblogger’s suggestion for our very own carnival, and, more importantly, think about getting together in a pub somewhere…

Carnival(s)!

• Edition #3 of the physical sciences carnival Philosophia Naturalis is up at Geek Counterpoint. Lots of interesting stuff there - and I'm not just saying that because my Hawaii earthquake post is included.
  
  
• The new installment of the more venerable Tangled Bank is also up over at Easternblot.
  
  
• And it seems there's enough cool anthropology stuff out there in the blogosphere to merit a dedicated carnival - The Four Stone Hearth - three stones of which are currently piled up at Afarenis.
  

What's hot in the world of science?

I've just discovered the nifty new "Most Popular Now" page on BBC News, which shows you which stories are getting the most attention worldwide, or region by region. You can even check by subject - for example, as I write the top science and nature stories involve a 'chameleon' snake and another depressing set-back for the EU emissions trading scheme (though it's Germany, rather than the UK, in the dock for once).

Wouldn't it be good if instead of the general public, you could discover what was exciting scientists? Nature offer a list of the month's ten most downloaded articles, but sadly (and not surprisingly) biomedical stuff seems to dominate to the exclusion of all else. Better is the Top25 portal at ScienceDirect, where you can search by subcategory and individual journal (I think you can at least access the abstracts of the listed papers without a subscription).

This is a very crude tool, because a better measure of whether a particular paper has excited scientists is how much they use the ideas and results to guide and augment their own work, which is measured by citations. Tracking who is citing whom is a bit more difficult than counting downloads or page hits, so freely available information seems a bit limited: Thomson Scientific runs in-cites, which offers the top three 'hot papers' published in the last two years in various fields, and also a list of 'super-hot' papers which seem to be garnering special attention. However, although this is interesting, I don't know how much use it is for me as a scientist - within my field I can learn a lot more by getting down and dirty at Web of Knowledge, and searching for papers in the Science Citation Index, which cross-links every paper published in the last 25 years to the ones it cites and the ones it is cited by. Having an internet connection on my desk is a mixed blessing, but every minute of my day that is wasted through mindless web-surfing is more than compensated for by access to that sort of information.