Help and FAQs
Part of Nature's mission statement is to:
ensure that the results of science are rapidly disseminated to the public throughout the world, in a fashion that conveys their significance for knowledge, culture and daily life.
We think blogs are a good way of doing this. To make it easier for scientists to find interesting blogs and to help developers build blog related services Nature maintains a public, curated index of science blogs.
At the moment you can use this index to find new blogs and track buzz around particular stories in the blogosphere. We'll be adding other features in the coming months. You can ask us questions and keep up to date with any changes we make by following us on Twitter or emailing blogs@nature.com.
Editors and staff at Nature Publishing Group update the index manually but we also encourage community participation, especially if you're an active science blogger yourself.
If you know of any good science blogs not yet listed here please suggest them. If you own a blog you should claim it.
How do I get onto the blogroll or suggest a blog for inclusion?
Simply visit the suggest a blog page and follow the instructions there. You'll need the address of the blog that you want to suggest.
What are the criteria for a blog to be accepted?
After you suggest a blog we put it on a list that is made available to blog authors who have claimed a blog on Nature Blogs. Those authors then decide using a voting system if a blog should be accepted or not.
As a general rule of thumb the science blogs we're interested in listing are:
- composed mostly of original material - no press releases or lists of links
- primarily concerned with scientific research
- updated (on average) at least once a fortnight
How do I claim a blog?
If you are a blog author and your blog is listed on Nature Blogs (if not suggest it first) then you should log in to the site using the box on the top right of the page.
After that use the search button or tag list to find the blog you want to
claim.
Once you've found your blog click the 'Claim this blog' button. You'll be brought to a page that contains a code unique to you that Nature Blogs can use to confirm that you are able to edit the blog you are claiming.
There are two ways of claiming your blog - the first is by tag. To do this simply tag (or label, if you use Blogger) one of your most recent posts with the code.
It might look a bit odd but don't worry, you can remove the tag as soon as your claim has been verified. To do that press the 'verify' button at the bottom of the claim page. The second way to claim your blog is to edit its template and put your unique code in a tag in the head section of your blog's front page. This method is more involved - detailed instructions are a bit beyond these help pages - but it does have the advantage of potentially saving you work later on as any other blog portals that use 'micro ID' claims can identify you as the blog owner straight away.
Why should you claim your blog?
- Allows you to moderate the blogs index
- Lets NPG editors know who to contact
- Ties in with your Nature profile
How does community moderation work?
Once you have claimed a blog successfully you'll be able to vote to grant or deny suggested blogs entry into the index. While logged in click on the 'For Bloggers' tab.
If there are any blogs waiting for a decision they will be listed in the
'Blogs pending' section. Each pending blog looks like this:
Click on the blog title to visit the blog and assess its quality. Would you, as a researcher, find the content useful?
We suggest that blogs in the index should be:
- composed mostly of original material - no press releases or lists of links
- primarily concerned with scientific research
- updated (on average) at least once a fortnight
If the blog looks good select the 'Yes' option. If you don't think it's suitable select 'No'. Feel free to explain your reasoning to other moderators in the textbox, then click the submit button.
Individual votes are not final: two or three people (depending on the number of dissenting votes) need to agree to grant or deny a blog access.
API access
You can access the data on Nature Blogs programmatically for use in your own applications or mashups. We currently provide a REST based API that returns results in JSON format.
There are currently no formal usage restrictions but please be sensible with your calls - don't make more than one call to the API per second and make use of caching where possible. If you include an 'email' variable in your calls we'll get in touch before any scheduled downtime or interface changes. It is highly recommended that you do this for any major public facing applications or your code could break without warning.
If you have any specific requests or queries (or want to share something you've created) feel free to email blogs@nature.com.
API examples - getting posts
Latest posts in JSON format http://blogs.nature.com/posts.json
10 latest posts http://blogs.nature.com/posts.json?per_page=10
Add the email variable to any call http://blogs.nature.com/posts.json?per_page=10&email=you@you.com
Next 10 http://blogs.nature.com/posts.json?per_page=10&page=2
Linking to paper with DOI 10.1136/bmj.a1938 http://blogs.nature.com/posts.json?doi=10.1136/bmj.a1938
Linking to paper with PubMed ID 18948346 http://blogs.nature.com/posts.json?pmid=18948346
API examples - getting blogs
List of all blogs in CSV format http://blogs.nature.com/blogs/export
Latest blogs in JSON format http://blogs.nature.com/blogs.json
Latest chemistry blogs http://blogs.nature.com/blogs.json?tag=chemistry
Chemistry blogs 10..20 http://blogs.nature.com/blogs.json?tag=chemistry&per_page=10&page=2
Most popular Bioinformatics blogs http://blogs.nature.com/blogs.json?tag=bioinformatics&c=popularity
Blogs with 'genetics' somewhere in the title or description http://blogs.nature.com/blogs.json?q=genetics
Details of blog with id 101 (get the id from calls like the above) http://blogs.nature.com/blogs/101.json
API examples - getting stories
Latest stories in JSON format http://blogs.nature.com/stories.json
API examples - getting papers
Latest blogged papers http://blogs.nature.com/papers.json
Latest blogged papers from Nature Chemistry (DOIs start with 10.1038/nchem) http://blogs.nature.com/papers.json?doi=10.1038%2Fnchem
Most popular Nature Chemistry papers http://blogs.nature.com/papers.json?doi=10.1038%2Fnchem&c=popularity
Blogged paper with a particular DOI http://blogs.nature.com/papers?doi=10.1038/nchembio0908-523
Latest blogged papers from blogs tagged 'bioinformatics' http://blogs.nature.com/papers?tag=bioinformatics
Papers blogged about added after October '09 http://blogs.nature.com/papers?added_after=2008-10-01
Papers blogged about before October '09 http://blogs.nature.com/papers?added_before=2008-10-01
