Science

Having a press pass for the AAAS meeting in Vancouver has ushered me into a conference world that was completely hidden to me as a scientist.

As you may know, I have traveled to Vancouver, British Columbia, to attend the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (or AAAS). A few plans were made in advance: packing my passport, bringing my Delta free drink coupons, and more importantly, meeting up with Ars Technica's John Timmer and BoingBoing's Maggie Koerth-Baker for shadowing and general science writing n00b counsel.

I have a new post up today on the Scientific American Guest Blog. In it, I comment on the state of science education by expressing my displeasure with a popular science book and interviewing a professor. Here's the link:

The Disappearing Actinides: And Other Frustrations from the Periodic Table of the Elements

I've been conducting a minimally scientific study of traffic to my blog since I posted Read This Damn It! OR What I Learned at ScienceOnline two days ago. In a session moderated by Maggie Koerth-Baker and Ed Yong at ScienceOnline2012, a discussion emerged about the use of words like "Read This" or "Explainer" as a tool to drive readers to a blog post.

I'm running an experiment. This is my control post, and you are my test subjects. I'll follow up soon.

For your participation, here's some science kittens, and a puppy, and a rainbow from my trip to Hawaii. And a clip from Flight of the Conchords.

sciencekittens.jpg

You know that feeling you get when everything comes together—relief, excitement, affirmation? I’ve got that.