Following on from our first article on Nature Network’s newest bloggers, we now round up a few more.
Richard started blogging on Nature Network in mid-August. He’s had a slightly unusual career path, having given up a longstanding job in IT consulting and project management to take a Master’s Degree in computational biology, followed by a PhD. In his first post, he neatly sets out the agenda for his blog:
Being a career changer, and therefore a mature postgraduate student, I have 4 primary areas that I would like to comment on: 1) my experiences on returning to study following a lengthy break, 2) whether a PhD can be project managed by the research student, 3) discussions on the high-level area of my research, and 4) careers advice provided to me throughout my PhD on how a mature career changer may gain a foothold into The Academy.
True to his word, Richard has since covered the early days of his PhD and written on topics such as bringing science to primary school children, the knowledge areas applicable to a PhD, the art of project management
Mark Schrope and Nicole Edmison
One of the stories that 2010 will always be remembered for is the tragic explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform and the subsequent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Two bloggers on Nature Network have chronicled the aftermath of the disaster, from different perspectives.
Mark Schrope began covering the spill on Nature Network in August, after accepting an assignment from Nature to report on the scientific operation. The assignment quickly turned into a book deal for Mark, and he’s been sharing insights from his research in his Blowout Experiment blog.
Extensive work is underway to answer the numerous open questions about how severe the damages from the spill will be in the various ecosystems affected, and to assess the extent of the spill’s other repercussions, both political and social. Such efforts will be critical for properly informing the offshore drilling debate, guiding and improving responses to future spills, and perhaps even preventing some spills.
Wildlife and conservation biologist Nicole Edmison was also on the scene. Her Recovery Room blog focuses on the repercussions for the ecosystems and wildlife affected by the spill. Having previous experience of helping oiled birds from a previous spill, she was surprised to find differences in the clean-up operation:
One of the main differences, in terms of how the response is being run, is that wildlife experts are not being utilized to the extent that they have been in other spills. This travesty is serving to exacerbate two sizable problems. 1) The natural dimension: the ecosystem is suffering from not just the toxin-laden waters but also from the lack of expertise present in the overall response effort. Under qualified workers are causing some problems in the midst of their well intentioned toiling. 2) The human dimension: this is a heartbreaking situation and people feel even more helpless when they know that an army of ready and highly trained workers are still, on day 65 of this disaster, waiting in the wings to be called upon.
David DeRoure and Fourth Paradigm
In October, a new group blog was launched focusing on data-intense science. The Fourth Paradigm builds on a set of essays published last year and explores topics such as semantics and e-science, visualisation, and application across a wide swath of disciplines. The blog is still in its introductory phase, with short interviews with key players, but is one to watch.
One of the contributors, David DeRoure, has started his own blog, called eScience. Here he introduces himself:
…sometimes it’s hard to answer “What do you do?” when you don’t exactly fit into standard disciplinary pigeonholes or pull down menus. I think my occupation is actually something like “e-Researcher in Residence” – I help researchers in and across any disciplines use digital technology and computational thinking to do new research. Does that mean I’m a computer scientist or an e-social scientist or a digital humanist…? Whatever, I’m a traveller in the digital research ecosystem, and this blog is about my adventures.
As well as a series of posts on the evolution of e-research, David has also commented on digital humanities, replacing the paper as the main form of scholarly communication and cloud computing.