This weekly Nautilus column highlights some of the online discussion at Nature Network in the preceding week that is of relevance to scientists as authors.
The Nature Network week column is archived here.
What makes an “unconference” distinct from a “conference”, or indeed an unconference for scientists different from an unconfernce for “geeks”, and how do your organize one? These questions are addressed by Ian Mulvany at the researchers and web 2.0 forum. He writes: “One of the goals of an unconference is perhaps to tease apart the complete and finished story, to look at the spaces in between and to be open to blue sky thinking. This may lead to a slight mismatch in expectation about the kind of conversations that the organizers might hope to happen at an unconference, compared to the mode of communication that a scientific group brings with them to the meeting.” There are some very thoughtful and helpful responses from scientists who have organized these unusual gatherings, which provide useful tips to anyone considering taking the plunge. A recent unconference was featured on Nautilus earlier this week, complete with excellent examples of scientific creativity and lateral thinking.
In last week’s Network round-up I wrote about Eva Amsen’s and Katherine Haxton’s separate talks about the relationship between science and blogging. This week, Eva has written up her thoughts, partly resulting from the previous week’s discussions, in a blog post. After considering various lines of logic, she decides “I’ll talk about older uses of science online vs newer ones, and try to figure out what makes a blog scarier than a lab website. And I’ll get back to why I use Delicious, and what makes it (and Flickr) work, and how that could relate to getting scientists to adopt web 2.0 tools . Sounds good?” Yes, sounds fine to me. I wish I could be there.
Laura Goodall reports that the “newest branch of the British Science Association – SCIENCE LONDON – is ”https://network.nature.com/groups/sciencewriters/forum/topics/4144">hosting its very first event, to be held during the National Science and Engineering Week. (Yes, that’s next week! Looks like we’ve just about managed to organise it in the nick of time!)." The event is to discuss popular science books and will be in London on Wednesday 11 March. More details at the link.
What makes good science into a good science story? So asks Matthew Dalzell, who is preparing a presentation for practicing scientists on what he does as a science writer, “including how an interesting piece of research attracts media attention. While I have some of my own ideas and have heard many presentations on this topic at conferences, it’s always good to hear more opinions. So, what are the key elements of a ‘good’ piece of scientific research that can give it legs as a science story?” Matthew would welcome your views at this Nature Network forum post.
Further science-related blog reading and online discussion can be enjoyed at:
Nature.com’s science blogs index and tracker
Nature Network’s many blogs and forums